Here's a photo of the USS Missouri taken from the USS Arizona Memorial. The round buoy at lower right shows where the submerged bow of the Arizona is. As such you are looking from the spot where WWII began for the US to the deck of the Missouri where Douglas Macarthur accepted the unconditional surrender of the Japanese on September 2, 1945.
The USS Missouri was essentially a floating platform for armaments. Were seeing here 6 of the smaller 5" guns. In 1986, she was recommissioned as part of Ronald Reagan's 600 ship Navy and received a $475 Million upgrade (she cost $100M to build in 1945). At that time she became the platform to fire state-of-the-art Tomahawk missiles.
Here's 3 of the 9 huge 16" guns. This was the fourth ship to be called the Missouri. It was the last battleship the US built (and was probably obsolete when construction began almost a year before Americans entered WWII). She was launched in January 1944 by Senator (soon to be president) Harry Truman who predicted she would sail into Tokyo Bay to accept the Japanese surrender.
Missouri's big guns were first used in warfare on Iwo Jima. As part of the 1986 refurbishment, she received new 16" guns. Parts of the gun turrets are fortified with nearly 20" of armor. When the ship became a museum, descriptions were posted to aid tourists comprehension of the ship's function. An audio guide also helps.
The Missouri has 3 sets of 3 16" guns capable of lifting a shell that weighs as much as a Volkswagen up to 23 miles with high precision due to the electronic controls added during the 1986 refurbishment. A charge takes 660 pounds of gunpowder.
Here's a couple shots of the insides of the turrets. Throughout its life, the USS Missouri was upgraded with new technology. While this made her fit for combat, it cannot be designated a US Historic Landmark because so much of it has changed.
Turrets hold work positions on 5 floors. This is turret 3 which can store 370 rounds of ammunition in its stack. The cannons alone weigh 239,000 pounds. Big guns make a battleship!. The bottom floor is the magazine where the ammo is stored (and where armor is thickest).
The chain links each weigh 110 pounds. Two chains 1200 feet long are attached to 31,000 pound anchors. These are needed to hold a ship nearly 3 football-fields long. Here's a bit of trivia: how many states have had battleships named after them? Give up? 47. Which ones don't? I can't find the answer but obvious candidates are Hawaii and Alaska who became states long after the Missouri, the last US battleship was built.
Mighty Mo's last war was the January 1991 Gulf War. In order to get near the shore, her crew de-activated 10 mines. Then they fired both Tomahawk Missiles toward Baghdad and its 16" cannons on shore targets. The Iraqis managed to fire off a Silkworm missile at it, but nearby Brits shot it down. The Missouri only had one minor injury and that was from friendly fire. Details are at http://www.ussmissouri.org/15.pdf.
The USS Missouri museum attempts to replicate layout of a working ship including this officer's stateroom.
Two officers shared this space.
These showers were near the officers' quarters so I assume they are for them.
Here's a model of the Missouri displayed in the officers' mess. Unlike WWI, battleships in WWII rarely fired at enemy battleships since the airplanes from the aircraft carriers did most of the damage long before battleship guns came into range. By 1944, the Japanese were getting desperate and began to use suicide attacks. A Kamikaze pilot crashed on board the Missouri in April 1944 but did only superficial damage. Over 2500 specially trained (brainwashed?) kamikaze pilots put between 30 to 70 smaller Allied ships out of commission but did not significantly damage a battleship, cruiser, or aircraft carrier.
Here's another shot of the officers' mess. Technology upgrades during the 1986 refurbishment allowed the ship to be run with 1000 fewer personnel, almost half as many as before. Here 65 officers would eat. There were 1,425 enlisted men and the Mo carried a contingent of 53 Marines. Here's another bit of trivia: the Mo has gone through the Panama Canal at least twice even though it is technically over 2 feet wider than the locks. It scrapes its sides but still makes it through.
These are enlisted men's berths, 3 high. Note that the beds hinge up with some storage space underneath. I wonder what sleeping was like before modern technology allowed the ship to reduce personnel by nearly half.
Another view of the enlisted men's space.
The enlisted mess would have to feed nearly 2000 men three meals per day and must have been a busy place. Who knows what vintage these chairs are. Today it's a snack bar for the museum with a very limited menu.
The petty officers are the cream of the enlisted men and pretty much keep the Navy going. The US Navy has about the most elaborate structure to its petty officer corps ranging in rank to the army equivalents of corporal through master sergeant. Their berths are nicer than the enlisted men.
I'd guess that this is a Tomahawk missile; Tomahawks can carry about a 1000 pound explosive about 400 miles and deliver to coordinates on their GPS systems. All of this high tech destruction is not cheap as they cost over a million dollars each. 288 of these were launched during the Gulf War. The Missouri alone fired 28 during a 3 day period in January 1991.
Near the stern the communication flags are stored. These International Code of Signal flags let the other ships in the fleet know what's going on (during the day).
Besides the huge 16" guns, the Missouri also carried 12 5" guns.
The Tomahawk Missile were stored inside these cases.
These are probably MK 36 Super Rapid Bloom Offboard Countermeasures (SRBOC) Chaff and Decoy Launching Systems. That's a mouthful that means these spread enough bits of metal in the air to confuse an incoming anti-ship missile. These were fired when the Iraqi Silkworm missile came at the Missouri during the 1991 Gulf War. The chaff, in turn, triggered a nearby ship's anti-missile systems and it started shooting 20mm rounds at the Missouri, missing a crew member's head by 6 inches and eventually hitting a steam pipe that sent fragments into the ear of another man -- the only Gulf War casualty on the Missouri. So essentially, you have two high tech systems shooting at each other. In the meantime, the Brits shot down the Iraqi silkworm. Sometimes we get ahead of ourselves.
Here's a view from the bridge of the USS Missouri overlooking 6 of the huge 16" guns. The USS Arizona Memorial is in the distance.
The ship is commanded from the bridge. A flagship, such as the USS Missouri, can have a bridge for the Admiral to command the fleet as well as a separate bridge for the captain to handle the tactical maneuvering of the ship. This bridge was once exposed to the elements but later enclosed.
Some of the navigational equipment on the bridge.
As you can see, rain was with us most of the day; however, this was about the only rainy day we had in our week on Oahu--not bad for January.
More of the bridge.
Not many windows here if you are trying to steer a ship.
If you were being shelled, you'd stay inside the inner bridge reinforcement and look out at the world through this slot meant to withstand whatever the world throws at you. In some areas such as the gun turrets, the armor can be nearly 20" thick.
The Missouri served as Fleet headquarters during WWII and the Korean wars. The admiral's quarters were considerably lavish by navy standards.
WWII ended on this spot. The Missouri and its 3rd Fleet continued to pound the shore and send bombers over Tokyo, completely controlling Japanese waters. This all stopped on August 9, 1945, when Americans dropped the 2nd atom bomb.
As supreme commander of the Allies, General Douglas Macarthur hosted the 23-minute ceremony broadcast on radio around the world. By this time, the Brits had removed Winston Churchill from the Prime Ministership. Gratitude!
After the Gulf War, the USS Missouri was mothballed again in Washington state. Three states fought to get her as a museum but the compelling logic of given Pearl Harbor the "bookends" marking the beginning and end of WWII proved compelling. She arrived here in June 1998.
