The battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) is arguably one of the most famous ships. On this very ship, General Yoshijiro Umezu signed the instrument of surrender on behalf of Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese armed forces on 02 September 1945, bringing final closure to the Second World War. The USS Missouri was constructed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and commissioned on the 11th of June 1944. She was the last of the iconic Iowa-class battleships ever built and quite naturally for a battleship, heavily armed. USS Missouri was equipped with nine "Mark 7" 16-inch guns which fired 2,700 pound shells over a distance of 20 miles. In addition she carried twenty “Mark 12” 5-inch guns, 49 "Oerlikon" 20 millimeter cannons and eigthy “Borfors” 40 millimeter guns. USS Missouri fought the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Imperial Japanese Navy Admiral Takijiro Onishi contrived and set up the first Kamikaze Special Attack Unit with nearly 2,800 Kamikaze planes sent to their suicidal one-way missions. They damaged 368 ships and were responsible for the sinking of 34 more. The attacks also accounted for over 4900 Navy sailor and Marine deaths, leaving another 4,800 wounded. On April 11th, 1945, USS Missouri was hit by a Kamikaze plane, piloted by either Petty Officer 2nd Class Setsuo Ishino or same ranking Kenkichi Ishii. The 1000-pound bomb that the Japanese fighter carried did not explode.

U.S. Navy sailor Harold Campbell caught on camera when the Petty Officer was about to hit USS Missouri

Remains of the pilot's upper body were found among the wreckage. The Captain of the USS Missouri, Commander William Callaghan ordered a military burial at sea the next day for the Japanese aviator. The body parts of the pilot were placed in a canvas shroud and draped with a makeshift Japanese flag, sewn by crewmembers of USS Missouri. A 6-man burial detail stood at attention and offered a salute as a Marine rifle detail rendered a three-volley salute over the remains of the Japanese non-commissioned Officer. The ship’s bugler then stepped forward and played Taps while the detail committed the body to the deep.

A machine gun from the crashed Kamikaze plane got lodged into one of Missouri’s Borfors gun

emplacement. The "Mighty Mo” went on to serve in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. Forty-seven years after her commissioning, the USS Missouri was modernized and sent to battle Iraqi troops in “Operation Desert Storm”. Her final resting place came in 1998, where the USS Missouri has been honored as a museum ship at Foxtrot 5 Pier on Ford Island, Pearl Harbor.

To this day, the bent side railing has never been replaced. It is visible where the Japanese fighter plane

hit the USS Missouri.