The Last American Dreadnought
How about this amazing original Kodachrome, snapped 80 years ago today, showing the Iowa-class fast battleship, USS Missouri (BB-63) commissioning ceremonies, at the New York Navy Yard, on 11 June 1944. Photographed looking aft from atop her Number Three triple 16-inch/50 Mark 7 gun turret.
Official U.S. Navy Photograph 80-G-K-3858, now in the collections of the National Archives.
And the view from the stern with 16-inch gun turret Number Three in the foreground shows crewmen and other attendees saluting the colors, as the ship is placed in commission.
Note the SG surface-search radar antenna atop both mainmasts and the circular antenna for the SK-2 air-search radar on the foremast. Also visible are two Mk 37 gun directors with Mk 12 fire control radar for the 12.7 cm artillery and the Mk 38 gun director with Mk 8 fire control radar (“hedgehog”) for the 40.6 cm artillery.USN photo # 80-G-345692
The last of her class completed (Wisconsin, BB-64, had already commissioned two months prior on 16 April 1944), Missouri would spend the rest of the year in shakedown and spent Christmas Eve ’44 on Pearl Harbor’s Battleship Row on her way to the West Pac to get in the show. Just over eight months past that holiday, Missouri would host the formal Japanese surrender to the Allied Powers in Tokyo Bay, ending the conflict.
Some eight battle stars (three for WWII, five for Korea) later, she was decommissioned for the final time on 31 March 1992.
Opening to the public in 1999, she has been standing guard over the USS Arizona on Battleship Row for the past 25 years.
The Mighty Missouri Painting, Acrylic on Illustration Board; by Robert Adam Malin; 1998; Framed Dimensions 22H X 32W NHHC
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