Missouri

USS Missouri

Missouri, American battleship, scene of the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, that formally ended World War II. The USS Missouri, one of four Iowa-class battleships that were completed during the war, numbered among the largest warships afloat, being 887 feet (270 metres) long and displacing 58,000 tons. The ship carried a main battery of nine 16-inch guns, each of which could fire a 2,700-pound (1,200-kg) shell to a range of 23 miles (37 km). Powered by eight boilers turning four steam turbines, each attached to a separate screw, it was capable of speeds in excess of 30 knots (35 mph [56 km/hr]). During the war the Missouri was manned by a crew of more than 2,500.

USS Missouri: Japanese surrender

Douglas MacArthur signing the Japanese surrender agreement

The Missouri was built at the New York Naval Shipyard and was launched and commissioned in 1944—the last battleship ever launched by the United States. The ship was assigned to various aircraft carrier task forces in the Pacific theatre and participated in shore bombardments during the landings at Iwo Jima and Okinawa in February and March 1945. In May 1945 it became the flagship of the U.S. Pacific Third Fleet under Adm. William F. Halsey, Jr., and in July 1945 it joined in a bombardment of the Japanese mainland. Chosen by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Allied supreme commander, for the surrender ceremony, the Missouri entered Tokyo Bay flying the flag that had flown over the White House on December 7, 1941, the day of the Pearl Harbor attack that brought the United States into the war. On Sunday morning, September 2, 1945, a nine-man Japanese delegation arrived on board, and, at MacArthur’s invitation, Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru and Gen. Umezu Yoshijiro signed two copies of the document proclaiming “unconditional surrender…of all Japanese armed forces.”

The Missouri carried out shore bombardments and served in carrier groups during the Korean War (1950–53). In 1955 the ship was decommissioned, and it passed almost 30 years as a tourist attraction in the naval shipyard at Bremerton, Washington. In 1986 it was recommissioned for service as part of Pres. Ronald Reagan’s plan to strengthen the U.S. Navy’s presence overseas. Armed with surface-to-air missiles and cruise missiles as well as its formidable main guns, the Missouri served in the Persian Gulf War of 1990–91. It was decommissioned again in 1992. In 1999 it was opened as the Battleship Missouri Memorial, near the USS Arizona National Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii.