Town Bids Farewell to ‘Mighty Mo’

Her massive guns silenced and only a faded plaque marking one of the most famous places in world history, the World War II battleship Missouri is accepting final tributes here before moving to Hawaii.

Since its commissioning in June 1944, the “Mighty Mo” has survived kamikaze attacks, the last great battles of World War II, the Korean War, Operation Desert Storm and even running aground in Chesapeake Bay.

But the ship is best known as the site of Japan’s formal World War II surrender, which ended the war in the Pacific on Sept. 2, 1945.

In April, the rusting 887-foot battleship will end its 42-year stay in the Navy’s mothball yard in Bremerton and be towed to Hawaii. It will be displayed in Pearl Harbor, near the site of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese bombing that propelled the United States into war.

In appreciation for local efforts to keep the Missouri in Bremerton, the Navy has allowed visitors one last walk around the “surrender” deck during three weekends in January, ending this weekend.

Thousands have accepted the invitation. The ship has been closed to the public since 1984, except for a three-month period in 1995 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.

“It’s a thrill for me to come aboard this vessel every time,” said Mel Schmuck, 73, a retired radio technician who served on the Missouri at the end of World War II. “There is a lot of history around here.”

Schmuck was at his post inside the ship while Japanese Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Allies’ supreme commander, signed the document declaring Japan’s unconditional surrender.

“It was pretty exciting,” he said a few yards from where the signing took place. “I could hear it on the public address system, but I couldn’t see it.”

Schmuck also remembers the day in April 1945 when the Missouri opened fire on a low-flying Japanese kamikaze pilot. The suicidal pilot penetrated a curtain of explosive shells and crashed just below the main deck. The ship incurred superficial damage when a wing of the plane started a gasoline fire near a gun mount.

Schmuck, a member of a local group opposed to moving the ship, is offended by Hawaii’s plans to use music, costumes and interactive video displays to turn the battleship into a fun museum. He would prefer a more low-key display.

He also says moving the ship to Hawaii encroaches on the solemn memorial to the Arizona, which sank in Pearl Harbor with 1,177 sailors and Marines aboard the day America’s war began.

Others, like Melvin Woodard, a gunner’s mate on the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, accept the ship’s fate and just want a last look at the most famous of the “battlewagons.” Woodard served for a time on the Missouri’s sister ship, the Iowa.

“I think it’s a shame they’re taking her where she can’t be seen by more people,” said Woodard, who visited the ship with his three young children, Morgan, Austin and Brandy.

He lamented the Missouri’s current condition. The battleship is wedged between two retired aircraft carriers--the Midway and the Ranger--among the crowded ranks of mothballed ships at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Rust spots are eating away at the gray hull, the teak deck is faded and the interior is sealed.

“If they take her, I hope they take better care of her” in Hawaii, Woodard said. “It makes me real sad to see her treated like this.”

As the Woodards and others toured the ship, a rough recording of MacArthur’s speech during the Japanese surrender ceremony blared through loudspeakers.

“Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world, and that God will preserve it always,” MacArthur said.