Saturday June 7, 1941 the Washington High School band of Sioux Falls, South Dakota played Anchors Away to the assembled crowd, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox said "The purpose for which you are built is not war, but the prevention of war-if God wills". Mrs. Harlan J. Bushfield, the wife of the Governor of South Dakota, broke a bottle of champaign on the bows and the new battleship South Dakota BB-57 slipped down the ways at New York Shipbuilding.

The launch was delayed for an hour waiting for the tide, but after that the launch went off without a hitch. This must have been to the great relief of the shipyard workers as South Dakota had suffered no less than three fires while she was on the ways, all of them were minor in nature and not at all uncommon during construction on this scale. As soon as the battleship was afloat and before the crowd even moved the keel of the cruiser Santa Fe CL-60 was moved on to the slipway which South Dakota had just vacated.

The war in the Pacific would start before the new battleship was placed in commission, but she and her crew served in both the Atlantic and the Pacific earning 13 Battle Stars for their wartime service. In 1947 USS South Dakota was placed in reserve where she remained until she was sold in 1962 for scrap.