Quote:
Originally Posted by BadFish
Cleaning out me photos from the camera and phone. This is from my Hawaii trip a few weeks ago. Man I would like to go cruisin on this bad boy.
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The USS Missouri, site of the Japanese surrender ending the Second World War, was decommissioned on March 31, 1992 at Long Beach, then placed in the reserve fleet at
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton,
Washington.
She remained in Bremerton until she was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial, Honolulu, in May of 1998. On May 23, 1998, she was towed to Astoria,
Oregon to sit in fresh
water at the mouth of the
Columbia River so that the saltwater
barnacles would die and fall off along with years of sea grasses.
She was then towed across the eastern Pacific,
docking at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor on June 22, 1998. On January 29, 1999, the USS Missouri opened as a museum operated by the Missouri Museum Association.
Missouri saw her last serious battle action on February 23, 1991 during the first Gulf War. In the operation to make the Iraqis believe the American assault on Iraqi-occupied Kuwait would come from the sea, the Americans feinted an amphibious landing, and the Missouri fired 133 rounds from her 16-inch
guns onto the Kuwaiti shoreline in support of that operation.
The Iraqis responded by firing two Silkworm missiles at the battleship. One missed, the other was intercepted by a Sea Dart missile fired from the HMS Gloucester, a British destroyer. The Sea Dart caused the Silkworm to crash into the sea some 700 yards from the Missouri.
It is highly unlikely that anyone will "cruise" aboard the USS Missouri ever again. What a mighty warrior she was, though, and a fitting addition to the Pearl Harbor memorials.
Here's a link to her website:
Home | USS Missouri
TaoJones