The following month another famous guest boarded the Missouri. Comedian Bob Hope presented a show for the benefit of crew members gathered on the fantail for a Navy Day celebration. Hope’s time-honored formula included both humor and an attractive actress, Marilyn Maxwell.

The ground fighting improved for U.N. forces in the wake of the landings at Inchon. Later in the year, however, the situation turned around again as Chinese forces entered the war to help the North Koreans, and U.N. troops were once again pushed south. In action that became legendary in the annals of Marine Corps history, troops at frozen Chosin Reservoir fought a valiant rear-guard action. Shortly before Christmas, the Marines moved to an evacuation site in the port of Hungnam on the east coast, where the Missouri created a curtain of fire between the advancing enemy and the retreating allies. Though the ship no longer performed the ship-against-ship missions for which she was designed, her guns proved an invaluable weapon for land war, with each 16-inch projectile capable of producing a crater some 30 feet in diameter.

By 1951, the battleship had settled into a wartime routine that included bombarding enemy facilities on shore, supporting ground troops, and providing antiaircraft protection for carriers launching bombing strikes against North Korea. Periodically she would meet up with supply ships for replenishment at sea or travel to Sasebo, Japan, to take on ammunition and give the crew some free time ashore. Missouri’s first combat service in Korea ended in mid-March, six months after her arrival, and she began the long trip back to the United States.

By this time the navy had begun pulling other World War II-era ships from mothballs for return to active duty. Among them was the Missouri’s sister ship, New Jersey, slated as her relief. The two ships crossed paths at the Panama Canal. The Wisconsin was recommissioned in March, and the Iowa would be recommissioned in August. With all four ships of the Iowa class back in active service, the situation had changed dramatically from the previous August when Ensign Royal learned that his New York liberty had been the last good time he would see for a while. Now the Missouri became part of a regular rotation as the battleships alternated between midshipman training cruises and deployments to the 7th Fleet off Korea.

The Missouri returned to Norfolk on April 27, more than eight months after her hurried departure for the war zone. Thousands of people turned out for the homecoming celebration. As the battleship headed toward her berth at the naval station’s pier seven, a biplane flew overhead, towing a long banner that read, ‘WELCOME HOME MIGHTY MO.’

During the summers of 1951 and 1952 the Missouri resumed her role as a training ship, but in September 1952, the battleship returned for more Far East duty. Taking command for the Missouri’s second deployment to Korea was Captain Warner Edsall. As the ship proceeded westward, Ensign Lawrence ‘Ace’ Treadwell, a recent naval academy graduate and not long married, was standing on the Missouri’s bridge when he heard Captain Edsall remark, ‘It’s great to be back to sea.’ Treadwell would have preferred to be home with his wife, but the captain realized he had one of the choicest commands in the navy, and he meant to enjoy it.

By the autumn of 1952 the Korean War had settled down to a stalemate. North Korean and U.N. representatives met at Panmunjom to seek some sort of negotiated settlement. President Truman had ruled out taking the war north to China, but he was determined to hold onto territory in South Korea during the peace talks. So the Missouri continued her program of shore attacks.

The battleship remained so far off shore during her bombardment missions that she was essentially invulnerable. One of the Missouri’s targets was the port of Wonsan, a transportation hub and industrial center on the east coast of North Korea. On March 5 and March 10, 1953, North Korean gunners at Wonsan retaliated and succeeded in firing some shrapnel onto the battleship’s broad fantail. The range was long for Missouri’s less powerful 5-inch guns, but they were aimed toward Wonsan and pumped out 998 rounds, by far the most prolific day for the smaller guns during the deployment.

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.

---

This article was written by Paul Stillwell and originally published in the February 1999 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!

Pages: 1 2