After participating in the first Gulf War in 1991, the USS Missouri was decommissioned. On a wall near the ship's post office is a bulletin board with a series of announcements, one of them a schedule of the final day of active duty for the ship: Saturday, December 7, 1991, at Pearl Harbour. An appropriate end of service location for the ship that was so prominently involved with the Japanese surrender in World War II.
Eventually you arrive at the front end of the ship, and climb up stairs to the main deck (there are many decks below the first deck, but they are not open to the public). The sections of the ship with the officer's quarters can then be toured.
Heading back outside, you can then explore a bit of the superstructure, bristling with all manner of guns and missiles. Finally, the bridge area can be explored (which is composed of an open bridge on top, a navigating bridge with lots of windows, and a lower armored bridge with narrow slits for outside viewing.
Touring the Missouri is quite an interesting experience. Just from a perspective of size, it is interesting to see - a decent self-guided tour with not a huge amount of dallying will take well over an hour - and that is only covering a portion of all of the ship's decks. It really is a complete, self-sustaining floating city. Definitely worth the admission price.
Note: If you want to return to the main narrative at the point where our visit to Pearl Harbour ended and our trip continued, then please click
here.