USS Missouri BB 63 – History of the Mighty Mo & the End of World War II
USS Missouri BB 63 – History, Service Record & Navy Decals
The USS Missouri (BB-63) was the third ship of the Iowa class of fast battleships and the most historically significant warship in the history of the United States Navy — the ship on whose teak deck the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on September 2, 1945, ending World War II and bringing peace to the world after six years of the most devastating conflict in human history. No other warship in American naval history carries a moment of such world-historical weight. She is known universally and affectionately as “Mighty Mo” — a name that evokes not just the ship herself, but the moment of triumph, relief, and peace that she witnessed and embodied on that September morning in Tokyo Bay. She went on to serve in the Korean War and was reactivated for the Gulf War — the last battleship ever to fire her guns in combat — before being preserved as a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, where she rests today at the place where the war she ended had begun.
Keel, Launch & Commissioning
Missouri's keel was laid down on January 6, 1941, at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York — just months before Pearl Harbor would bring America into World War II. She was launched on January 29, 1944, in a ceremony attended by Margaret Truman, daughter of then-Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri, who served as the ship's sponsor. She was commissioned into the U.S. Navy on June 11, 1944, under hull designation BB-63.
Class & Design
USS Missouri was the third of four Iowa-class fast battleships — the most powerful battleships ever built by the United States Navy. At 887 feet in length and displacing over 57,000 tons fully loaded, she was armed with nine 16-inch/50 caliber Mark 7 guns in three triple turrets capable of hurling 2,700-pound armor-piercing shells more than 23 miles, and twenty 5-inch/38 caliber guns for anti-aircraft defense. Her four steam turbine engines generating 212,000 shaft horsepower drove her to speeds exceeding 33 knots — fast enough to escort the fast carrier task forces whose aircraft were delivering the decisive blows against Japan.
World War II Service
Joining the Pacific Fleet in late 1944, USS Missouri operated with the fast carrier task forces conducting strikes against Japanese targets across the Western Pacific. She participated in the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa, providing naval gunfire support and anti-aircraft coverage for the amphibious assaults that were among the bloodiest of the entire Pacific War. During the Okinawa campaign in April 1945, Missouri was struck by a kamikaze aircraft that crashed into her hull without causing major damage — and in an extraordinary gesture, the ship's commanding officer, Captain William Callaghan, ordered that the Japanese pilot be given a full military funeral, his remains buried at sea with honors. It was a moment of grace amid the brutal final stages of the Pacific War that has been remembered and honored ever since.
As the war moved toward its conclusion and American forces prepared for the invasion of the Japanese home islands — an operation projected to cost hundreds of thousands of American and millions of Japanese lives — USS Missouri continued operations with the fast carrier task forces conducting the final devastating strikes against Japan.
The Japanese Surrender – September 2, 1945
Then came the moment that defined Missouri forever.
Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war against Japan, the Japanese government announced its intention to surrender on August 15, 1945. USS Missouri was selected as the site for the formal surrender ceremony — chosen in part because President Harry Truman, who had made the decision to use the atomic bomb, was from Missouri, and in part because she was the flagship of Admiral William Halsey's Third Fleet. She was anchored in Tokyo Bay, with the Japanese mainland visible on the horizon.
On the morning of September 2, 1945, representatives of the Japanese government and military came aboard Missouri to sign the Japanese Instrument of Surrender. On Missouri's teak deck, under the gaze of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur — who presided over the ceremony — Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser representing Great Britain, and representatives of all the Allied nations, the Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu signed the document that ended the war. MacArthur signed on behalf of all Allied Powers. Nimitz signed for the United States. The ceremony lasted 23 minutes.
Above Missouri's deck during the ceremony flew a 31-star American flag — the same flag that Commodore Matthew Perry had flown when he sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853 to open Japan to the world, borrowed from the Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis. The circle of history was complete: the flag that had opened Japan to the modern world flew over the ship where Japan's modern war ended.
When MacArthur concluded the ceremony with the words “These proceedings are closed,” World War II was over. More than 400 American aircraft and 260 Allied warships filled Tokyo Bay in a display of the power that had achieved victory. And at the center of it all was Mighty Mo.
Korean War Service
Recommissioned for the Korean War in November 1950, USS Missouri was the first battleship to arrive in Korean waters, serving as flagship and providing devastating 16-inch shore bombardment support along the Korean coast — destroying enemy supply lines, artillery positions, and fortifications with the overwhelming firepower that only a battleship could deliver. She fired thousands of 16-inch rounds in support of United Nations forces during the conflict.
Reagan-Era Reactivation & Gulf War Service
Reactivated for the third and final time in January 1986 as part of the Reagan 600-ship Navy, USS Missouri was modernized with Tomahawk cruise missiles, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and Phalanx close-in weapon systems. She deployed to the Persian Gulf for Operation Desert Storm in 1991, firing Tomahawk cruise missiles against Iraqi targets and delivering devastating 16-inch shore bombardment against Iraqi positions in Kuwait — becoming the last battleship in history to fire her guns in combat. She also served as a decoy, drawing Iraqi attention to a potential amphibious landing site while Coalition ground forces struck from a different direction in the war's decisive ground campaign.
Museum Ship
USS Missouri was decommissioned for the final time on March 31, 1992, and is now preserved as a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii — moored at Ford Island within sight of the sunken USS Arizona, which marks where the war that Missouri ended had begun. Together, Arizona and Missouri bookend the American experience of World War II in the Pacific — one marking the day of infamy, the other marking the day of victory. To stand on Missouri's deck at Pearl Harbor, looking across the water at Arizona's memorial, is to stand at the alpha and omega of America's greatest war.
Legacy
USS Missouri is more than a warship. She is the ship where the world changed — where six years of global war ended on a September morning in Tokyo Bay, where an empire surrendered, where peace began. She served in three wars, fired her guns in anger from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf, and outlasted every other battleship of her era. But it is that morning of September 2, 1945 — 23 minutes that ended a world war — that places Mighty Mo in a category that no other warship in history can claim. She is, simply, the most historically important warship America ever built.
Shop USS Missouri BB 63 Navy Gifts & Decals
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All products ship from the USA. Custom options available — contact us for details.
