USS Missouri - The World At War (1944-1950)

hi I'm Wes Carey during the Persian Gulf War I was the first attendant band deck department head here aboard the USS Missouri the USS Missouri known as the last battleship was commissioned in 1944 during the Second World War the people you're about to meet participated in the defining moments of the life of the USS Missouri their words form an intimate portrait of this great ship I'd like to invite you to join me for a personal history of the mighty moe as told by some of the people who know her best the officers and men of the USS Missouri I left shoemaker California to the Brooklyn Navy Yard where the Missouri was being built and I was a part of a skeleton crew they were about 47 of us and it was called the pre commissioning detail we lived across Flushing Avenue from the Navy Yard and our job was to come over and learn the ship learn how to get around on the ship find out where all the water lines were and the ventilation lines and some of us went to school also like Welding school right in the Navy Yard On January 29th 1944 three years after her keel was laid the USS Missouri was christened and launched the dedication speech was made by the man from Missouri then senator harry s truman the ship's sponsor was his daughter Margaret Missouri entertai sister ships the IOA the New Jersey the Wisconsin would be the largest of the finest warships in the world in the armament to be installed in the Missouri will make her the most portable craft afloat the christening and launching of this greatest warship of all time illustrates the decisive answer which the democracies the world are making to the challenge of the aggressor Nations Missouri the show-me-state the battleship Missouri will show all Americans indeed all the world Renate seaworthiness very valid valid fighting spirit in the invincible power of the United States Navy the matter of the state of Missouri is Salus populi super evil excess though the welfare of the people is a supreme law I know that will be the mother of the officers in Menna Missouri may this great show me ship name for the show-me-state be an Avenger to the barbarians who what only slaughtered the heroes of battalion in leadership Missouri in the other ships of our Navy do their full share on behalf the people of the United States to maintain the peace which so far our total victory I thank you as a ship designated USS Missouri BB 63 slid into the East River bound for her final fitting out she began the voyage that would fulfill President Roosevelt's commitment that American forces would act to bring an end to the most terrible war in world history the mighty moe was commissioned in New York on June 11th her first captain was William Callahan I was present for the commissioning of the ship it was a solemn occasion but it was a big ceremony off All Hands were quarters the captain came aboard and the ceremonial key was handed to him as the skipper of the ship it was a thrill to have our own captain and underway the Missouri then embarked on a shakedown cruise aimed to hone the readiness of the ship and her complement of 2,500 sailors and Marines because of the threat of enemy submarine attacks in the Atlantic Ocean the Mo's given a coat of Dessel camouflage peaked when we came out of the Navy Yard the ship had concentric circles painted on the boughs and all the way back to cut down on his silhouette on a shakedown cruise they they fired the guns they put the ship through different maneuvers to see out handles they do everything they can like you would if you were breaking in a new car and those those things that did not meet the standards they were noted and back to the Navy Yard we went to fix those discrepancies with their systems tested and our men ready for combat the Missouri arrived in San Francisco where she was fitted out as a fleet flagship I went aboard in Missouri in San Francisco on December 10th 1944 when we left San Francisco we arrived at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve 1944 when we celebrated Christmas even though there were 2,700 people aboard the ship I was lonesome because you know it hadn't been too long since I had left my family and my brand-new wife and so on being in Pearl Harbor that December I was reminded of the Christmas season just three years previous when the Japanese surprise attack resulted in the destruction of battleship role in the deaths of so many men I have two friends that were aboard that are still aboard in Arizona entombed there they were they were caught in that they're still there we left Pearl Harbor for the South Pacific on January 1st of 1945 after the destruction of the battle force at Pearl Harbor the rebuilt Navy diversified the Pacific Fleet Missouri headed for the war zone as part of that fast carrier force her role was to provide anti-aircraft cover for the new carrier based strategy presently I'm setting in what we call Radio 2 and this was the main transmitter room however we had 10 different transmitter rooms I came aboard with a rating radio technician third class that put me in the CR division which is communication radio and the RT had the responsibility of maintaining all of the communication equipments aboard the ship now this is Radio 2 this is the area that I worked out of all the maintenance crews worked out of this this particular area and I see there's a lot of changes in here since I was aboard in this area we had probably five large transmitters that that we're located in this area over on this side over in here we have a missing today are the motor generators that were used to power up these heavy equipments and of course the air conditioning units over here are much the same I'm sure as they were way back in 45 but we're missing again lots of equipment here now down over in this corner we have a freak meter frequency meter that used to mount on that bulkhead and we would patch the frequencies set up frequencies in this piece of equipment and patching them over to the transmitters over here and tune the transmitters get them up on line and we were ready to go this was my station during anchoring and during the recovery of the anchors this is the break for the starboard anchor that is your stopping the chain this is the one for the port anchor was the job of the chief Carpenter's mate to man these wheels during the time that anchor was dropped or the anchor was recovered and he took his orders from the chief Bolton who was a Warrant Officer a Chief Warrant Officer usually at least he was on the Missouri here one of the little stories that we have tell about this the chief Bolton we had a loose anchor and so he called me and we came up to tighten up the anchor and he went up into right at about there and about that time we were in some great pretty heavy seas and we took water over in to hit him and he slid right down this way on the deck and there was a sailor standing behind a splash board in front of the guns who got a hold of him hurry to gone over the side I couldn't reach him because I was on these things and I wasn't gonna let go the Missouri was threatened by several typhoons extensive damage was inflicted by towering walls of solid ways known as green water I recall working on the bridge area on some of the equipment up there well we were in a typhoon and I can remember that we were taking green water over the top of turret 2 which is the pilot house and I was working in at that time was not a great deal higher than turret two and I always used to say that it was green water up to the bridge and whether it was really green water or foam I'm not sure but it it was quite exciting to see this see that bow out there rise and rise and rise and then drop and then you've got the water coming over in fact is I believe it was that same typhoon where we lost the 20 millimeter guns up on the bow there they were damaged from from the wave action it was that much pressure the damage was quite extensive up forward at that time you these sounds of the ship going through these these waves would be a pounding of course when you as the bow rises and drops you've got you feel probably more than you hear and then the ship will will drive down into those waves and you kind of get a shudder and then you're rising again and then trying to sleep in Iraq when you're going through a typhoon is it's got tough to do because you've got to brace yourself and it was the rolling that was the most difficult because our bunks were situated fore and aft and so you got the rolled the pitching was not did body a great deal but it was the rolling that you had to brace yourself for and I'd like to take you in here and show you the exact spot that I had my rack when I was bored back in 45 as you see here today we have three bunks high in their bunks and they have nice thick mattresses when their mattresses are aboard but in those days we had iron pipe that the outline of our rack and we laced our canvas to that rack and we had five high in in this space here there were probably thirty people in here in this particular compartment I was lucky I had the middle one in here so I didn't have to climb on anybody to get in and out but they were climbing on line to get to the upper racks and it incidentally that if the fellow above you didn't didn't lace his canvas tight enough then he's he's encroaching down on your area but we got along we didn't we didn't recognize I guess that there was anything that was going to be any different well let's see the Missouri is designed to be a self-contained floating city a place where her crew can work live and play from mail call to medical care from movies on the fantail to run the clock meals the ship was continually active meeting her crews needs the food aboard Missouri in my estimation was not bad Wednesday's that was bean day and as I recall we had beans for breakfast lunch and dinner in and all that bad is only one day a week during our time out in the Pacific we begin to notice little black specks in our bread and on closer inspection it showed that there were some kind of weevils in the bread so we would pick the weevils out of the bread and eat the bread then as time progressed we didn't want to take the time to pick the weevils out so we just ate weevils bread and all and then we just joked that we have we're getting fresh meat along with our bread so it was it was okay then it didn't seem to bother any of us when we were operating out in the Pacific and whenever it was possible I'm sure that each of us I did I wrote nearly every day and of course we we couldn't get the letters off the ship every day we would post them at the post office up on the second deck each of our letters was censored so you really weren't able to say a great deal about what the operations were but someone aboard the ship wrote letters that was disseminated to each of the crew crewmen aboard and we could address these letters to our folks at home and the it was very general the information that was there and when we were given provided supplies the supply ships came along and we picked up fuel and and supplies and of course mail Saxon sacks of mail came aboard and our sacks and sacks of mail left the ship and and eventually found its way home you wouldn't go to the post office and look for your letters up there we had a person from the division assigned to go pick up our mail so he had armfuls of mail and would come down into this space and distribute it to the maintenance gang and then he'd he'd have the letters for the for the radio operators and that would be distributed up and radial one that was very important that that we did receive these letters from home the Missouri had numerous regularly scheduled activities for crew members who were off duty some were meant to help the men relax and have fun other events brought them spiritual support what I remember are the poker games that were conducted right down here in Radio 2 and I can't tell you what we used as a table but it probably was some piece of large piece of metal that we balanced on the top of the motor generators here but that was the extent of the recreation down here however we did have smokers occasionally and wrestling boxing and those activities they they were the organized activities for the ship of course we had services each Sunday conducted by the chaplains aboard and that was incidentally very well attended in my recollection and when it when we were able we had those services out on the fantail where we had lots of room when we arrived in Ulithi we were assigned to carrier task groups and our job was to provide anti-aircraft cover for those carriers we were some successful in the time we were out there we downed 11 Japanese aircraft when when we get into a situation where we're going to be involved with enemy ships enemy aircraft so forth General Quarters is sounded and that means each of us has a specific station that we've got to get to as quick as we can General Quarters we just called it GQ I can recall one time that I was I was working up at this 10th level radio 10 and we GQ was sounded and I couldn't leave the space until I had been relieved by the person that would have that as a GQ station so he never got up there and so I stayed and we have binocular slots in that compartment up there and there's a little hatch that is supposed to be flipped down and dog clothes it was wind but I thought it would be interesting to see what was going on out there so I left those ports open and I was amazed at the aircraft coming in aircraft being launched from the carriers the downing of some of the Japanese aircraft coming in explosions all over the horizon I'm glad I survived that without getting anything through those little ports up there along with the rest of the fast carrier force part of Missouri's mission was to destroy Japanese military strongholds tripling their ability to respond to the plant Allied landings at Iwo Jima and Okinawa accuracy and targeting was crucial Scout planes acted as the indispensable eyes of the ships at sea the Missouri carried two float type planes and they were mounted on catapults both port and starboard they were fired off the catapult with a 5-inch shell the shell was put in right alongside the catapult in the explosion then carried the carriage fort forward and catapulted the plane out into space to recover those planes the ship would have to make a starboard or a port turn very sharp one to smooth out the sea then the planes would come in and land on the smooth water they were used to spot for the big guns that were hit maybe a bombardment and they'd get up above the beach that they were bombarding and they could tell by radio they could tell then where the shells were landing whether it was short or long or whatever they became a very integral part of bombardment beach bombardment probably the first time that we had a chance to do any Shore bombardment was on Okinawa and that's when we fired a number of rounds and from all the 16-inch turret on to Okinawa and of course then we moved up into the area of the Japanese homeland island we bombarded into the Tokyo area not Tokyo itself some of the industrial areas Missouri's mighty 16-inch guns destroyed numerous military and industrial targets this footage from 1950 illustrates the efficiency of the gunfire team the fire your guns this is after main battery plot so you would have communication from here to the turret officer and the turret captain and a turret and they would tell you what you were going to shoot we would break that powder out you know get it out of the cans in the magazine and we would find where the projectiles we were going to shoot for that day because they're sitting on her base on the upper or the lower projectile flats and you would get your orders to load you loaded your projectile we'd come up your projectile hoist and a couple stages we'd come up behind you're spanning tray your gun would go to 2300 five minutes elevation and it would be steady right there you're spanning tray would go out the front of it would be inside the back of the chamber of the gun your projectile would then be laying in a horizontal position and your ram Ehrman would ram it full force into the barrel and when it would go into the bar would be seated into the rotate vans then you're a merman would retract his grammar when he retracted his rammer the gun captain who was on the right hand side he would point towards the window where the powder cart operator could see they would open the door to the powder cart and it would be a tray three rounds of powder we roll down into your spanning tray two rounds and be pushed or two bags and be pushed forward one bag would be push tab and then they move your powder card another level it dump three more rounds and they would go lay down in here and your spanning tray and always the red end the quilted end of the powder bag would be asked because that's the end you ignite to shoot around then your Ammerman would then wrap the six bags of powder into the chamber and there's a lip in there and you just have a certain place you put it inside the chamber then you retract your rammer comes all the way back aft in the gun room your span and tray will come back up your breech will close your gun captain hits the handle on your breech to close it lock it he gets back off of the while all this is going on underneath is the primer man your primer man is putting a primer in at a mark 14 fire lock and he gets out of the way the gun captain will then step back onto a platform off the side of the gun he hits a ready switch when you hit a ready switch it'll light a light and a chart booth telling you the center gun is ready it's loaded and the gun will also go out into wherever the signal from the clock room is coming from or in and you're ready to shoot when they give you commence fire then your turret officer could close this key or if he has a button and various other people in a turret when they're ready they close or keys inside the turret it's not very much noise you've got all the machinery running the sound is outside in April the Missouri and other ships of the fast carrier force were subjected to a harrowing series of air attacks from Japanese bomber and by the suicide bombers known as kamikaze the divine wind of the Japanese Imperial forces buzzer EES crew endured this strain of extraordinary and constant vigilance during some of the operations I had a GQ station at that time down in combat Information Center and we had a talker on the phone down there that was receiving information from topside and he was excitedly relaying to everyone down in CIC that we had this kamikaze coming in from aft and he was giving us a blow-by-blow he's up he's down and he's hit April the 11th 1945 this was my battle station along with four other damage Controlman our job was to put out any spot fires or any other damage that might occur we've got word very shortly that we've been hit by camicazi and gasoline had been spewed all over the decks up above us here and as a damage Controlman I came up from tortue and we were fighting fire all along here under the 5-inch ready boxes and the 40 millimeter it came in from this quarter and as it was coming in you can see tracer bullets going through I believe at the time it was set up where every third or fifth shell out of the 40 millimeters was a tracer and you could see tracers going right through but he still came on IED out here about 50 feet or so the plane broke in two and it was said that he dropped the bomb out there however the engine part and the Japanese pilot hit right about here the only thing that came aboard was a wing and half of the Japanese pilot and it came in right here and spewed gasoline all over this area here all the way to the surrender deck it was that fire that we had to fight to put out that pilot was buried a few days afterwards he was sewed up in a canvas bag and just about where the quarterdeck starts the gangway starts he was DS Dover the side buried at sea with full colors I I remember how I felt about I thought it was a very humane thing to do at the time Harry Truman who had become vice president in the November 1944 election became president following the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945 Truman who was well served by the experience of his Navy leaders who increasingly outcast the tactics of Emperor Hirohito's High Command Admiral Chester Nimitz commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet directed that blunt spoken Admiral William bull Halsey to assume command of the Third Fleet the Missouri became palsies flagship sometime when we're off Okinawa Admiral Halsey called down to the or one of his aides called down to the carpenter shop and he said he wanted to see the chief Carpenter's mate so I went up to the wardroom and he had a crate that he'd been given by the Reno Chamber of Commerce so I opened it up for him and it was a saddle a bridle and a saddle blanket and he said chief can you make me a horse and I said Admiral if you tell me to make a horse I'm going to have to try but I never made one before so he kind of laughed he says no chief what I want is just something to show the crew I can hang the saddle on the crew on the horse and just for the crew so I said sure Admiral I can do that so we made him a horse and to display his saddle on and so I took it up here and he said well let's put it on so we tried it and it fit pretty well we put the saddle blanket on and and he said well now help me up into the saddle here and I helped him up in the saddle and he said you know chief if I don't keep my big mouth I'm going to have to ride that damn white horse of higher ojitos the war in Europe ended on May 8th slowly American and Allied forces were gaining control of the course of the war in the Pacific the Imperial High Command had made a series of fatal tactical errors which decimated their air and naval defenses an invasion of the Japanese homeland island was among the considered options sometime in around the 1st of August they had they had chosen a bunch of hands - for landing and it was supposed to be a coordinated landing Navy Army Marine Corps and everyone there were several fellows in my division as a matter of fact there was a couple of my carpenters mates who were issued a landing gear that is clothing in case they were called that did not come to pass because after the they dropped the atomic bomb shortly afterwards the Japanese surrendered and that invasion force was not needed there when we were informed by captain Murray that via PA system over the whole ship that the war was over they certainly was a sense of relief even though we still had to be pretty careful on our what we were doing or how we operated and so on but it was with some relief that that we received that information and of course it was party time as you could imagine like clapping each other on the back and shaking hands and and that type of thing and whistles blowing in in that part of the fleet that we were in at that time but it was just the fact that that it was over we had survived and we were going to be going home back to those that we loved and loved us the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked President Truman where the formal surrender should take place Truman replied that it would dramatically underscore Japan's total defeat if the Japanese surrender was staged aboard a u.s. naval ship in Tokyo Bay Admiral Nimitz was meanwhile finalizing plans for the peaceful occupation of Japan President Roosevelt died in April of 1945 mr. Truman was vice president became president and at the time that that Admiral Nimitz was requested to pick the site for the signing of the surrender documents he very astutely decided that it probably should be aboard the USS Missouri named after the state of Missouri where our president had originated the feeling was that can we trust them to let us get into Tokyo Bay and preceding us were several destroyers and a cruiser that went in ahead of us before we anchored in Tokyo Bay and the feeling was that well they did it once they may do it again that was that was a pretty pervasive feeling at board ship by August 29 the Missouri was anchored a few miles south of Tokyo Bay where they received navigational charts and minefield plots for the next two days while mine sweepers cleared the bay a close eye was camped on Tokyo's airfield and naval base when we went into Tokyo Bay of course we're at at certain conditions aboard ship that where we are dogged down on the hatches dog down is locked and in case we would strike anything or hit a mine that that was not charted anything like that so we could protect the ship so you're not up on deck except those folks that are stationed up in those areas so when we got on anchor and had a chance to go up I was impressed certainly with mount Fujiyama but also impressed with the fact that as I looked around with the the trees on the shore and that type of thing it wasn't a great deal different from Puget Sound September 2nd 1945 this was the surrender deck it was on these on this deck that the Japanese delegation signed the conditions of these surrender to General MacArthur on the outside of the deck we had built a long platform for photographers to be on and over here was a gun had been taken off only the gun tub was still there and they had we put a platform on top of that I'd come to this deck with my first class petty officer to hang Admiral Perry's flag above the door but the captain's door here after we had hung it ceremonies were just about to start just a few minutes before ceremonies were starting so we went through the door which leads to the wardroom and back up and we went up to the yardarm I had found myself up here near the yardarm with the Russian photographer a commander one of my first class petty officers the four of us were in the tub we knew that history was being made and we were all very thrilled about it we were watching the arrival of all the high brass in the Navy Admirals and captains and they were standing right down below us here along the Barbet of turret to Admiral Halsey Nimitz and the other officers were up against the Barbet and about a half an hour later macarthur arrived on the port side in a destroyer and he was piped aboard by a boat's inmate and he came up the ladder just at the end of the surrender deck and there was no doubt in anyone's mind who was in charge the whole ship was very very quiet when he came aboard the Missouri MacArthur went to Admiral Halsey cabin to await the arrival of the Japanese delegation the Japanese delegation arrived and they were standing just about on the outside of where the plaque now stands and they were standing in the very hot Sun I felt kind of sorry for him because the Sun was coming down and they were dressed in tails and top hat the general that had come with them was in his khakis and the Sun was very hot I thought that they should have been given chairs or something even though they were my enemies at the time then all of a sudden MacArthur was coming and a buzz went through the ship and he took his place behind a mess table that they had set up for the surrender table it was just an ordinary mess table but it was covered with some green velvet covering that made it good to ride on I guess and then MacArthur began the proceedings from where I stood up here I could watch his hands and they were shaking and he began the ceremonies a very stern voice and there was no quavering and his voice but you could tell that even MacArthur was nervous at the time we are gathered here representatives of the major warring powers conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored even though the all the activity was up here on the old one level and on the main decks there were some of us that weren't fortunate enough to be up here and we had duties below decks my own was down in the transmitter room we had to keep our transmitters up so that we could be transmitting the information necessary to so the world would know what was happening up here the time had come for the signing of the instrument of surrender the first signatory was Japanese Foreign Minister Sheikh omitsu the Japanese aides came up with Sheikh omitsu who signed on the paper and then the other signatories came up one by one with a keen sense of the historical significance of his actions MacArthur used five different pens to sign his name MacArthur then signed and he took one pen he gave it to vinegar Joe Stillwell general Stilwell he gave the other pen to general Jonathan Wainwright who had been a prisoner of the Japanese the third pen went to the archives in Washington DC and the fourth to the archives at West Point the general saved the last one as a souvenir for mrs. MacArthur when it was all over MacArthur announced that these proceedings are over and Halsey and all the other Admiral then gathered around and there was quite a bunch of people right down on the deck there and then one by one they started to leave it was a great thrill for me to watch this proceeding because I knew that history was being made I think everyone aboard knew that this was a piece of history that would last for many many years and it was a thrill for me to see all the Admirals and generals that I had read about during the war the piece of decking that I'm holding has an inscription on it it says made of teak wood from the deck of the USS Missouri where the surrender terms were signed in Tokyo Bay September 2nd 1945 and it came right out from under this plot this plaque that was struck later and put in the name put by the Navy Yard in the deck here to commemorate this particular spot on the ship I was the chief carpenters made on here and I had got five pieces of the deck I gave one to captain Murray I gave one to my first lieutenant I gave one to my division officer and one to the engineering officer because he had had these brass plaque things made for us and I took the fifth one that was my privilege of as the chief carbons me after the signing ceremony the Missouri left Tokyo Bay and we picked up about four or five hundred Seabees in Guam and we were going to take them back to San Francisco but when we got to Pearl Harbor orders were changed and they wanted us straight through the Panama Canal to New York City going through Panama Canal on the way home was caught in a experience for me never having been through as I indicated I'd picked up the ship at San Francisco so she had already come through on her westward trip going back we went to the canal and I was amazed that with a hundred and eight foot beam on this vessel and a hundred and ten foot wide locks through the Panama Canal you can imagine that there wasn't a great deal of clearance so we I would be up on deck whenever I had a chance and going through some of the locks that first we'd move off to one side and we scrape on the concrete there and then we'd move over to the other side and scrape on that side so it we didn't have a lot of space going through but it was it was a thrill to to get through the lakes and and the locks that that combined make up the Panama Canal we got to New York City the city gave us the keys there were great big signs welcome home it was just a wonderful thing this wonderful thing to be a board ship and to be welcomed like that we were inundated with with visitors aboard we had thousands people come aboard during those days in fact it was so crowded it was difficult to get around on our own our own vessel that we called home it was it was tough but it was fun because all of these folks were just terribly interested in what was going on but we were also warned that if there was anything lying around loose you had better secure it because things were disappearing their souvenirs certainly and I heard the story that even people would reach into the muzzles on the 16-inch guns and scratch out scrape out the grease that was there and getting it under their fingernails and taking it home with them I don't know what they were doing but anyhow they had they got something off of the USS Missouri President Truman came aboard the Missouri to conduct the fleet review the president sat down at the surrender table a few feet away from the newly installed surrender plaque signing his name in Missouri's guest book he said this is the happiest day of my life they treated us like a million dollars the Big Apple really turned out you you you you I

Channel: Señor Alec Thompson

Views: 696,558

Rating: 4.7724643 out of 5

Keywords: USS Missouri (BB-63) (Ship), Battleship Missouri, US Navy, World War II (Military Conflict), Japanese Surrender

Id: 3Jm3E3kClUE

Length: 47min 43sec (2863 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 28 2015