On October 16, 1945, the New Mexico-class battleship USS Mississippi (BB-41) steamed up the Mississippi River en route to Navy Day celebrations in New Orleans. Having recently supported Allied amphibious operations from the Philippines to Okinawa—and having been present in Tokyo Bay for Japan’s formal surrender—the warship now moved through the river that bore her name.
Her anchors hung low beneath the bow, a striking visual detail recorded in the U.S. Navy’s photograph of the passage. Less than three months after the end of World War II, the battleship’s visit offered New Orleans a tangible connection to the naval war in the Pacific and a moment of public gratitude, remembrance, and peacetime homecoming.
Image via U.S. Navy archives
