Battleship Missouri Memorial

Battleship Missouri Memorial Review

Together with the Arizona Memoria, the Missouri's presence in Pearl Harbor perfectly bookends America's WWII experience that began December 7, 1941, and ended on the "Mighty Mo's" starboard deck with the signing of the Terms of Surrender. To begin your visit, pick up tickets at the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument Visitors' Center (to be completed Dec 2010) and board a shuttle bus for the eight-minute ride to Ford Island and the teak decks and towering superstructure of the Missouri. You'll find her docked for good in the very harbor from which she first went to war on January 2, 1945. The last battleship ever built, the Missouri famously hosted the final act of WWII, the signing of the Terms of Surrender. After a year in dry dock, the Missouri has recently reopened looking ship-shape and offering a new "Guide2GO" system using iPod Touch units as audio tour devices The nonprofit organization that governs this floating museum has surrounded her with buildings tricked out in WWII style— a WWII Navy aviation-themed Ready Room, and a Victory Store housing a souvenir shop and covered with period mottos ("Don't be a blabateur").

The Missouri is all about numbers: 887 feet long and 209 feet tall with nine 239,000-pound guns, capable of firing up to 23 mi away. Absorb these during the tour, then stop to take advantage of the view from the decks.