USS MISSOURI (BB-63)
Born in the midst of World War II, the shipyard workers at Brooklyn’s New York Navy Yard constructed the battleship in time for her launch on January 29, 1944 and commissioning as the USS Missouri on June 11, 1944 with Capt. William M. Callaghan in command.
The USS Missouri was the third U.S. Navy ship to be named after the Show Me state and the fourth American warship* to bear the name - there was a Confederate Missouri that was captured by Union forces during the Civil War but never commissioned as a United States Ship (USS). Today, a Virginia - class submarine, USS Missouri (SSN-780) has the honor of being the fourth USS Missouri and carrying the Missouri legacy into the future.
USS Missouri’s as-built design characteristics include: displacement 45,000; length 887'3"; beam 108'2"; draft 28'11"; speed 33 knots; complement 1,921; armament nine 16-inch, twenty 5-inch, eighty 40 millimeter, forty-nine 20 millimeter; class Iowa.
*In the merchant fleet there were other ships named Missouri.
