USS MISSOURI

The battleship USS Missouri is open for visitors.

In July 1983, Cindy & I and two daughters flew to Seattle, Washington to spend a week with good friends Don & Susan. The girls were little...Jaime turned 5 while we were there...Julie was 18 months. I doubt they remember much, if any, of the trip. Cindy & I do.

Don & Susan were great friends from Indiana who 'up and moved' on us when an opportunity came up for Don that he couldn't refuse. They asked us to come visit one summer and we took them up on it. They were great hosts and we had a fun time. Among other things, we went up on Mt. Rainier where we had a snowball fight on the 4th of July. We went to the zoo, rode a ferry across Puget Sound...and visited the battleship USS Missouri.

For those of you who think...woopee, a battleship...let me tell you a little about the Missouri.

It was one of six (only 4 were completed) battleships that was designed to provide fast escort and defend aircraft carriers. The four served in every major war since WWII. They were built to fit through the Panama Canal (110 feet wide) so that they could get from the Atlantic to the Pacific without having to travel around South America.

She (ships are referred to as 'she') had nine 16 inch guns and twenty 5 inch anti-aircraft guns. When she was modernized in the late 1980s, four of the guns were removed and replaced with Tomahawk missile launchers.

The Missouri carried out bombing runs over Tokyo, served in Iwo Jima and Okinawa, in Korea and Operation Desert Storm. In WWII, a low-flying kamikaze crashed on Missouri's starboard side starting a gasoline fire on deck. The remains of the pilot's body was recovered on board the ship. The captain of the ship decided the young pilot had done his job to the best of his ability and with honor, and he should be given a military funeral. The following day, he was buried at sea with military honors. The dent in the side of the ship remains to this day.

She is probably 'best' known as the sight of Japans' unconditional surrender on September 2, 1945, ending WWII. The ceremony of signing the Formal Instument of Surrender was overseen by General Douglas MacArthur.

In July 1983, the deck of the ship that had been in all those places across the world...seen battles over several generations...AND where a famous general and his Japanese counterparts stood...WE ALSO STOOD.

That was exciting.


Dan