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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
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B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
AUGUST 27, 2020
Forgotten Her es
The USS Missouri in World War II By Avi Heiligman
A
fter the surrender of Germany in May 1945, the attention of the Allied armies turned towards defeating Japan. American forces had pushed them back to the Japanese home islands with the capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In August, B-29 Superfortress bombers dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 14, President Truman announced to the American public that he had received a message from Japan in which they accepted the terms of unconditional surrender put forth by the Potsdam Declaration. A battleship was chosen for the official signing of the surrender agreement. For the most part, battleships were a thing of the past by the end of World War II but the USS Missouri (BB-63) served with distinction for many years after the war and was even present during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Battleships are large armored warships outfitted with large caliber guns and were built during the
18th and 19th centuries. Other ships, like aircraft carriers and smaller fast ships like destroyers and submarines, eventually made the battleship obsolete by the end of World War II but they did play a significant role in the war effort. The Japanese realized that they would need to neutralize Allied battleships in order to conquer territory, and in December 1941, they sank or damaged all of the American battleships at Pearl Harbor. When it came to building battleships, the British, Americans and Japanese commissioned more than any other country. The Iowa-class battleships were intended to track down large, fast Japanese warships such as the Kongo-class battle-cruisers that were very active during the war. Four Iowa-class battleships were ordered between 1939 and 1940. The Missouri was the last to be launched in January 1944 after the Iowa, New Jersey and Wisconsin were completed. She had nine 16” guns in her main battery, twenty 5” guns, and over a
General MacArthur signing documents during the surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri
hundred anti-aircraft guns on board. Two-thousand-seven-hundred sailors and marines served on the Missouri during World War II. Her first assignment was to serve as a screening vessel for aircraft carriers that were launching strikes against Japan. She provided fire support during the invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945. During March, she went with aircraft carriers as they went to the Japanese mainland for another raid. It was during these raids that the Missouri shot down four enemy planes headed for the American group. Then, with other battleships, she bombarded Okinawa in preparation for the upcoming landings. On April 11, she was hit by a low-flying kamikaze suicide plane but suffered very little damage and no casualties. She then shot down a second suicide bomber headed for the task force. Six days later, the Missouri detected a Japanese submarine and relayed the coordinates to a hunter-killer light carrier group which in turn sank the I-56 submarine. In other action off of Okinawa, she shot down five enemy planes, fought off sixteen air raids on her task group, and destroyed many shore installations in assisting the troops on shore. For the rest of the war, she assisted in bombarding the Japanese home islands and was off the coast of Japan when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. After the announcement that the Japanese were going to surrender, the Missouri steamed into Tokyo Bay on August 29. British Admiral Bruce Fraser was already on board
to bestow an honor on Admiral “Bull” Halsey and more high-ranking officers boarded for the surrender ceremony on September 2. Eleven Japanese officials were present for the surrender that was signed by the foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and the Chief of the Army General Staff Yoshijiro Umezu. General Douglas MacArthur presided over the ceremony and began by stating, “It is my earnest hope –indeed the hope of all mankind – that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past, a world founded upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance, and justice.” He then accepted the surrender document and signed, as he was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers. Representatives from nine Allied countries signed the document. These included: American Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Chinese General Hsu Yung-chang for China, AdmiY ral Fraser for the United Kingdom, Russian Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevyanko for the Soviet Union, Australian General Sir Thomas Blamey for Australia, Canadian Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave for Canada, French General Philippe Leclerc, Lieutenant Admiral C. E. L. Helfrich for the Netherlands, and Air Vice-Marshal Leonard M. Isitt for New Zealand. The surrender docurments were then taken to Washington, D.C., and presented to President Harry Truman before being put on
