[6] In October 1949, amid increasing political scrutiny,[A 1] Missouri arrived at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for three months of scheduled maintenance.

[7][8] Captain Brown formally assumed command of Missouri on 10 December, just ahead of the completion of maintenance work on the battleship.

[7] On 13 January, Brown received a request from the Naval Ordnance Laboratory for the Missouri to proceed through a channel in which the United States Navy had strewn acoustic cables as part of an ongoing project that aimed to identify ships by their propeller signatures.

The request was entirely optional, but as the captain was preoccupied with the details of the upcoming sortie to Cuba he gave the letter little attention and instead referred the matter to his operations officer, Commander John R. Millett, who in turn referred the letter to the ship's navigator, Lieutenant Commander Frank G.

[9] At 7:49 am, near the Elizabeth River Channel Buoy 3, the pilot turned control of the battleship over to Captain Brown and departed for shore.

Missouri sailed toward two red markers that Commander George Peckham believed marked the shoal water in the channel.

[11] Approximately two minutes after departing for the chart room, Captain Brown reemerged on the open bridge and reassumed the conn of the battleship.

He summoned Lieutenants Hatfield and Arnold, Missouri's morning and forenoon officers of the watch, respectively, and informed them of the planned run through the acoustical range.

[11][12] At 8:10 am Captain Brown ordered a course change to 060 degrees and informed the men that the conn for the battleship would remain on the eighth-level bridge until they cleared the course.

The executive officer, who passed through the chart room while preparing for the shift change, noticed that Missouri was rapidly approaching the shoal water, and promptly told Morris "For God's sake watch it!

Initially this buoy was identified as one of the acoustical range markers as a result of the letter "B" painted on it, but this information was not properly relayed to the rest of the crew.

This was made apparent when a pair of spar buoys marking the entrance to a shallow fishing channel appeared ahead of Missouri.

It was at this point the first recommendation to turn right was made by Morris, the navigator; Brown declined because of his mistaken belief that the markers for the fish channel were actually the end of the acoustical range.

[14] Around the same time in Missouri's Combat Information Center (CIC) crew members manning the battleship's navigational radar system noticed that the radar returns indicated that Missouri was steaming for dangerous waters; however, the CIC crew did not report this information to the captain.

Lieutenant John Carr, the officer on duty in the CIC at the time of the grounding, concluded that the radar equipment was likely not operating correctly.

At this time Commander Peckham sent a message to Captain Brown stating "Ship heading into Danger shoals.

Missouri had traversed the shoal nearly 2,500 feet, and to compound her problem she had run aground during an unusually high tide.

[16] To add insult to injury, she had become the butt of a number of bad jokes among the American public, the Navy's rival service branches, and the Soviet Union's Atlantic fleet, who were quick to pounce upon the dreadnought's grounding as material for the naval publication Red Fleet.

[19] Initially, high-ranking US Navy officials elected to contract a private salvage firm to free the battleship, but Admiral Smith, at the time Commander, Cruisers, Atlantic, and the man who was responsible for issuing Missouri's orders disagreed with this plan.

Ultimately, he won his case for a US Navy salvage effort, but he was explicitly informed by officials at The Pentagon that his career would ride on his ability to successfully get Missouri back into deep water.

[19] To better organize the salvage effort, Smith and a number of men on his staff moved aboard Missouri to supervise her return to deep water.

[20] Smith's supervision also extended to answering the nearly 10,000 letters sent to the Navy from concerned citizens offering advice on how to get the battleship back into deep water.

[25] On 31 January, an attempt was made to free Missouri with the assembled collection of tug boats and salvage ships.

The extreme force generated by the tugs caused several two-inch cables made from wire rope to break, and the failed attempt also revealed that Missouri needed to lose more weight.

However, the damage was insignificant, and as the battleship slowly returned to the harbor, the band played "Missouri Waltz", "Anchors Aweigh", and "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen".

She stayed in commission throughout the Korean War, and—after the cease-fire agreement—was decommissioned into the United States Navy reserve fleets, where she remained until the 1980s.

[3] Despite proof to the contrary, rumors continued to circulate that Missouri suffered permanent damage as a result of the grounding incident.