Why did the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War take place on USS Missouri, a battleship that had served for less than a year in the Pacific War?
USS Missouri was the last battleship commissioned into the United States Navy, although not the last laid down. Like her sisters USS Iowa, USS New Jersey, and USS Wisconsin, she displaced 45,000 tons, carried nine 16”/50 guns in three triple turrets, and could make over 30 knots. Missouri entered service in June 1944 and joined the forward elements of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in January. Like other fast battleships, she served as part of Task Force 58, the carrier force that constituted the core of U.S. naval power in the last two years of the war. Missouri participated in several operations in the last year of the war, including the bombardments of Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Japan. For the rest of the time, she escorted U.S. carrier groups, protecting them from air (and potentially surface) attacks.
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