USS Mississippi (BB-41) bombarding Luzon, during the Lingayen operation, on 8 January 1945. She is followed by USS West Virginia (BB-48) and HMAS Shropshire. Photographed from USS New Mexico (BB-40). Mississippi is painted in camouflage Measure 32, Design 6D. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-301229
While surface ships have continued to fight it out in isolated instances since WWII– such as HMS Zealous (R39)/INS Eilat vs Egyptian Komar in 1967; HMS Cadiz (D79)/PNS Khaibar vs INS Nirghat in 1971, and USS Joseph Strauss vs IRIS Sahand in 1988– they have invariably been one-sided over-the-horizon missile engagements between very light ships. Well, light compared to a battlewagon anyway.
The golden age of battleships duking it out with big guns, while something that could have possibly occurred well into the late 1950s, ended 80 years ago today for all practical purposes.
As noted in 1958 by RADM Samuel E. Morison, USNR (Ret.), at the end of the age of the battleship, specifically between the New Mexico class of dreadnought USS Mississippi (BB-41), and the Japanese Fusō-class dreadnought Yamashiro, with the latter serving as the doomed flagship of Vice-Admiral Shōji Nishimura’s Southern Force at the Battle of Surigao Strait:
“When Mississippi discharged her twelve 14-inch guns at Yamashiro at a range of 19,790 yards, at 0408 October 25, 1944, she was not only giving that battleship the coup de grâce, but firing a funeral salute to a finished era of naval warfare.
One can imagine the ghosts of all great admirals from Raleigh to Jellicoe standing at attention as [the] Battle Line went into oblivion, along with the Greek phalanx, the Spanish wall of pikemen, the English longbow and the row-galley tactics of Salamis and Lepanto.”