80 years ago this week, a fantastic series of photos of the late South Dakota-class battleship USS Indiana (BB 58) conducting a high-speed turn in Puget Sound, November 30, 1944.
BuShips photos via Navsource and the Indiana State Library collection.
How about this great shot showing off her 9 16″/45s, 20 5″/38s, 28 40mm/60 Bofors, and 35 20mm/80 Oerlikons.
Indiana, commissioned on 30 April 1942, had spent two years forward deployed in the Western Pacific, earning her stripes, before arriving at the Navy Yard at Bremerton on 23 October for a refit. She would remain there into early December before arriving at Pearl Harbor on New Year’s 1945. By 24 January 1945, her guns were ringing out against Iwo Jima and she would spend the rest of the war operational.
She traveled 180,000 nm during her war service, conducting six shore bombardment campaigns, bagging 15 Japanese planes, and earning nine battle stars in the process.
Decommissioned on 11 September 1947, she languished in mothballs for 15 years until stricken from the NVR and sold in 1963 for her value in scrap metal.
Her home state has an extensive collection of her relics at the War Memorial Museum in Indianapolis.
(Photo: Chris Eger)