laststandonzombieisland

It happened some 80 years ago this week

“Battleship X,” the class leader USS South Dakota (BB-57) fires her forward 16-inch guns of Turrets I and II at the Kamaishi Steel Works on Honshu, Japan, 14 July 1945.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-490175

A young ship turned old pro that saw her first action off Guadalcanal in October 1942, SoDak by this stage of the war was earning her 13th battle star and was an expert at using her radar to target centrally controlled 16-inch guns.

In bombarding the Kamaishi plant, she plastered it with 231 16-inch shells (that’s 219 tons of ordnance!) in 42 salvos between 1211 and 1415, a span of just over two hours. Adding the ship’s on-board Kingfisher spotter planes to the mix to correct shot fall made it cake.

From her report.