photo #2768381

This World War I Battleship Survived Long Enough to Launch Missiles. Like most U.S. battleships, Mississippi was heavily modernized during the interwar period. The most exciting part of her service came on the morning of October 24, 1944, when she, along with five other battleships, participated in the destruction of the Japanese battleship HIJMS Yamashiro. After the war she was converted into a gunnery training ship and given a new designation, AG-128. Mississippi was more fortunate than her sisters and half-sisters, who found themselves either at the bottom of Bikini Atoll, at the scrap yard, or in reserve. In late 1952, she was equipped with Terrier surface-to-air missiles for testing purposes. The initial Terriers were not tremendously useful, with a range of only ten nautical miles, but they offered a good start on the revolution of USN anti-air defense. Mississippi conducted missile tests for four years before decommissioning in 1956. She was sold for scrap that November.- Robert Farley