Second showing in a couple of hours.

This should be good for 4+ pages of why the Navy needs to bring back the battleship discussion/flame fest.  

Friday, September 2
 
Join us for a review of the incredible 51-year career of BB-63, the battleship Missouri, which fought in WWII, the Korean War, and Desert Storm. The crew that served on her last voyage could have been grandchildren of the men who fought on her first. Though this behemoth should have been a relic after WWII, she was continually upgraded, making her a formidable first-line warrior to her final day in commission. Launched in 1944, she was the last battleship built and the last in service. But her most enduring image came in 1945, when the Allies accepted Japan's surrender on her deck in Tokyo Bay. Now a national monument in Pearl Harbor preserving the details of that historic day, we step aboard with some of the great men who served in her during the long career of this icon of US naval history.    

 
 
 

Six looks and no responses?

You guys are SLACKING!

U.S.S. Missouri was a bit of a latecomer to WWII.  Many navy personnel were real pissed that she was the ship chosen for the surrender ceremony in Japan.  She was chosen because Truman was from Missouri.  The prevailing opinion of many of the sailors, like my father, who spent most of the war in the Pacific was to have the ceremony on one of the old battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor and raised for furhter duty.  They really wanted to drive the knife in deep and twist it real good.

All that aside, she is a noble ship with a proud history.  I think they should alway have one of those battleships afloat.  No other ship flies the flag with as much class as a battleship.  These were work-a-day ships whose primary purpose was to slug it out against the best behemoths the other navy had to offer.   I think just about every naval captain today would jump at the chance to command one of these.

Quoted: My wife and I were able to board her in August of 1999.  We stood on the Arizona Memorial earlier in the day, then were further humbled to touch the spot where the kamikaze plane hit and then stand a few feet away in the exact spot the Japanese surrendered.  It was one of the most moving moments in my life.  I can't really say anything more than that--except that every American needs to view Pearl Harbor as their Mecca and find a way to go there before they die.

Really the only reason I would like to go to Hawaii.

Someday I'll make it.

???

The Mighty MO

I was just there!

Impressive to say the least!  Had my flag flown over her too..  As for the discussion of obsolecance, I think that the BB represents a time of really carrying a big stick.  It made a visual statement.  Yeah there is surgical strike capability by our modern ships but raw firepower is hard to deny.  I say that the USN should have kept the 4 Iowa class ships should have been sailed until they were no longer sea worthy.

One of the most interesting and uniquely Navy things I saw while on board was the surrender documents.  All squids know that when a mistake is made on a Navy document or log that a line is to be drawn through and the correction made below and initialed to the left..  Well The Canadian Representative at the surrender signed on the wrong line and everyone else was required to sign on the wrong line subsequently.  So in typical USN fashion, a line was srtuck through the text and the correction made in hand below and initialed to the left!  Only a squid can appreciate it.

and yours truly!

One more comment..  Did you know that the USS New Jersey is 6" longer than her sister ships the Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri?  The New Jersey was built at the naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, PA and her builders decided that she will be the largest BB of the class so they added 6" in length to her design!  True as stated at the musuem in Camden, NJ on board the USS New Jersey!