Gleaming ‘Big Mo’ in Hawaii on Last Cruise

It is the last of a breed of fighting ships, the end of the line for the behemoth dreadnoughts whose names have been etched into naval history.

The Japanese surrender in World War II was signed on its decks, and its huge 16-inch guns were last fired in anger in the Persian Gulf.

This final cruise, however, was not to wage war, but to take part in “Operation Remembrance,” the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Afterward, the 887-foot, 58,000-ton battleship Missouri will be returned to Long Beach where it embarked on this mission Nov. 29. It will then be retired--”decommissioned”--before being towed to Bremerton, Wash., where it will be mothballed.

“It’s almost like I’m losing a part of my family,” said Yeoman 2nd Class John Lewis. “It’s real hard to see her go.”

Lewis, 28, of Palmyra, Mo., is a “plank owner,” part of the first crew when the Missouri was taken out of mothballs and recommissioned in 1986.

He had to pull some strings to get aboard for this “last ride” since he is now assigned to an aircraft carrier group based in San Diego.

“I didn’t want to leave this ship in the first place,” he said. “There are only two kinds of sailors in the Navy--those who have been battleship sailors and those who wish they could have been.”

For the Missouri’s commanding officer, Capt. Albert L. Kaiss, the venerable old battlewagon is “the ultimate in commands at sea.”

“As a surface line officer, there is no finer command than the command of a battleship,” said Kaiss, 51, of Coronado.

Even lying peacefully at anchor in Long Beach, the Missouri has a menacing presence. For all of its elegant lines, it is a lethal vessel with its nine big guns and 12 five-inch cannons. It also bristles with four 20-millimeter Gatling-type guns that can lay down a curtain of fire against attacking aircraft by firing 50 rounds a second.

And with the addition of Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles, it has become an even more efficient, high-tech killing machine--a capacity demonstrated in the Gulf War.

But the time for killing has passed for a while. And should it return, the “platforms,” as the Navy calls its fighting ships, will be newer, more efficient, less costly.

The cruise to Pearl Harbor got underway Nov. 29 in heavy seas with swells up to 12 feet and winds gusting between 50 and 75 m.p.h. Even some veteran sailors found the ride too rough, and scores battled seasickness worse than any they had encountered before.

“We had people go through a typhoon near Korea, and they didn’t get sick,” said machinist’s mate Joseph McNair, 24, of Baltimore. “But they got sick in this.”

The pounding seas snapped a line on a 30-foot utility boat and sent it crashing into the 36-foot captain’s gig secured just below it.

In addition, a 46-foot admiral’s barge came off its skids and lay precariously on its side.

The 800-pound ship’s bell was sent careening across the teak decks, leaving a trail of heavy gouges. The assaulting sea exploited every weakness it could find to come splashing into passageways, the infirmary, even the officer’s lounge.

After two days out in the six-day crossing, the seas mercifully subsided.

“We sit low in the water,” said Cmdr. T. McCreary, the ship’s spokesman. “We take a lot of water over the deck anyway. Things come loose, break off. This is light damage for getting underway in seas like this.”

With the calmer weather, every crew member appeared to be armed with sandpaper, a paint brush, a wrench. Nearly every daylight hour was spent sprucing up the ship, making sure it looked its best for the arrival in Hawaii.

After all, President Bush, would be coming aboard today, along with Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In addition, 1,000 people would stand on the fantail to watch the ceremonies at the Arizona Memorial in the harbor.

But that would come later. The trip across was also a time for remembering.

Anthony Alessandro, president of the USS Missouri Assn., was a seaman aboard the battleship when the Japanese surrendered Sept. 2, 1945.

“We were apprehensive about going into Tokyo Bay,” said Alessandro, 65, of Cincinnati. “We didn’t know if the Japanese would surrender or not.”

A few months earlier, in the waning days of the war, a kamikaze pilot had crashed his plane into the Missouri’s starboard side, just below the main deck.

“We hit that plane with everything we had,” recalled Alessandro. “I don’t know how it got through. Fortunately, the plane didn’t do that much damage. But the pilot’s body was cut in half. We gave him a burial at sea, but some of the guys wanted no part of a ceremony for the enemy.”

Had Harry S. Truman not been President, the Japanese surrender might well have taken place aboard another warship. But Truman, a powerful senator in 1944, was the primary speaker at the ship’s launching in January of that year, and his daughter Margaret christened it.

Officials had planned to use a fine old mahogany table from a British warship for the surrender ceremony, but it was too small for the surrender documents, said naval historian Paul Stillwell, who was aboard the Missouri for the final trip to Pearl Harbor.

A rickety table was taken from the enlisted men’s mess, covered with a felt cloth from the officers’ mess and taken up to what has become known as the surrender deck for the ceremony, said Stillwell, an editor at the private U.S. Naval Institute.

After the ceremony, the table was taken back to the mess, and the cloth was tossed into a corner, he said, until someone realized how much historical value the two items had. They were quickly retrieved and sent to the Navy Museum at the Naval Academy.

As other battleships went off to mothballs, scrap heaps or service as memorials after the war, the Missouri remained in service. Again, Truman was looking out for the ship named after his native state.

Carrier-based planes had been decisive in sea battles, and experts in naval warfare concluded that the day of the battleship had passed. Three of the last four built were put in mothballs, and the Missouri joined them in 1955, remaining there for 31 years.

But when the United States was embarrassed by the takeover of its embassy in Tehran, Ronald Reagan made it a point of his presidency to visibly flex American military muscle around the world. Returning the battleship to service was his quick fix, said Stillwell.

Opponents argue that battleships require too many men--1,500--making them too expensive to operate, and that Tomahawk missiles can be fired from smaller ships.

Supporters counter that the battleship proved its worth in the Gulf, and that an aircraft carrier needs four times as many men. Besides, planes can be shot down, but a battleship’s shells can’t.

The opponents, have won--at least for now.

“The secretaries of the Navy and defense said they realized the value of battleships in the Gulf,” said Kaiss. “But it’s really expensive to try to maintain that capability.

“We’ve gone through this cycle since World War II,” Kaiss said, noting that battleships have gone in and out of commission.

“Will they be brought back again? History is a wonderful thing. It has a tendency to repeat itself.”

For the sailors aboard the Missouri, there is no question that they are the best sailors aboard the best ship.

“Battleship sailors, we get the big head,” said bosun’s mate Ernest Ervin of Reidsville, N.C. “We’re the best. In any competition with another ship, we come out on top.

“We work hard, and the work is tedious. But when we pull into port, we look good. We know that.”

Pulling into Pearl Harbor at daybreak Thursday, the Missouri attracted scores of onlookers who waved enthusiastically from the shore.

The symbolism of the Missouri, where the war ended, passing the memorial for the Arizona, where it began, “encapsulates the entire World War II era,” Kaiss noted.

When the Missouri made its way into the harbor, all the rust had been removed, several sections bore new paint, the decks glistened, and every piece of brass had been polished. Its crew, turned out in summer white uniforms, manned the rails. An honor guard of Marines showed the colors.

The battlewagon, nearing 50, looked good. And the crew knew it.