Still in the midst of the depression, Almirante Latorre was deactivated at Talcahuano in 1933 to lessen government expenditures, and only a caretaker crew was assigned to tend to the mothballed ship into the mid-1930s.
In a 1937 refit in the Talcahuano dockyard, the aircraft catapult was taken off and anti-aircraft weaponry was added.
Almirante Latorre was never fully modernized, however, and by the Second World War its main battery was comparatively short-ranged and its armor protection, designed before the "all or nothing" principle was put into practice, was wholly inadequate.
Nevertheless, in 1939, US intelligence showed that the Soviet Union attempted to buy the ship, and soon after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Government approached the Chilean naval attaché and the vice admiral heading Chile's naval commission to the United States with the aim of purchasing Almirante Latorre and a few destroyers to bolster the United States Navy.
Both of these offers were declined, and Almirante Latorre was used for neutrality patrols during the Second World War.

After a 1951 accident in Almirante Latorre's engine room killed three crewmen, the ship was kept moored in Talcahuano as a storage hulk for fuel oil.
It was decommissioned in October 1958, and was sold to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in February 1959 for $881,110 to be broken up for scrap.
On 29 May 1959, to the salutes of the assembled Chilean fleet, the old dreadnought was taken under tow by the tug Cambrian Salvos, and reached Yokohama, Japan, at the end of August, though the scrapping process did not begin immediately on arrival.
Still in the midst of the depression, Almirante Latorre was deactivated at Talcahuano in 1933 to lessen government expenditures, and only a caretaker crew was assigned to tend to the mothballed ship into the mid-1930s. In a 1937 refit in the Talcahuano dockyard, the aircraft catapult was taken off and anti-aircraft weaponry was added. Almirante Latorre was never fully modernized, however, and by the Second World War its main battery was comparatively short-ranged and its armor protection, designed before the "all or nothing" principle was put into practice, was wholly inadequate. Nevertheless, in 1939, US intelligence showed that the Soviet Union attempted to buy the ship, and soon after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Government approached the Chilean naval attaché and the vice admiral heading Chile's naval commission to the United States with the aim of purchasing Almirante Latorre and a few destroyers to bolster the United States Navy. Both of these offers were declined, and Almirante Latorre was used for neutrality patrols during the Second World War.
After a 1951 accident in Almirante Latorre's engine room killed three crewmen, the ship was kept moored in Talcahuano as a storage hulk for fuel oil. It was decommissioned in October 1958, and was sold to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in February 1959 for $881,110 to be broken up for scrap. On 29 May 1959, to the salutes of the assembled Chilean fleet, the old dreadnought was taken under tow by the tug Cambrian Salvos, and reached Yokohama, Japan, at the end of August, though the scrapping process did not begin immediately on arrival.
Chilean battleship Almirante Latorre