What happened to the USS Washington after World War 2?

Answer 1

The USS Washington (BB 56) was a North Carolina class battleship. She was the second ship of the class, and the second finished since the US resumed building battleships after the collapse of the Washington Naval Treaty, which had halted battleship construction in 1923.

Sadly, the USS Washington was cut up for scrap metal.

The US finished ten battleships after the Washington Treaty, and seven of them are still around - the four "Iowas" still in the reserve fleet, the North Carolina as a museum ship and memorial in Wilmington NC, the Alabama in Mobile and the Massachusetts at Fall River. The USS North Carolina is the identical twin of the USS Washington.

The North Carolina, Alabama and Massachusetts were saved from the scrap yard by the citizens of their respective states, who donated money to create a place for them to be permanently moored, as memorials to the war. The citizens of Washington state did not do this, because at the time the USS Missouri was tied up at Bremerton, Washington. This was the world's most famous battleship, the one on which the Japanese signed the surrender documents in Tokyo Bay. With the Missouri on hand the people of Washington allowed their own namesake battleship to make the last sad trip to the gravers yard. Then, when Reagan was elected, as part of his lavish expenditures on the military all four of the WWII era Iowa class battleships, including the Missouri, were taken out of mothballs, given renovations and refits that cost three times what the entire ships had to build when new, and put back in service. So Washington state has no battleship. All four Iowas were back in mothballs a few years after Reagan left office, but the USS Missouri did not return to Bremerton. Since leaving active service she has been a memorial in Pearl Harbor, near the wreckage of the USS Arizona. I bet the people of Washington state kick themselves whenever they think about it.

Its a double shame, too, because the USS Washington had probably the best combat record of any of the ten "fast battleships" finished in the late 30s and during the war. The Washington was the only US battleship to sink an enemy battleship in a head to head gunnery duel during the war, when she sank the Japanese Kirishima, in one of the many night naval battles around Guadalcanal, in November 1942.