Iowa-class battleship (2f/2m)
L/B/D:
887.3 × 108.2 × 34.8 (270.4m × 33m × 8.8m). Tons:
57,430 disp Hull:
steel Comp:
1,795 Arm:
9 × 16 (3 × 3), 20 × 5, 80 × 40mm, 49 × 20mm Armor:
13.5 belt, 6.2 deck Mach:
geared turbines, 212,000 shp, 4 screws; 33 kts Built:
New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y.; 1944.
The fourth ship of the name, USS Missouri was the last battleship commissioned in the U.S. Navy. Missouri reached the Caroline Islands in January 1945, and the next month joined Task Force 58 for raids on the Japanese home islands. After gunfire support operations during the landings on Iwo Jima, against shore positions south of Tokyo, and against positions on Okinawa, Missouri became flagship of Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr. Following the announcement of the Japanese surrender, Missouri sailed into Tokyo Bay on August 29. There, on September 2, Allied and Japanese representatives, including General of the Army and Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, RN, and Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, signed the formal articles of surrender ending World War II.
Transferred to the Atlantic Fleet, in the spring of 1946 Missouri sailed for Istanbul bearing the remains of the late Turkish Ambassador Mehmet Munir Ertegun. From there she called at Piraeus in a demonstration of U.S. support for anti-Communist forces during the Greek Civil War. In 1947, Missouri sailed for Rio de Janeiro, where the Rio Treaty was signed on her decks and President Harry S. Truman embarked for his return to the United States. On January 17, 1950, the only U.S. battleship in commission left the Hampton Roads Navy Yard after repairs and grounded near Old Point Comfort, where she remained fast for two weeks.
Missouri did two tours of duty in Korea, from September 1950 to March 1951 and September 1952 to March 1953, providing gunfire support for UN ground forces on the peninsula. Decommissioned in 1955, the "Mighty Mo" remained in reserve until 1982, when she and her sister ships—
Iowa, New Jersey, and Wisconsin—were reactivated during President Ronald Reagan's defense build-up. After modernization, she mounted only twelve 5-inch guns and the twenty 40-millimeter quad mounts were removed; the 20-millimeter antiaircraft guns had been taken out in the 1950s. The new armament consisted of four Vulcan Phalanx 20-millimeter Gatling guns, four quadruple Harpoon antiship missiles, and eight quadruple Tomahawk armored box launchers. Missouri and Wisconsin saw action during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, but the Pentagon later determined that the ships were prohibitively expensive, and they were decommissioned in the early 1990s. As of 1997, Missouri was slated to open as a museum ship at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor.
Stillwell, Battleship "Missouri.".
