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HISTORY
 USS
Missouri (BB-63) ("Mighty Mo" or "Big Mo") is a United States Navy
Iowa-class battleship, and was the third ship of the U.S. Navy to be
named in honor of the US state of Missouri. Missouri was the last
battleship built by the United States, and was the site of the
surrender of the Empire of Japan which ended World War II.
Missouri was ordered in 1940 and commissioned in June 1944. In the
Pacific Theater of World War II she fought in the battles of Iwo
Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands, and she
fought in the Korean War
from 1950 to 1953. She was decommissioned in 1955 into the United
States Navy reserve fleets (the "Mothball Fleet"), but reactivated
and modernized in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan, and
provided fire support during
Operation Desert Storm in January/February 1991.
Missouri received a total of 11 battle stars for service in World
War II, Korea, and the Persian Gulf, and was finally decommissioned
on 31 March 1992, but remained on the Naval Vessel Register until
her name was struck in
January 1995. In 1998, she was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial
Association and became a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Construction
Main articles: Iowa class battleship and Armament of the Iowa class
battleship
Missouri was one of the Iowa-class "fast battleship" designs planned
in 1938 by the Preliminary Design Branch at the Bureau of
Construction and Repair. She was laid down at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
on 6 January 1941, launched
on 29 January 1944 and commissioned on 11 June with Captain William
Callaghan in command. The ship was the third of the Iowa class, but
the fourth and final Iowa-class ship commissioned by the U.S. Navy.
The ship was
christened at her launching by Mary Margaret Truman, daughter of
Harry S. Truman, then a United States Senator from Missouri.
Missouri's main battery consisted of nine 16 in (406 mm)/50 cal Mark
7 guns, which could fire 2,700 lb (1,200 kg) armor-piercing shells
some 20 mi (32.2 km). Her secondary battery consisted of twenty 5 in
(127 mm)/38 cal guns in
twin turrets, with a range of about 10 mi (16 km). With the advent
of air power and the need to gain and maintain air superiority came
a need to protect the growing fleet of allied aircraft carriers; to
this end, Missouri was fitted with
an array of Oerlikon 20 mm and Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns to
defend allied carriers from enemy airstrikes. When reactivated in
1984 Missouri had her 20 mm and 40 mm AA guns removed, and was
outfitted with Phalanx CIWS
mounts for protection against enemy missiles and aircraft, and
Armored Box Launchers and Quad Cell Launchers designed to fire
Tomahawk missiles and Harpoon missiles, respectively.
Missouri was the last U.S. battleship to be completed. Wisconsin,
the highest-numbered U.S. battleship built, was completed before
Missouri; BB-65 to BB-71 were ordered but cancelled.
World War II (1944–1945)
Shakedown and service with Task Force 58, Admiral Mitscher
After trials off New York and shakedown and battle practice in the
Chesapeake Bay, Missouri departed Norfolk, Virginia on 11 November
1944, transited the Panama Canal on 18 November and steamed to San
Francisco for final
fitting out as fleet flagship. She stood out of San Francisco Bay on
14 December and arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 24 December 1944.
She departed Hawaii on 2 January 1945 and arrived in Ulithi, West
Caroline Islands on 13
January. There she was temporary headquarters ship for Vice Admiral
Marc A. Mitscher. The battleship put to sea on 27 January to serve
in the screen of the Lexington carrier task group of Mitscher's TF
58, and on 16 February the
task force's aircraft carriers launched the first air strikes
against Japan since the famed Doolittle raid, which had been
launched from the carrier Hornet in April 1942.
Missouri then steamed with the carriers to Iwo Jima where her main
guns provided direct and continuous support to the invasion landings
begun on 19 February. After TF 58 returned to Ulithi on 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 on
18 March, Missouri shot down four Japanese aircraft.
Raids against airfields and naval bases near the Inland Sea and
southwestern Honshū continued. When the carrier Franklin incurred
battle damage, the Missouri's carrier task group provided cover for
the Franklin's retirement toward
Ulithi until 22 March, then set course for pre-invasion strikes and
bombardment of Okinawa.
Missouri joined the fast battleships of TF 58 in bombarding the
southeast coast of Okinawa on 24 March, 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. An
attack by Japanese forces was repulsed successfully.
On 11 April, a low-flying kamikaze, although fired on, crashed on
Missouri's starboard side, just below her main deck level. The
starboard wing of the plane was thrown far forward, starting a
gasoline fire at 5 in (127 mm) Gun Mount
No. 3. The battleship suffered only superficial damage, and the fire
was brought quickly under control. The remains of the pilot were
recovered on board the ship just aft of one of the 40 mm gun tubs.
Captain Callaghan decided that
the young Japanese pilot had done his job to the best of his
ability, and with honor, so he should be given a military funeral.
The following day he was buried at sea with military honors. The
dent in the side of the ship remains to this
day.
About 2305 on 17 April, Missouri detected an enemy submarine 12 mi
(19 km) from her formation. Her report set off a hunter-killer
operation by the light carrier Bataan and four destroyers, which
sank the Japanese submarine I-56.
Missouri was detached from the carrier task force off Okinawa on 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.
Service with the Third Fleet, Admiral Halsey
Missouri arrived at Ulithi on 9 May and then proceeded to Apra
Harbor, Guam, arriving on 18 May. That afternoon Admiral William F.
Halsey, Jr., Commander Third Fleet, brought his command into the
Missouri. 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
2–3 June. She rode out
a fierce storm on 5 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, after almost three months of
continuous operations in support of the Okinawa campaign.
Here she rejoined the powerful 3rd Fleet in strikes at the heart of
Japan from within its home waters. The fleet set a northerly course
on 8 July to approach the Japanese main island, Honshū. Raids took
Tokyo by surprise on 10
July, followed by more devastation at the juncture of Honshū and
Hokkaidō, the second-largest Japanese island, on 13–14 July. For the
first time, naval gunfire destroyed a major installation within the
home islands when Missouri
joined in a shore bombardment on 15 July that severely damaged the
Nihon Steel Co. and the Wanishi Ironworks at Muroran, Hokkaido.
During the nights of 17 and 18 July, Missouri bombarded industrial
targets in Honshū. Inland Sea aerial strikes continued through 25
July, and Missouri guarded the carriers as they attacked the
Japanese capital. As July ended, the
Japanese no longer had any home waters.
Signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender
Main article: Japanese Instrument of Surrender
The Missouri (left) transfers personnel to the Iowa in advance of
the surrender ceremony planned for 2 September.
Allied sailors and officers watch General of the Army Douglas
MacArthur sign documents during the surrender ceremony aboard
Missouri on 2 September 1945. The unconditional surrender of the
Japanese to the Allies officially
ended the Second World War.
Strikes on Hokkaidō and northern Honshū resumed on 9 August, the day
the second atomic bomb was dropped.
After the Japanese agreed to surrender, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser of
the Royal Navy, the Commander of the British Pacific Fleet, boarded
Missouri on 16 August and conferred the honour of 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.
High-ranking military officials of all the Allied Powers were
received on board on 2 September, including Chinese General Hsu
Yung-Ch'ang, British Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir Bruce Fraser, Soviet
Lieutenant-General Kuzma Nikolaevich
Derevyanko, Australian General Sir Thomas Blamey, Canadian Colonel
Lawrence Moore Cosgrave, French Général d'Armée Philippe Leclerc de
Hautecloque, Dutch Vice Admiral Conrad Emil Lambert Helfrich, and
New Zealand Air
Vice Marshal Leonard M. Isitt.
Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz boarded shortly after 0800, and General
of the Army Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allies,
came on board at 0843. The Japanese representatives, headed by
Foreign Minister
Mamoru Shigemitsu, arrived at 0856. At 0902, General MacArthur
stepped before a battery of microphones and opened the 23-minute
surrender ceremony to the waiting world by stating, "It is my
earnest hope—indeed the hope of
all mankind—that from this solemn occasion a better world shall
emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past, a world founded
upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of
man and the fulfillment of his most
cherished wish for freedom, tolerance, and justice."
During the surrender ceremony, the deck of Missouri was decorated
with a 31-star American flag that had been taken ashore by Commodore
Matthew Perry in 1853 after his squadron of "Black Ships" sailed
into Tokyo Bay to force
the opening of Japan's ports to foreign trade. This flag was
actually displayed with the reverse side showing, i.e., stars in the
upper right corner: the historic flag was so fragile that the
conservator at the Naval Academy Museum had
sewn a protective linen backing to one side to help secure the
fabric from deteriorating, leaving its "wrong side" visible. The
flag was displayed in a wood-framed case secured to the bulkhead
overlooking the surrender ceremony.
Another U.S. flag was raised and flown during the occasion, a flag
that some sources have indicated was in fact that flag which had
flown over the U.S. Capitol on 7 December 1941. This is not true; it
was a flag taken from the
ship's stock, according to Missouri's Commanding Officer, Captain
Stuart "Sunshine" Murray, and it was "...just a plain ordinary
GI-issue flag".
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.
Post-war (1946–1950)
The next day, Missouri departed Pearl Harbor bound for the eastern
seaboard of the United States. She reached New York City on 23
October and hoisted the flag of Atlantic Fleet commander Admiral
Jonas Ingram. Four days
later, Missouri boomed out a 21-gun salute as President Truman
boarded for Navy Day ceremonies.
After an overhaul in the New York Naval Shipyard and a training
cruise to Cuba, Missouri returned to New York. During the afternoon
of 21 March 1946, she received the remains of the Turkish Ambassador
to the United States,
Münir Ertegün. She departed on 22 March for Gibraltar, and on 5
April anchored in the Bosphorus off Istanbul. She rendered full
honors, including the firing of 19-gun salutes during the transfer
of the remains of the late ambassador
and again during the funeral ashore.
Missouri departed Istanbul on 9 April and entered Phaleron Bay,
Piraeus, Greece, the following day for an overwhelming welcome by
Greek government officials and anti-communist citizens. Greece had
become the scene of a civil
war between the communist World War II resistance movement and the
returning Greek government-in-exile. The United States saw this as
an important test case for its new doctrine of containment of the
Soviet Union. The Soviets
were also pushing for concessions in the Dodecanese to be included
in the peace treaty with Italy and for access through the
Dardanelles strait between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The
voyage of Missouri to the eastern
Mediterranean symbolized America's strategic commitment to the
region. News media proclaimed her a symbol of U.S. interest in
preserving both nations' independence.
Missouri departed Piraeus on 26 April, touching at Algiers and
Tangiers before arriving at Norfolk on 9 May. She departed for
Culebra Island on 12 May to join Admiral Mitscher's 8th Fleet in the
Navy's first large-scale postwar
Atlantic training maneuvers. The battleship returned to New York
City on 27 May, and spent the next year steaming Atlantic coastal
waters north to the Davis Strait and south to the Caribbean on
various Atlantic command training
exercises. On 13 December, during a target practice exercise in the
North Atlantic, a star shell accidentally struck the battleship, but
without causing injuries.
Missouri was accidentally grounded early on the morning of 17
January 1950.
Missouri arrived at Rio de Janeiro on 30 August 1947 for the
Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Hemisphere Peace
and Security. President Truman boarded on 2 September to celebrate
the signing of the Rio Treaty,
which broadened the Monroe Doctrine by stipulating that an attack on
any one of the signatory American states would be considered an
attack on all.
The Truman family boarded Missouri on 7 September 1947 to return to
the United States and debarked at Norfolk on 19 September. Her
overhaul in New York—which lasted from 23 September to 10 March
1948—was followed by
refresher training at Guantanamo Bay. The summer of 1948 was devoted
to midshipman and reserve training cruises. Also in 1948, the Big Mo
became the first battleship to host a helicopter detachment,
operating two Sikorsky
HO3S-1 machines for utility and rescue work. The battleship departed
Norfolk on 1 November 1948 for a second three-week Arctic
cold-weather training cruise to the Davis Strait. During the next
two years, Missouri participated in
Atlantic command exercises from the New England coast to the
Caribbean, alternated with two midshipman summer training cruises.
She was overhauled at Norfolk Naval Shipyard from 23 September 1949
to 17 January 1950.
Throughout the latter half of the 1940s, the various service
branches of the United States had been downsizing their inventories
from their World War II levels. In the Navy, this resulted in
several vessels of various types being
decommissioned and either sold for scrap or placed in one of the
various United States Navy reserve fleets scattered along the East
and West Coast of the United States. As part of this drawdown, three
of the Iowa-class
battleships had been de-activated and decommissioned; however,
President Truman refused to allow Missouri to be decommissioned.
Against the advice of Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, Secretary
of the Navy John L.
Sullivan, and Chief of Naval Operations Louis E. Denfeld, Truman
ordered Missouri to be maintained with the active fleet partly
because of his fondness for the battleship and partly because the
battleship had been christened by his
daughter Margaret Truman.
Then the only U.S. battleship in commission, Missouri was proceeding
seaward on a training mission from Hampton Roads early on 17 January
1950 when she ran aground 1.6 mi (2.6 km) from Thimble Shoal Light,
near Old Point
Comfort. She hit shoal water a distance of three ship-lengths from
the main channel. Lifted some 7 feet (2.1 m) above waterline, she
stuck hard and fast. With the aid of tugboats, pontoons, and an
incoming tide, she was refloated
on 1 February 1950 and repaired.
The Korean War (1950–1955)
In 1950, the Korean War broke out, prompting the United States to
intervene in the name of the United Nations. President Truman was
caught off guard when the invasion struck, but quickly ordered U.S.
forces stationed in Japan
into South Korea. Truman also sent U.S.-based troops, tanks, fighter
and bomber aircraft, and a strong naval force to Korea to support
the Republic of Korea. As part of the naval mobilization Missouri
was called up from the Atlantic
Fleet and dispatched from Norfolk on 19 August to support UN forces
on the Korean peninsula.
Missouri arrived just west of Kyūshū on 14 September, where she
became the flagship of Rear Admiral A. E. Smith. The first American
battleship to reach Korean waters, she bombarded Samchok on 15
September 1950 in an
attempt to divert troops and attention from the Incheon landings.
This was the first time since World War II that Missouri had fired
her guns in anger, and in company with the cruiser Helena and two
destroyers, she helped prepare
the way for the U.S. Eighth Army offensive.
Missouri arrived at Incheon on 19 September, and on 10 October
became flagship of Rear Admiral J. M. Higgins, commander, Cruiser
Division 5 (CruDiv 5). She arrived at Sasebo on 14 October, where
she became flagship of Vice
Admiral A. D. Struble, Commander, 7th Fleet. After screening the
aircraft carrier Valley Forge along the east coast of Korea, she
conducted bombardment missions from 12 to 26 October in the Chongjin
and Tanchon areas, and at
Wonsan where she again screened carriers eastward of Wonsan.
MacArthur's amphibious landings at Incheon had severed the North
Korean Army’s supply lines; as a result, North Korea’s army had
begun a lengthy retreat from South Korea into North Korea. This
retreat was closely monitored by
the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) out of fear that the UN
offensive against Korea would create a US-backed enemy on China’s
border, and out of concern that the UN offensive in Korea could
evolve into a UN war against China.
The latter of these two threats had already manifested itself during
the Korea War: U.S. F-86 Sabres on patrol in "MiG Alley" frequently
crossed into China while pursuing Communist MiGs operating out of
Chinese airbases.
Moreover, there was talk among the U.N. commanders—notably General
Douglas MacArthur—about a potential campaign against the People's
Republic of China. In an effort to dissuade UN forces from
completely overrunning North
Korea the People's Republic of China issued diplomatic warnings that
they would use force to protect the PRC, but these warnings were not
taken seriously for a number of reasons, among them the fact that
China lacked air cover
to conduct such an attack. This changed abruptly on 19 October 1950,
when the first of an eventual total of 380,000 People's Liberation
Army soldiers under the command of General Peng Dehuai crossed into
North Korea,
launching a full scale assault against advancing U.N. troops. The
PRC offensive caught the UN completely by surprise; UN forces
realized they would have to fall back, and quickly executed an
emergency retreat. UN assets were
shuffled in order to cover this retreat, and as part of the force
tasked with covering the UN retreat Missouri was moved into Hungnam
on 23 December to provide gunfire support about the Hungnam defense
perimeter until the last UN
troops, the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, were evacuated by way of the
sea on 24 December 1950.
Missouri fires her guns against enemy positions during the Korean
War. Notice the effect on the seawater under the guns.
Missouri conducted additional operations with carriers and shore
bombardments off the east coast of Korea until 19 March 1951. She
arrived at Yokosuka on 24 March, and 4 days later was relieved of
duty in the Far East. She
departed Yokosuka on 28 March, and upon arrival at Norfolk on 27
April became the flagship of Rear Admiral James L. Holloway, Jr.,
commander, Cruiser Force, Atlantic Fleet. During the summer of 1951,
she engaged in two
midshipman training cruises to northern Europe. Under the command of
Captain John Sylvester, Missouri entered Norfolk Naval Shipyard 18
October 1951 for an overhaul, which lasted until 30 January 1952.
Following winter and spring training out of Guantanamo Bay, Missouri
visited New York, then set course from Norfolk on 9 June 1952 for
another midshipman cruise. She returned to Norfolk on 4 August and
entered Norfolk Naval
Shipyard to prepare for a second tour in the Korean combat zone.
Missouri stood out of Hampton Roads on 11 September 1952 and arrived
at Yokosuka on 17 October. Vice Admiral Joseph J. Clark, commander
of the 7th Fleet, brought his command onboard on 19 October. Her
primary mission
was to provide seagoing artillery support by bombarding enemy
targets in the Chaho-Tanchon area, at Chongjin, in the
Tanchon-Sonjin area, and at Chaho, Wonsan, Hamhung, and Hungnam
during the period 25 October through 2
January 1953.
Missouri put in to Incheon on 5 January 1953 and sailed thence to
Sasebo, Japan. General Mark W. Clark, Commander in Chief, U.N.
Command, and Admiral Sir Guy Russell, the Royal Navy commander of
the British Far East
Station, visited the battleship on 23 January. In the following
weeks, Missouri resumed "Cobra" patrol along the east coast of Korea
to support troops ashore. Repeated bombardment of Wonsan, Tanehon,
Hungnam, and Kojo
destroyed main supply routes along the eastern seaboard of Korea.
The last bombardment mission by Missouri was against the Kojo area
on 25 March. On 6 March, her commanding officer–Captain Warner R.
Edsall–suffered a fatal heart attack while conning her through the
submarine net at
Sasebo. She was relieved as the 7th Fleet flagship on 6 April by her
older sister New Jersey.
Missouri departed Yokosuka on 7 April and arrived at Norfolk on 4
May to become flagship for Rear Admiral E. T. Woolridge, commander,
Battleships-Cruisers, Atlantic Fleet, on 14 May. She departed on 8
June on a midshipman
training cruise, returned to Norfolk on 4 August, and was overhauled
in Norfolk Naval Shipyard from 20 November 1953 to 2 April 1954. Now
the flagship of Rear Admiral R. E. Kirby, who had relieved Admiral
Woolridge, Missouri
departed Norfolk on 7 June as flagship of the midshipman training
cruise to Lisbon and Cherbourg. During this voyage Missouri was
joined by the other three battleships of her class, New Jersey,
Wisconsin, and Iowa, the only time
the four ships sailed together. She returned to Norfolk on 3 August
and departed on 23 August for inactivation on the West Coast. After
calls at Long Beach and San Francisco, Missouri arrived in Seattle
on 15 September. Three
days later she entered Puget Sound Naval Shipyard where she was
decommissioned on 26 February 1955, entering the Bremerton group,
Pacific Reserve Fleet.
Upon arrival in Bremerton, Missouri was moored at the last pier of
the reserve fleet berthing. This placed her very close to the
mainland, and she served as a popular tourist attraction, logging
about 180,000 visitors per year, who
came to view the "surrender deck" where a bronze plaque memorialized
the spot where Japan surrendered to the Allies, and the accompanying
historical display that included copies of the surrender documents
and photos. A small
cottage industry grew in the civilian community just outside the
gates, selling souvenirs and other memorabilia. Nearly thirty years
passed before Missouri next returned to active duty.
Reactivation (1984 to 1990)
Under the Reagan Administration’s program to build a 600-ship Navy,
led by Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman, Missouri was
reactivated and towed by the salvage ship Beaufort to the Long Beach
Naval Yard in the summer of
1984 to undergo modernization in advance of her scheduled
recommissioning. In preparation for the move, a skeleton crew of 20
spent three weeks working 12-to-16 hour days preparing the
battleship for her tow. During the
modernization Missouri had her obsolete armament removed: 20 mm and
40 mm anti-aircraft guns, and four of her ten 5-inch (130 mm) gun
mounts.
Missouri in dry dock during her modernization at the Long Beach
Naval Shipyard in 1985
Over the next several months, the ship was upgraded with the most
advanced weaponry available; among the new weapons systems installed
were four MK 141 quad cell launchers for 16 AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship
missiles, eight
Armored Box Launcher (ABL) mounts for 32 BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles,
and a quartet of Phalanx Close In Weapon System (CIWS) gatling guns
for defense against enemy anti-ship missiles and enemy aircraft.
Also included in
her modernization were upgrades to radar and fire control systems
for her guns and missiles, and improved electronic warfare
capabilities. During the modernization Missouri's 800 lb (360 kg)
bell, which had been removed from the
battleship and sent to Jefferson City, Missouri for sesquicentennial
celebrations in the state, was formally returned to the battleship
in advance of her recommissioning. Missouri was formally
recommissioned in San Francisco on 10
May 1986. "This is a day to celebrate the rebirth of American sea
power", Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger told an audience
of 10,000 at the recommissioning ceremony, instructing the crew to
"listen for the footsteps of
those who have gone before you. They speak to you of honor and the
importance of duty. They remind you of your own traditions. Also
present at the recommissioning ceremony was Missouri governor John
Ashcroft, U.S. Senator
Pete Wilson, Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, San Francisco mayor
Dianne Feinstein, and Margaret Truman.
Four months later Missouri departed from her new home port of Long
Beach for an around-the-world cruise, visiting Pearl Harbor Hawaii,
Sydney Australia, Hobart Tasmania, Perth Australia, Diego Garcia,
the Suez Canal, Istanbul
Turkey, Naples Italy, Rota Spain, Lisbon Portugal and the Panama
Canal. Missouri became the first American battleship to
circumnavigate the globe since Theodore Roosevelt's "Great White
Fleet" 80 years before – a fleet which
included the first battleship named USS Missouri (BB-11).
Crewmen man the rails as Missouri formally recommissions in San
Francisco, California
In 1987, Missouri was outfitted with 40 mm grenade launchers and 25
mm chain guns and sent to take part in Operation Earnest Will, the
escorting of reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.
These smaller-caliber weapons
were installed due to the threat of Iranian-manned, Swedish-made
Boghammar cigarette boats operating in the Persian Gulf at the time.
On 25 July, the ship departed on a six-month deployment to the
Indian Ocean and North
Arabian Sea. She spent more than 100 continuous days at sea in a
hot, tense environment – a striking contrast to her world cruise
months earlier. As the centerpiece for Battlegroup Echo, Missouri
escorted tanker convoys into the
Strait of Hormuz, keeping her fire control system trained on
land-based Iranian Silkworm missile launchers.
Missouri returned to the United States via Diego Garcia, Australia
and Hawaii in early 1988. Several months later, Missouri's crew
again headed for Hawaiian waters for the Rim of the Pacific (RimPac)
exercises, which involved more
than 50,000 troops and ships from the navies of Australia, Canada,
Japan and the United States. Port visits in 1988 included Vancouver
and Victoria in Canada, San Diego, Seattle, and Bremerton.
In the early months of 1989, Missouri was in the Long Beach Naval
Shipyard for routine maintenance. On 1 July 1989, while berthed at
Pier D, the music video for Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time was
filmed aboard Missouri and
featured the ship's crew. A few months later she departed for
Pacific Exercise (PacEx) '89, where she and New Jersey performed a
simultaneous gunfire demonstration for the aircraft carriers
Enterprise and Nimitz. The highlight of
PacEx was a port visit in Pusan, Republic of Korea. In 1990,
Missouri again took part in the RimPac Exercise with ships from
Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, and the U.S.
Gulf War (January–February 1991)
On 2 August 1990 Iraq, led by President Saddam Hussein, invaded
Kuwait. In the middle of the month U.S. President George H. W. Bush,
in keeping with the Carter Doctrine, sent the first of several
hundred thousand troops, along
with a strong force of naval support, to Saudi Arabia and the
Persian Gulf area to support a multinational force in a standoff
with Iraq.
Missouri's scheduled four-month Western Pacific port-to-port cruise
set to begin in September was canceled just a few days before the
ship was to leave. She had been placed on hold in anticipation of
being mobilized as forces
continued to mass in the Middle East. Missouri departed on 13
November 1990 for the troubled waters of the Persian Gulf. She
departed from Pier 6 at Long Beach, with extensive press coverage,
and headed for Hawaii and the
Philippines for more work-ups en route to the Persian Gulf. Along
the way she made stops at Subic Bay and Pattaya Beach, Thailand,
before transiting the Strait of Hormuz on 3 January 1991. During
subsequent operations leading
up to Operation Desert Storm, Missouri prepared to launch Tomahawk
Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) and provide naval gunfire support as
required.
Missouri launches a Tomahawk missile.
Missouri fired her first Tomahawk missile at Iraqi targets at 01:40
am on 17 January 1991, followed by 27 additional missiles over the
next five days.
On 29 January, the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate Curts led
Missouri northward, using advanced mine-avoidance sonar. In her
first naval fire support action of Desert Storm she shelled an Iraqi
command and control bunker near
the Saudi border, the first time her 16 in (410 mm) guns had been
fired in combat since March 1953 off Korea. The battleship bombarded
Iraqi beach defenses in occupied Kuwait on the night of 3 February,
firing 112 16 in (410 mm)
rounds over the next three days until relieved by Wisconsin.
Missouri then fired another 60 rounds off Khafji on 11–12 February
before steaming north to Faylaka Island. After minesweepers cleared
a lane through Iraqi defenses,
Missouri fired 133 rounds during four shore bombardment missions as
part of the amphibious landing feint against the Kuwaiti shore line
the morning of 23 February. The heavy pounding attracted Iraqi
attention; in response to the
battleship’s artillery strike, the Iraqis fired two HY-2 Silkworm
missiles at the battleship, one of which missed, while the other was
intercepted by a GWS-30 Sea Dart missile launched from the British
air defence destroyer HMS
Gloucester within 90 seconds and crashed into the sea roughly 700 yd
(640 m) in front of Missouri.
Missouri firing her 16" guns during Desert Storm, 6 February 1991.
During the campaign, Missouri was involved in a friendly fire
incident with the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate Jarrett.
According to the official report, on 25 February, Jarrett's Phalanx
engaged the chaff fired by Missouri as a
countermeasure against enemy missiles, and stray rounds from the
firing struck Missouri, one penetrating through a bulkhead and
becoming embedded in an interior passageway of the ship. Another
round struck the ship on the
forward funnel, passing completely through it. One sailor aboard
Missouri was struck in the neck by flying shrapnel and suffered
minor injuries. Those familiar with the incident are skeptical of
this account, however, as Jarrett was
reportedly over 2 mi (3.2 km) away at the time and the
characteristics of chaff are such that a Phalanx would not normally
regard it as a threat and engage it. There is no dispute that the
rounds that struck Missouri did come from
Jarrett, and that it was an accident. The suspicion is that a
Phalanx operator on Jarrett may have accidentally fired off a few
rounds manually, although there is no evidence to support this.
During the operation, Missouri also assisted coalition forces
engaged in clearing Iraqi naval mines in the Persian Gulf. By the
time the war ended, Missouri had destroyed at least 15 naval mines.
With combat operations out of range of the battleship’s weapons on
26 February, Missouri had fired a total 759 rounds of 16 in (410 mm)
shells and launched 28 Tomahawk cruise missiles during the campaign,
and commenced to
conduct patrol and armistice enforcement operations in the northern
Persian Gulf until sailing for home on 21 March. Following stops at
Fremantle and Hobart, Australia, the warship visited Pearl Harbor
before arriving home in April.
She spent the remainder of the year conducting type training and
other local operations, the latter including the 7 December "voyage
of remembrance" to mark the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor
attack in 1941. During that
ceremony, Missouri hosted President George H. W. Bush, the first
such presidential visit for the warship since Harry S. Truman
boarded the battleship in September 1947.
Museum ship (1998 to present)
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the
absence of a perceived threat to the United States came drastic cuts
in the defense budget, and the high cost of maintaining and
operating battleships as part of the
United States Navy's active fleet became uneconomical; as a result,
Missouri was decommissioned on 31 March 1992 at Long Beach,
California. Her last commanding officer, Captain Albert L. Kaiss,
wrote in the ship's final Plan of
the Day:
Our final day has arrived. Today the final chapter in battleship
Missouri’s history will be written. It's often said that the crew
makes the command. There is no truer statement ... for it's the crew
of this great ship that made this a
great command. You are a special breed of sailors and Marines and I
am proud to have served with each and every one of you. To you who
have made the painful journey of putting this great lady to sleep, I
thank you. For you have
had the toughest job. To put away a ship that has become as much a
part of you as you are to her is a sad ending to a great tour. But
take solace in this—you have lived up to the history of the ship and
those who sailed her before
us. We took her to war, performed magnificently and added another
chapter in her history, standing side by side our forerunners in
true naval tradition. God bless you all.
Missouri remained part of the reserve fleet at Puget Sound Naval
Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington, until 12 January 1995, when she was
struck from the Naval Vessel Register. On 4 May 1998, Secretary of
the Navy John H.
Dalton signed the donation contract that transferred her to the
nonprofit USS Missouri Memorial Association (MMA) of Honolulu,
Hawaii. She was towed from Bremerton on 23 May to Astoria, Oregon,
where she sat in fresh water at
the mouth of the Columbia River to kill and drop the saltwater
barnacles and sea grasses that had grown on her hull in Bremerton,
then towed across the eastern Pacific, and docked at Ford Island,
Pearl Harbor on 22 June, just 500
yd (460 m) from the Arizona Memorial. Less than a year later, on 29
January 1999, Missouri was opened as a museum operated by the MMA.
Plaque commemorating the surrender of Japan to end World War II
Originally, the decision to move Missouri to Pearl Harbor was met
with some resistance. The National Park Service expressed concern
that the battleship, whose name has become synonymous with the end
of World War II, would
overshadow the battleship Arizona, whose dramatic explosion and
subsequent sinking on 7 December 1941 has since become synonymous
with the attack on Pearl Harbor. To help guard against this
perception Missouri was
placed well back from and facing the Arizona Memorial, so that those
participating in military ceremonies on Missouri's aft decks would
not have sight of the Arizona Memorial. The decision to have
Missouri's bow face the Arizona
Memorial was intended to convey that Missouri now watches over the
remains of Arizona so that those interred within Arizona's hull may
rest in peace.
Missouri was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on
14 May 1971 for hosting the signing of the instrument of Japanese
surrender that ended World War II.She is not eligible for
designation as a National Historic
Landmark because she was extensively modernized in the years
following the surrender.
On 14 October 2009, Missouri was moved from her berthing station on
Battleship Row to a drydock at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard to
undergo a three month overhaul. The work, priced at $18 million,
included installing a new
anti-corrosion system, repainting the hull, and upgrading the
internal mechanisms. Drydock workers reported that the ship was
leaking at some points on the starboard side.The repairs were
completed the first week of January 2010
and the ship was returned to her berthing station on Battleship Row
on 7 January 2010. The ship's grand reopening occurred on 30
January.
Awards
Missouri received three battle stars for her service in World War
II, five for her service during the Korean War, and three for her
service during the Gulf War. Missouri also received numerous awards
for her service in World War II,
Korea, and the Persian Gulf.
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