USS Missouri (BB-63) ("Mighty Mo" or "Big Mo") is a U.S. Navy battleship, and was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the U.S. state of Missouri. Missouri is the final battleship to be built by the United States, and among the Iowa-class battleships is notable for being the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of World War II. Missouri was ordered on 12 June 1940 and her keel was laid at the New York Navy Yard in the New York City borough of Brooklyn on 6 January 1941.
During her career Missouri saw action in World War II during the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Battle of Okinawa, and shelled the Japanese home islands of Hokkaidō and Honshū. After World War II she returned to the United States before being called up and dispatched to fight in the Korean War. Upon her return to the United States she was decommissioned into the United States Navy reserve fleets, better known as the "Mothball Fleet" in 1955. She was reactivated and modernized in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan, and participated in the 1991 Gulf War.
Missouri was decommissioned a final time on 31 March 1992, having received a total of eleven battle stars for service in World War II, Korea, and the Persian Gulf. She was maintained on the Naval Vessel Register until January 1995, when her name was struck. In 1998 she was donated to the Missouri Memorial Association, and is presently a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
| Displacement: | 45,000 tons (45,700 t) |
| Length: | 887.2 ft (270 m) |
| Beam: | 108.2 ft (33 m) |
| Draft: | 28.9 ft (8.8 m) |
| Speed: | 33 knots (61 km/h) |
| Complement: | 1,851 officers and men |
| Sensors and processing systems: | AN/SPS-49 Air Search Radar AN/SPS-67 Surface Search Radar AN/SPQ-9 Surface Search / Gun Fire Control Radar |
| Electronic warfare and decoys: | AN/SLQ-32 AN/SLQ-25 Nixie Decoy System 8 × Mark 36 SRBOC Super Rapid Bloom Rocket Launchers |
| Armament: | 9 x 16 in (406 mm) 50 cal. Mark 7 guns 20 × 5 in (127 mm) 38 cal. Mark 12 guns 80 x 40 mm 56 cal. anti-aircraft guns 49 x 20 mm 70 cal. anti-aircraft guns |
| Armor: | Belt: 12.1 in (307 mm) Bulkheads: 11.3 in (287 mm) Barbettes: 11.6 to 17.3 in (295 to 439 mm) Turrets: 19.7 in (500 mm) Decks: 7.5 in (190 mm) |
World War II (1944–1945)
[edit] Shakedown and Service with Task Force 58, Admiral Mitscher
After trials off New York and shakedown and battle practice in Chesapeake Bay, Missouri departed Norfolk 11 November 1944, transited the Panama Canal 18 November and steamed to San Francisco for final fitting out as fleet flagship. She stood out of San Francisco Bay 14 December and arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii 24 December 1944. She departed Hawaii on 2 January 1945 and arrived in Ulithi, West Caroline Islands, 13 January 1945. There she was temporary headquarters ship for Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher. The battleship put to sea 27 January to serve in the screen of the Lexington carrier task group of Mitscher's TF 58, and on 16 February her aircraft carriers launched the first air strikes against Japan since the famed Doolittle raid, which had been launched from the carrier USS Hornet in April 1942.[4]
Missouri then steamed with the carriers to Iwo Jima where her main guns provided direct and continuous support to the invasion landings begun 19 February. After TF 58 returned to Ulithi 5 March, Missouri was assigned to the Yorktown carrier task group. On 14 March Missouri departed Ulithi in the screen of the fast carriers and steamed to the Japanese mainland. During strikes against targets along the coast of the Inland Sea of Japan beginning 18 March, Missouri shot down four Japanese aircraft.[4]
Raids against airfields and naval bases near the Inland Sea and southwestern Honshū continued. During a Japanese attack, two bombs penetrated the hangar deck and decks aft of the carrier Franklin, leaving her dead in the water within 50 miles (90 km) of the Japanese mainland. The cruiser USS Pittsburgh took Franklin in tow until she gained speed to 14 knots (26 km/h). Missouri’s carrier task group provided cover for Franklin’s retirement toward Ulithi until 22 March, then set course for pre-invasion strikes and bombardment of Okinawa.[4]
Missouri joined the fast battleships of TF 58 in bombarding the southeast coast of Okinawa 24 March 1945, an action intended to draw enemy strength from the west coast beaches that would be the actual site of invasion landings. Missouri rejoined the screen of the carriers as Marine and Army units stormed the shores of Okinawa on the morning of 1 April. Planes from the carriers shattered a special Japanese attacking force led by battleship Yamato 7 April. Yamato, the world's largest battleship, was sunk, as were a cruiser and a destroyer. Three other enemy destroyers were heavily damaged and scuttled. Four remaining destroyers, sole survivors of the attacking fleet, were damaged and retired to Sasebo.[4]
On 11 April Missouri opened fire on a low-flying kamikaze plane which penetrated the curtain of her shells and crashed on the starboard side just below her main deck level. The starboard wing of the plane was thrown far forward, starting a gasoline fire at 5 inch (127 mm) Gun Mount No. 3; yet the battleship suffered only superficial damage, and the fire was brought quickly under control.[4] The remains of the pilot's body was recovered on board the ship just aft of one of the 40 mm gun tubs. Captain William M. Callaghan decided that the young Japanese pilot had done his job, to the best of his ability and with honor and that he deserved a military funeral. Not all of the crew agreed with that decision —the pilot was still their enemy and had tried to kill them —but the Captain's orders were respected and the following day the pilot was buried at sea with military honors.[7]
About 23:05 on 17 April 1945, Missouri detected an enemy submarine 12 miles (22 km) from her formation. Her report set off a hunter-killer operation by the light carrier Bataan and four destroyers, which sank Japanese submarine I-56.[4]
Missouri was detached from the carrier task force off Okinawa 5 May and sailed for Ulithi. During the Okinawa campaign she had shot down five enemy planes, assisted in the destruction of six others, and scored one probable kill. She helped repel 12 daylight attacks of enemy raiders and fought off four night attacks on her carrier task group. Her shore bombardment destroyed several gun emplacements and many other military, governmental, and industrial structures.[4]
[edit] Service with the 3rd Fleet, Admiral Halsey
Missouri arrived Ulithi 9 May 1945 and thence proceeded to Apra Harbor, Guam, 18 May. That afternoon Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander 3d Fleet, broke his flag in Missouri.[8] She passed out of the harbor on 21 May, and by 27 May was again conducting shore bombardment against Japanese positions on Okinawa. Missouri now led the 3rd Fleet in strikes on airfields and installations on Kyūshū on 2 June and 3 June. She rode out a fierce storm on 5 June and 6 June that wrenched the bow off the cruiser Pittsburgh. Some topside fittings were smashed, but Missouri suffered no major damage. Her fleet again struck Kyūshū on 8 June, then hit hard in a coordinated air-surface bombardment before retiring towards Leyte. She arrived at San Pedro, Leyte, on 13 June 1945, after almost three months of continuous operations in support of the Okinawa campaign.[4]
Here she prepared to lead the 3rd Fleet in strikes at the heart of Japan from within its home waters. The mighty fleet set a northerly course on 8 July to approach the Japanese mainland. Raids took Tokyo by surprise on 10 July, followed by more devastation at the juncture of Honshū and Hokkaidō on 13 July and 14 July. For the first time a naval gunfire force wrought destruction on a major installation within the home islands when Missouri closed the shore to join in a bombardment on 15 July that rained destruction on the Nihon Steel Co. and the Wanishi Ironworks at Muroran, Hokkaido.[4]
During the nights of 17 July and 18 July Missouri bombarded industrial targets in Honshū. Inland Sea aerial strikes continued through 25 July 1945, and Missouri guarded the carriers as they struck hard blows at the Japanese capital. As July ended the Japanese no longer had any home waters. Missouri had led her fleet to gain control of the air and sea approaches to the very shores of Japan.[4]
[edit] Signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender
Strikes on Hokkaidō and northern Honshū resumed on 9 August 1945, the day the second atomic bomb was dropped. On 10 August 1945, at 20:54, Missouri's men were electrified by the unofficial news that Japan was ready to surrender, provided that the Emperor's prerogatives as a sovereign ruler were not compromised. Not until 07:45, 15 August, was word received that President Harry S. Truman had announced Japan's acceptance of unconditional surrender.[4]
Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser of the Royal Navy, the Commander of the British Pacific Fleet, boarded Missouri on 16 August and conferred the order Knight of the British Empire upon Admiral Halsey. Missouri transferred a landing party of 200 officers and men to the battleship Iowa for temporary duty with the initial occupation force for Tokyo on 21 August. Missouri herself entered Tokyo Bay early on 29 August to prepare for the signing by Japan of the official instrument of surrender.[4]
High-ranking military officials of all the Allied Powers were received on board on 2 September, including (but not limited to) Free French General Leclerc, Republic of China General Hsu Yung-Ch'ang, Soviet Lieutenant-General Kuzma Nikolaevich Derevyanko, Australian General Sir Thomas Blamey, Canadian Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave, Netherlands Vice Admiral Conrad Emil Lambert Helfrich, and New Zealand Air Vice Marshal Leonard M. Isitt. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz boarded shortly after 08:00, and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allies, came on board at 08:43. The Japanese representatives, headed by Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, arrived at 08:56. At 09:02 General MacArthur stepped before a battery of microphones and the 23 minute surrender ceremony was broadcast to the waiting world.[4]
During the surrender ceremony the deck of the Missouri was decorated with just two American flags. One had flown on the mast of Commodore Perry's ship when he had sailed into that same bay nearly a century earlier to urge the opening of Japan's ports to foreign trade. The other U.S. flag came off the battleship while anchored in Tokyo Bay (it had not flown over the White House or the Capitol Building on 7 December 1941; it was "...just a plain ordinary GI flag"). [9]
By 09:30 the Japanese emissaries had departed. In the afternoon of 5 September Admiral Halsey transferred his flag to the battleship South Dakota, and early the next day Missouri departed Tokyo Bay. As part of the ongoing Operation Magic Carpet she received homeward bound passengers at Guam, then sailed unescorted for Hawaii. She arrived at Pearl Harbor on 20 September and flew Admiral Nimitz's flag on the afternoon of 28 September for a reception.[4]
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