USS Missouri (BB-63) is an built for the United States Navy (USN) in the 1940s and is now a museum ship. Completed in 1944, she is the last battleship commissioned by the United States. The ship was assigned to the Pacific Theater during World War II, where she participated in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands. Her quarterdeck was the site where the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed, officially ending World War II.
After World War II, Missouri served in various diplomatic, show of force and training missions. In 1950, the ship ran aground during high tide in Chesapeake Bay and after great effort was re-floated several weeks later. She later fought in the Korean War during two tours between 1950 and 1953. Missouri was the first American battleship to arrive in Korean waters and served as the flagship for several admirals. The battleship took part in numerous shore bombardment operations and also served in a screening role for aircraft carriers. Missouri was decommissioned in 1955 and transferred to the reserve fleet (also known as the "Mothball Fleet").
Missouri was reactivated and modernized in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan. Cruise missile and anti-ship missile launchers were added along with updated electronics. The ship served in the Persian Gulf escorting oil tankers during threats from Iran, often while keeping her fire-control systems trained on land-based Iranian missile launchers. She served in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 including providing fire support.
Missouri was again decommissioned in 1992, but remained on the Naval Vessel Register until her name was struck in 1995. In 1998, she was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association and became a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Background and description
The Iowa class of fast battleships was designed in the late 1930s in response to the US Navy's expectations for a future war with the Empire of Japan. The last battleships to be built by the United States, they were also the US Navy's largest and fastest vessels of the type. American officers preferred comparatively slow but heavily armed and armored battleships, but Navy planners determined that such a fleet would have difficulty in bringing the faster Japanese fleet to battle, particularly the s and the aircraft carriers of the 1st Air Fleet. Design studies prepared during the development of the earlier and es demonstrated the difficulty in resolving the desires of fleet officers with those of the planning staff within the displacement limits imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty system, which had governed capital ship construction since 1923. An escalator clause in the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936 allowed an increase from to in the event that any member nation refused to sign the treaty, which Japan refused to do.
Missouri is long overall and is long at the waterline. The ship has a beam of and a draft of at her full combat load of . The Iowa-class ships are powered by four General Electric geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller using steam provided by eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Rated at , the turbines were designed to give a top speed of , but were built to handle a 20 percent overload. None of the Iowas ever ran speed trials in deep water, but the Bureau of Ships estimated that they could reach a speed of about from at a light displacement of . The ships had a designed cruising range of at a speed of , although the 's fuel consumption figures during her sea trials suggest that her range was at least at that cruising speed. Their designed crew numbered 117 officers and 1,804 enlisted men which had greatly increased by the end of the war in 1945. Missouris crew at that time numbered 189 officers and 2,978 sailors.
Armament, fire control, sensors and aircraft
The main battery of the Iowa-class ships consisted of nine /50 caliber Mark 7 guns in three triple-gun turrets on the centerline, two of which were placed in a superfiring pair forward of the superstructure, with the third aft. Going from bow to stern, the turrets were designated I, II, and III. Their secondary battery consisted of twenty /38 caliber dual-purpose guns mounted in twin-gun turrets clustered amidships, five turrets on each broadside. Unlike their sister ships and New Jersey that were the first pair of ships built, Missouri and were completed with an anti-aircraft suite of twenty quadruple mounts for Bofors AA guns, nine mounts on each broadside and one each on the roofs of Turrets II and III. Forty-nine Oerlikon light AA auto-cannon in single mounts were distributed almost the length of the ships.
The primary means of controlling the main armament are two Mark 38 directors for the Mark 38 fire-control system mounted at the tops of the fore and aft fire-control towers in the superstructure. These directors were equipped with rangefinders, although their primary sensor was the Mark 8 fire-control radar mounted on their roofs. A secondary Mark 40 fire-control director was installed inside the armored conning tower at the front of the superstructure that used the Mark 27 fire-control radar positioned on the top of the conning tower. Each turret is fitted with a rangefinder long and can act as a director for the other turrets. Four Mark 37 gunnery directors, two on the centerline at the ends of the superstructure and one on each broadside, control the five-inch guns. Each director was equipped with a rangefinder and a pair of radars on its roof. These were a Mark 12 fire-control system and a Mark 22 height-finder radar. Each 40 mm mount was remotely controlled by a Mark 51 director that incorporated a Mark 14 lead-computing gyro gunsight while the sailors that used the 20 mm gun used a Mark 14 sight to track their targets.
A SK-2 early-warning radar was fitted on the ship's foremast; above it was a SG surface-search radar. The other SG radar was mounted at the top of the mainmast positioned on the rear funnel.
The Iowas were built with two rotating aircraft catapults on their stern for floatplanes and a large crane was fitted to recover them. Initially a trio of Vought OS2U Kingfishers were carried, but these were replaced by Curtiss SC Seahawks in December 1944.
Protection
The internal waterline armor belt of the Iowa-class ships is thick and has a height of . Below it is a strake of Class B homogeneous armor plate that tapers in thickness from 12.1 inches at the top to at the bottom and is high. The two strakes of armor are inclined outwards at the top 19 degrees to improve the armor's resistance to horizontal fire. In general the vertical armor plates are made from Class A cemented armor and the horizontal armor from Class B or special treatment steel (STS). The belt armor extends to the two transverse bulkheads fore and aft of the main-gun barbettes, forming the armored citadel. Part of the lower armor belt extends aft from the rear bulkhead to protect the ships' steering gear. Its maximum thickness ranges from at the top and the plates taper to 5 inches at the bottom. Unlike the Iowa and New Jersey, the armor plates in the forward transverse bulkhead in Missouri and Wisconsin have a maximum thickness of at the top that tapers to . The aft bulkhead is a consistent 14.5 inches in thickness, but does not go below the lower belt extension due it meeting the armored third deck protecting the shafts and steering gears; the steering gear is closed by another 14.5-inch aft bulkhead.
The main-gun turrets have Class B plates thick on their faces and of Class A plates on their sides. The armor plates protecting their barbettes range in thickness from to and with the thickest plates on the sides and the thinnest ones on the front and back. The sides of the conning tower are thick. The main deck of the Iowas consists of of STS. Below this deck, the roof of the armored citadel is formed by of armor in two layers. Below this is a deck of STS plates intended to stop splinters from shells that pierced the armored deck above it. The armor deck extends aft and the roof of the steering gear compartment is thick.
The underwater protection system of the Iowa-class battleships consists of three watertight compartments outboard of the lower armor belt and another behind it. The two outermost compartment are kept loaded with fuel oil or seawater to absorb the energy of the torpedo warhead's detonation and slow the resulting splinters so they can be stopped by the lower armor belt. Behind the belt is a holding bulkhead intended to protect the ships' inner spaces from any splinters that might penetrate and the subsequent flooding. For protection against naval mines, the Iowas have a double bottom that runs the full length of the ships and increases to a triple bottom except at the bow and stern.
History
Construction
Missouri was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named after the US state of Missouri. The ship was authorized by Congress in 1938 and ordered on 12 June 1940 with the hull number BB-63.
By 09:30 the Japanese emissaries had departed. During the afternoon of 5 September, Halsey transferred his flag to the battleship , 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 East Coast 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, the battleship fired a 21-gun salute (the first of 3 that day) as Truman—who had since become President of the United States—boarded for Navy Day ceremonies.
thumb|left|Missouri (center) and [[SMS Goeben|TCG Yavuz (right) in the Bosphorus, April 1946]]
After an overhaul in the New York Naval Shipyard that included the replacement of the Mark 8 fire-control radars with Mark 13 models, 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, Munir Ertegun. 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. The arrival of the ship was one of the causes of the Turkish Straits crisis between Turkey and the Soviet Union.
Missouri departed Istanbul on 9 April and entered Phaleron Bay, Piraeus, Greece, the following day for a welcome by Greek government officials and anti-communist citizens. Greece had become the scene of a civil war between the pro-communist-dominated left-wing resistance organization EAM-ELAS 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 US interest in preserving Greece and Turkey's independence.
thumb|right|upright=0.75|A helicopter lands on a Missouri gun turret during the 1948 Midshipmen's practice cruise.
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 training exercises. On 3 December, during a gunnery exercise in the North Atlantic, a star shell fired by the light cruiser accidentally struck the battleship, killing one crewman and wounding three others.
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 countries would be considered an attack on all.
The Truman family boarded Missouri on 7 September 1947 to return to the United States and disembarked at Norfolk on 19 September. Her overhaul in New York, which lasted from 23 September to 10 March 1948 included upgrading most of her radar suite. The SK-2 system was replaced by a SR-3 radar and both SG fire-control radars were removed, an improved SG-6 replaced the forward antenna and the aft SG was exchanged for a SP height-finding radar; Mark 25 fire-control radars replaced the combination Mark 12/22 installations on the roofs of the Mark 37 directors. After the overhaul, the ship worked up at Guantanamo Bay. The summer of 1948 was devoted to midshipman and reserve training cruises. Also in 1948, Missouri 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 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 reducing their inventories from their World War II levels. For 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 coasts. As part of this contraction, three of the Iowa-class battleships had been de-activated and decommissioned but 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.
thumb|left|Configuration for final successful pull
Captain William D. Brown assumed command of the battleship on 10 December while she was being overhauled. Then the only US battleship in commission, Missouri was proceeding from Hampton Roads on her first training exercise at sea since the overhaul, early on 17 January 1950 when she ran aground from Thimble Shoal Light, near Old Point Comfort. She hit shoal water a distance of three ship-lengths from the main channel. The error resulted from a combination of many factors, including Brown's inexperience maneuvering such a large ship. The grounding occurred during a particularly high tide making the effort to free her even more difficult as did having an abandoned anchor becoming embedded in her hull. After off-loading ammunition, fuel and food to lighten the battleship, she was refloated on 1 February with the aid of tugboats, pontoons, beach gear and a rising tide.
After the subsequent Naval Board of Inquiry, Brown and three of his officers were court-martialled. Brown was relieved of command and his subordinates were reprimanded. Captain Harold Page Smith assumed command on 7 February as the Missouris repairs were being completed. Having repaired morale aboard during his tenure as the ship was relegated to training duties in an effort to cut costs by Johnson, Page Smith was replaced by Captain Irving Duke on 19 April.
Korean War (1950–1953)
alt=|thumb|A [[Vought F4U Corsair overflies Inchon Harbor, Republic of Korea with Missouri below the aircraft's tail.]]
In 1950, the Korean War started, prompting the United States to intervene on behalf of the United Nations (UN). President Truman ordered US forces stationed in Japan into South Korea. Truman also sent US-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 transferred to the Pacific Fleet and dispatched from Norfolk on 19 August to support UN forces on the Korean peninsula. Due to the urgency of her mission Duke took the battleship directly through a hurricane off the coast of North Carolina on 20 August that blew her helicopters off the stern and damaged her enough that she required nearly a week's worth of repairs once she reached Pearl Harbor.
Missouri arrived just west of Kyūshū on 14 September, where she became the flagship of Rear Admiral Allan Edward Smith. The first American battleship to reach Korean waters, she bombarded Samchok on 15 September in an attempt to divert troops and attention from the Incheon landings. After a brief visit to Sasebo, Japan, to resupply, the ship arrived at Incheon on 19 September, and began bombarding North Korean troops as they retreated north. On 10 October she became flagship of Rear Admiral John M. Higgins, commander of Cruiser Division 5. She arrived at Sasebo on 14 October, where she became flagship of Vice Admiral A. D. Struble, Commander, Seventh Fleet. After screening the carrier along the east coast of Korea, she conducted bombardment missions from 12 to 26 October in the Chongjin and Tanchon areas on the west coast, and at Wonsan where she again screened carriers eastward of Wonsan. During this time, comedian Bob Hope visited the battleship and gave three performances for the crew.
MacArthur's amphibious landings at Incheon had severed the Korean People's Army (KPA) supply lines; as a result, the KPA had begun a lengthy retreat from South Korea into North Korea. This retreat was closely monitored by the People's 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. 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 North Korea, but these warnings were not taken seriously for a number of reasons. This changed abruptly on 19 October 1950, when the first of an eventual total of soldiers under the command of General Peng Dehuai crossed into North Korea, launching a full-scale assault against advancing UN troops. The PRC offensive forced UN troops to retreat. The Missouri provided gunfire support during the Hungnam evacuation in December until the last UN troops, the American 3rd Infantry Division, departed on 24 December.
alt=|thumb|The [[forecastle of Missouri in heavy seas 1951]]
thumb|right|Missouri fires her guns against enemy positions during the Korean War.
In early 1951 Missouri alternated carrier escort duty and shore bombardments off the east coast of Korea until 19 March. During a visit to Yokosuka, Japan, Captain George Wright relieved Duke as commanding officer on 2 March. The battleship arrived at Yokosuka on 24 March and departed the port four days later for the United States, having fired 2,895 sixteen-inch rounds and 8,043 five-inch shells during her deployment. Upon her arrival at Norfolk on 27 April the ship became the flagship of Rear Admiral James L. Holloway, Jr., commander, Cruiser Force, Atlantic Fleet. From May to August, she engaged in two midshipman training cruises. Missouri entered Norfolk Naval Shipyard 18 October for an overhaul which lasted until 30 January 1952. Captain John Sylvester assumed command of the ship the same day her overhaul began.
Missouri spent the next six months training out of Guantanamo Bay and Norfolk and made a port visit to New York in May where she participated in Navy Day celebrations, hosting nearly 11,000 visitors. She returned to Norfolk on 4 August and entered Norfolk Naval Shipyard to prepare for a second tour in the Korean combat zone. Captain Warner Edsall relieved Sylvester at the beginning of the overhaul. The battleship departed Hampton Roads on 11 September and arrived at Yokosuka on 17 October.
Vice Admiral Joseph J. Clark, commander of the Seventh Fleet, brought his staff onboard on 19 October. Her primary mission was to provide naval gunfire support, codenamed "Cobra strikes", in the Chaho-Tanchon area, at Chongjin, in the Tanchon-Sonjin area, and at Chaho, Wonsan, Hamhung, and Hungnam from 25 October through 2 January 1953. One of the ship's helicopters crashed on 21 December while trying to assess the damage from a bombardment; all three men aboard were killed. Missouri put into Incheon on 5 January and then sailed to Sasebo. General Mark W. Clark, Commander in Chief, UN Command, and Admiral Sir Guy Russell, the British Commander-in-Chief, Far East Fleet, visited the battleship on 23 January. In the following weeks, Missouri resumed "Cobra" missions along the east coast of Korea. As part of these, the ship would enter Wonsan Harbor to bombard targets there. North Korea artillery fruitlessly engaged her there on two occasions, 5 and 10 March, as their shells were fused to burst in the air. In retaliation for the latter incident, Missouris five-inch guns fired 998 shells at the North Korean positions. The last bombardment mission by Missouri was against the Kojo area on 25 March; she had fired 2,895 sixteen-inch and 8,043 five-inch shells during the deployment. The following day, Edsall suffered a fatal heart attack while conning her through the anti-submarine nets defending Sasebo Harbor. Captain Robert Brodie assumed command on 4 April. Missouri was relieved as the Seventh Fleet flagship on 6 April by New Jersey and departed Yokosuka on 7 April.
thumb|[[United States civil defense|Civil Defense shelter sign held by Missouri Governor John Dalton (right) in 1963 beside Missouri painting in Tokyo Bay on 4 July 1945, by William A. Knox.]]
Missouri arrived at Norfolk on 4 May; Rear Admiral E. T. Woolridge, commander, Battleships-Cruisers, Atlantic Fleet, hoisted his flag aboard her 10 days later. She departed on 8 June on a midshipman training cruise to Brazil, Cuba and Panama and returned to Norfolk on 4 August. Woolridge hauled down his flag in October as he transferred to another ship; Rear Admiral Clark Green, commander of Battleship Division 2 replaced him. The battleship was overhauled in Norfolk Naval Shipyard from 20 November to 2 April 1954 that included replacing her 16-inch guns and exchanging her SP radar for a SPS-8 system that required strengthening the mainmast to handle its weight. The day before the end of the overhaul, Captain Taylor Keith relieved Brodie in command of the ship. As the flagship of Rear Admiral Ruthven Libby, who had relieved Woolridge, Missouri departed Norfolk on 7 June as the flagship of the midshipman training cruise to Lisbon, Portugal, Cherbourg, France, and Cuba. During this voyage Missouri was joined by the other three battleships of her class, the only time the four ships sailed together. She returned to Norfolk on 3 August and departed on 23 August to be placed in reserve on the West Coast. The ship hosted 16,900 people at Long Beach, but more than 20,100 visited in San Francisco. Missouri arrived in Seattle on 15 September where she again hosted visitors and subsequently off-loaded her ammunition at the facility in Bangor. The ship was decommissioned on 26 February 1955 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard where she was assigned to the Bremerton group of the Pacific Reserve Fleet. Missouri retained her Mark 27 radar until the mid-1950s.
Deactivation
Missouri was moored at the last pier of the reserve fleet berthing. She served as a tourist attraction, logging about 250,000 visitors per year, who came to view the "surrender deck" where a bronze plaque memorialized the spot ()<!-- 35° 21' 17" N, 139° 45' 36" E)--> in Tokyo Bay where Japan surrendered to the Allies. The accompanying historical display included copies of the surrender documents