USS Massachusetts (BB-59) (Fall River, Massachusetts)

 battleship, warship, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, United States Navy, museum ship, U.S. National Historic Landmark

The USS Massachusetts is the third member of the South Dakota Class of Fast Battleships built by the US Navy in the late 1930's in response to increasingly ominous world events. Her keel was laid at Fore River Shipyard in Salem, MA on July 20, 1939 and her construction lasted almost 3 years before she commissioned into service on May 12th, 1942.

By this time, the US was involved in WWII and the brand new Battleship almost immediately deployed to North Africa, where she fired the first shells from a US Battleship during WWII onto the Vichy French Fleet moored at Casablanca. Following North African operations, the Massachusetts returned to the US for refit and redeployment to the Pacific Theater, where her 9 16-inch guns, speed and powerful anti-aircraft batteries were needed in the fight against the Japanese.

Arriving in New Caledonia in March 1943, the Massachusetts would prowl the Pacific for the next 2 years, eventually seeing action at Nauru, Kwajalein, Truk, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, the Phillipines, Hong Kong, Saigon, Okinawa and eventually the Japanese home Islands. She was a member of the bombardment group of the Kawaishi Steel Works in Kamaishi, Japan on August 9th, 1945, which was the final bombardment by US Battleships during WWII.

Following the war she served on several Midshipmen Cruises before she was decommissioned into reserve in March 1947, after 5 years of dedicated service. She remained in the mothballs until 1965 when a veterans group purchased her from the US Navy and brought her to Fall River, where she serves as a museum ship.

www.navsource.org/archives/01/59a.htm
www.battleshipcove.org/