Today marks the 70th anniversary of the ending of World War II. General Douglas MacArthur signed the surrender for the United States on board the U.S.S. Missouri which like the U.S.S. Arizona was built in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Many of the important ships that you read about in American history books were built in Brooklyn. The Monitor, The Maine, The Arizona, The Iowa and of course, The Missouri. During the Revolution, the Brooklyn waterfront businesses outfitted merchant ships a thriving trade on both sides of the East River. In 1806, the federal government opened up the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The yard’s Dry Dock Number 1 was perhaps one of the most famous in the Navy due to the building of the Monitor there in 1861.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, many of the workers at the Brooklyn yard volunteered to go to Hawaii to raise the ships that were damaged. The yard, already one of Brooklyn’s largest employers, began to turn out almost every class of naval ship to defeat the Japanese and the Nazis. The Missouri was one of the Iowa class battleships. These battleships were designed by the Navy for speed and power. The first of the class, the U.S.S. Iowa was also built at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Missouri would be the last Iowa class ship commissioned by the Navy. Construction began on the ship in January of 1941 and it was launched three years later in 1944. It was christened by Margaret Truman whose father at the time, was the senior Senator from Missouri. The ship was sent to the Pacific theatre and was at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In April of 1945, the ship was attacked by kamikazes but received only minor damage.
On September 2, 1945, the Allies and the Japanese signed the official surrender on the deck of the Missouri. But the surrender was not the end of service for this Brooklyn built ship, it would go on to serve in the Korean War. The ship was decommissioned in 1955 and became an important tourist attraction at the Puget Sound Naval Yard until 1984 when she was re-activated and modernized by the Reagan Administration. Once again, Margaret Truman recommissioned the “new” U.S.S. Missouri. The ship would serve her country through the Persian Gulf war protecting American troops as she did in the waters of the Pacific almost fifty years before. The ship was decommissioned in 1995. It was then sent to join the other Brooklyn ship at the bottom of Pearl Harbor – the U.S.S. Arizona. The two Brooklyn ships that began and ended the bloodiest conflict in human history were now together.
Sadly, the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard was closed by the government in 1966 and the land was sold to New York City. The great naval history of the yard can be viewed at Bldg92, a wonderful museum of the rich history of the United States Navy in Brooklyn. http://bldg92.org
Bowery & Canal 