As the Missouri had done two years previously, she made a number of visits to Japan for re-arming and so that the crew could enjoy liberty. One of those who went sightseeing was Chief Gunner’s Mate Jack McCarron, who had served on the Missouri for roughly five years–a long tour of duty for a navy man. On December 7, 1941, McCarron had been badly burned while manning a 5-inch antiaircraft gun on the battleship Arizona during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. McCarron had the distinction of serving on the two battleships that symbolized the beginning and the end of World War II in the Pacific.

The Missouri’s last bombardment mission of the Korean War came to an end on the morning of March 25, 1953. She fired at targets in the vicinity of Kojo, just south of Wonsan. Captain Edsall was on the Missouri’s bridge on the morning of March 26 as she steamed into port at Sasebo, Japan, the first stop on the long journey home. At 7:21 a.m., just after Edsall gave the helmsman an order, the captain grasped the arm of his executive officer, Commander Bob North, and collapsed on the deck. North directed the ship to her berth, as Edsall was pronounced dead of a heart attack. A new skipper, Captain Robert Brodie, Jr., soon came aboard to take command and shepherd the Missouri back to the United States.

In 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower replaced Harry Truman as president of the United States, and during that summer the negotiators at Panmunjom completed armistice talks and ended the fighting. South Korea had maintained its independence, and the war had remained a limited one, although U.S. casualties totaled about 137,000.

The conflict did not end in a rousing and decisive victory like that of World War II, but the Missouri had made a significant contribution to the Korean War. She was decommissioned after the war, but in 1986 the modernized Missouri was recommissioned once more. During the Persian Gulf War five years later, the battleship again saw active service, when her guns and missiles were used against military targets in Iraq.

In 1992, the Missouri was decommissioned for the second time. Four years later the navy donated the battleship to the Honolulu-based USS Missouri Memorial Association. The Missouri will never again see combat but will open as a memorial museum in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in January 1999, allowing visitors the opportunity to board America’s most celebrated battleship.

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Paul Stillwell, director of the history division of the U.S. Naval Institute in Annapolis, Maryland, is the author of Battleship Missouri: An Illustrated History and several other books.

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