USS Missouri

Hello again. The final segment of our Pearl Harbor tour was aboard the now decommisioned battleship the USS Missouri, sometimes referred to as the "big Mo".

This blog is for those interested in military history as I am and may bore people who are not interested (like Naomi...she's interested but not to the degree that I am). The next blog will be more about touring the island of Kauai such as our incredible helicopter tour of the island's "Grand Canyon".

The Missouri was ordered by the US Navy and was the last Iowa Class battleship to be built. She was commissioned in 1944 and joined the fleet in the Pacific and saw action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Next came the Korean War but she was considered "surplus" after that and decommissioned in 1955.

With US military involvement in the Middle East looming, President Ronald Reagan ordered all military assets held in reserve be utilized and updated so the Missouri was recommissioned and given a whole new electronic warfare and equipment upgrade in 1984.

I believe this is a statue of Amiral Nimitz

From her keel to the top she is about 20 stories tall

She got new guns and now carried the Tomahawk cruise missies as well and went on to provide fire support for Operation Desert Storm. She was decommissioned for the last time and instead of being sold for scrap she was donated to the USS Missouri Historical Society and moored at her present location on Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor.

Notice the Teak deck

On the forward deck looking aft

The Missouri even has some movie credentials. Cher did a music video on her and she had a role in the movie Under Seige with Steven Segal. Her latest role was in the movie Battleship; she was towed out to sea for the filming and towed back in when filming was done.

Her most famous role is being known as the Surrender Ship. On her main deck was where the Imperial Japanese Command signed the Articles of Surrender to officially end WW2. There is a plaque embedded into the teak deck at the spot where the table was plus copies of the treaty are on display there as well.

Just before the signing. The Japanese High Command have just arrived

This plaque marks the spot where the table was placed

A copy of the first page of the Surrender document

The tour guides there are very knowledgeable and have many interesting stories about the ship and it's crew. One such story happened in 1945 when the US Pacific fleet was under attack by the Japanese Kamikaze pilots.

On April 11, 1945, young 19 yr old Setsuo Ishino was trying to fly his "Zeke" dive-bomber into the Missouri. He was hit by intense antiaircraft fire and dropped out of the sky but regained control and approached the Missouri at deck level and smashed into the right or starboard side just below the main deck at an angle. The right wing and cockpit ended up a few hundred feet up near one of her main guns and ignited. Fortunately the bomb he was carrying did not explode.

This is the initial contact point of the Japanese dive bomber 

The fire was quickly put out and the crew were about to hose the whole mess, body included, over the side but the Missouri's Captain William Calaghan intervened and ordered that the pilot be given a full burial at sea.

Captain Callaghan felt that the pilot was only doing his duty and deserved the respect given to him.

In 2001, on the anniversary of that day, April 11, family members of 3 suicide pilots that died that day and members of Captain Callaghan's family met on the Missouri in an Act of Reconciliation. The Japanese family members provided some pictures of pilot Ishino and others and now there is a memorial to the Kamikaze pilots on board the ship.

That attack that day was photographed by a crew member and you can find those pictures on the Internet.

The word Kamikaze means Devine Wind in Japanese and back in the days of Ghenghis Khan the Mongols attempted twice to invade Japan by sea but in both times a Typhoon blew in and scattered the Mongol fleet. Therefore the suicide pilots were considered to be the modern day Devine Wind who would scatter (sink) the American fleet.

We tried to see as much of the ship as we could but she is so huge and there is much to see in her that we had to leave sooner than we wanted to.

Looking aft past her forward guns. The Surrender spot is to the left of the gun turret

There was just so much to see inside that I did not include any shots in this blog. If anyone finds this interesting then it is better to experience it in person.

We returned back to the main entrance and picked up all our bags, purses etc and headed back into town but our driver Charlie detoured into a cemetery called the Punch Bowl. It is a smaller version of the Diamond Head crater and the graves stretch from crater wall to crater wall. I believe they no longer have burials there but do have a place to put urns.

The proper name of this cemetary is the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. It got the name Punch Bowl because the crater it sits in reminds one of a giant bowl

 

You can see the urn depository behind the flagpole

Those buried there include WW2 war reporter Ernie Pyle and one of the astronauts killed in one of the shuttle accidents.

Afterwards, we toured a bit through Waikiki then we were dropped off at our hotel and our day was done.

I can not remember how to spell this native Hawaiian King's name but I believe he was the last of the Hawaiian Royalty that was overthrown back in the 1860's

This building is one of the civic buildings in Honolulu. It is also shown on TV as the Hawaii 5-0 headquarters, usually as an aerial shot

The second largest Banyan tree in Hawaii. The largest is on Maui.

Here is our driver for the Pearl Harbor tour. Charlie was very interesting and did a fantastic job driving and entertaining us. 

If anyone plans on touring Pearl Harbor, you can prebook your Arizona tickets online ahead of time for a set time period. So many people visit the site they had to restrict the number of people per day. They do release 1300 tickets every morning for that day only but you have to be on site to get them plus there is no guarantee that you can get enough for your group etc.

You can visit the info center and grounds any time it is open but I am not sure if you have to be a part of a tour group to visit Ford Island ( the aviation museum and the Missouri) or if you can enter on your own.

This concludes our stay in Oahu and our next stop will be Kauai.
Good bye for now.