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USS Idaho battleship shelling Okinawa sometime in late March 1945.
The USS Idaho joined Task Force 54 as the flagship of Bombardment Unit 4 for the invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa. Shelling began on March 25th in preparation for the landings which occured one week later. The battleship then served as fire support until June 20th, when it departed for the Philippines. During this time, USS Idaho suffered damage and had to briefly depart the area for quick repairs in Guam.
Idaho served as a New Mexico class battleship in the US Navy from 1919 until 1946. It was heavily involved in the Pacific War and was one of the ships present in Tokyo Bay when Imperial Japan formally signed the instrument of surrender on September 2nd 1945.
In 1976, a group of thieves stole USS Idaho’s silver service from the Idaho State Historical Society Museum in Boise. Only a tray was recovered, which was dropped by the burglars on their way out. The set was barely worth a few hundred dollars, but its historical value was priceless.
Photo source: Idaho State Historical Society
Book suggestions ⤵️
📖 Okinawa: The Last Battle of World War II (Robert Leckie, 1995)
📖 The Big Spud: The U.S.S. Idaho in World War 2: A War Diary by a Member of its VO Squadron (William Schumann, 1999)
TV Series suggestion ⤵️
🎥 The Pacific (2010)
