The ship was assigned to the Pacific Theater during World War II, where she participated in the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands.

The ship served in the Persian Gulf escorting oil tankers during threats from Iran, often while keeping her fire-control systems trained on land-based Iranian missile launchers.

Design studies prepared during the development of the earlier North Carolina and South Dakota classes demonstrated the difficulty in resolving the desires of fleet officers with those of the planning staff within the displacement limits imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty system, which had governed capital ship construction since 1923.

Rated at 212,000 shaft horsepower (158,000 kW), the turbines were designed to give a top speed of 32.5 knots (60.2 km/h; 37.4 mph), but were built to handle a 20 percent overload.

[6] The main battery of the Iowa-class ships consisted of nine 16 in (406 mm)/50 caliber Mark 7 guns[a] in three triple-gun turrets on the centerline, two of which were placed in a superfiring pair forward of the superstructure, with the third aft.

The two outermost compartment are kept loaded with fuel oil or seawater to absorb the energy of the torpedo warhead's detonation and slow the resulting splinters so they can be stopped by the lower armor belt.

Missouri served as part of the anti-aircraft screen for Task Group 58.2, centered on the carriers Lexington, Hancock, and San Jacinto, during the raid on Tokyo.

[21] In addition to guarding the carriers, Missouri and the other battleships acted as oilers for the escorting destroyers, since the fleet's logistics train could not accompany the strike force during raids.

[16] Missouri was temporarily transferred to TF 59, along with her sisters New Jersey and Wisconsin, to bombard the southern coast of Okinawa on 24 March,[25] part of an effort to draw Japanese attention from the actual invasion target on the western side of the island, during which she fired 180 rounds.

[16][39] Missouri departed Istanbul on 9 April and entered Phaleron Bay, Piraeus, Greece, the following day for a welcome by Greek government officials and anti-communist citizens.

The battleship returned to New York City on 27 May, and spent the next year steaming Atlantic coastal waters north to the Davis Strait and south to the Caribbean on various training exercises.

[16] On 3 December, during a gunnery exercise in the North Atlantic, a star shell fired by the light cruiser Little Rock accidentally struck the battleship, killing one crewman and wounding three others.

[46] Then the only US battleship in commission, Missouri was proceeding from Hampton Roads on her first training exercise at sea since the overhaul, early on 17 January 1950 when she ran aground 1.6 mi (2.6 km) from Thimble Shoal Light, near Old Point Comfort.

After off-loading ammunition, fuel and food to lighten the battleship,[47] she was refloated on 1 February with the aid of tugboats, pontoons, beach gear and a rising tide.

Having repaired morale aboard during his tenure as the ship was relegated to training duties in an effort to cut costs by Johnson, Page Smith was replaced by Captain Irving Duke on 19 April.

[16] Due to the urgency of her mission Duke took the battleship directly through a hurricane off the coast of North Carolina on 20 August that blew her helicopters off the stern and damaged her enough that she required nearly a week's worth of repairs once she reached Pearl Harbor.

[54][55] This changed abruptly on 19 October 1950, when the first of an eventual total of 380,000 People's Liberation Army soldiers under the command of General Peng Dehuai crossed into North Korea, launching a full-scale assault against advancing UN troops.

[58] Missouri spent the next six months training out of Guantanamo Bay and Norfolk and made a port visit to New York in May where she participated in Navy Day celebrations, hosting nearly 11,000 visitors.

The battleship was overhauled in Norfolk Naval Shipyard from 20 November to 2 April 1954 that included replacing her 16-inch guns[64] and exchanging her SP radar for a SPS-8 system that required strengthening the mainmast to handle its weight.

"This is a day to celebrate the rebirth of American sea power", Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger told an audience of 10,000 at the recommissioning ceremony, instructing the crew to "listen for the footsteps of those who have gone before you.

As the centerpiece for Battlegroup Echo, Missouri escorted tanker convoys through the Strait of Hormuz, keeping her fire-control system trained on land-based Iranian Silkworm missile launchers.

Captain John Chernesky relieved Carney on 6 July in Pearl Harbor during the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RimPac) exercises that had begun a few weeks earlier.

Before Operation Desert Storm began later that month, Missouri prepared to launch Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles and provide naval gunfire support as required.

In her first bombardment action of Desert Storm, she shelled an Iraqi command and control bunker near the Saudi border, the first time her 16-inch guns had been fired in combat since March 1953 off Korea.

After minesweepers cleared a lane through Iraqi defenses, the ship fired 133 rounds during four shore bombardment missions as part of the amphibious landing feint against the Kuwaiti coast the morning of 23 and 24 February.

[90] With combat operations out of range of the battleship's weapons on 26 February, Missouri had fired a total of 783 sixteen-inch shells and launched 28 Tomahawk cruise missiles during the campaign,[95] and began patrolling the northern Persian Gulf until sailing for home on 21 March.

She spent the remainder of the year, hosting visitors in between training missions, the latter including a 7 December "voyage of remembrance" to mark the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.

In spite of attempts by citizens' groups to keep her in Bremerton and be re-opened as a tourist site, the US Navy wanted to pair a symbol of the end of World War II with one representing (for the United States) its beginning.

[98] On 4 May 1998, Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton signed the donation contract that transferred her to the USS Missouri Memorial Association (MMA) of Honolulu, Hawaii,[90] a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

[102] On 14 October 2009, Missouri was moved from her berthing station on Battleship Row to a drydock at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard to undergo a three-month overhaul.