A Place Called YORKSHIP New York Shipbuilding in Tokyo Bay

As a preamble to the formal signing of the instruments of Japan's surrender aboard the battleship Missouri on September 2, 1945, the US assembled an armada in Tokyo Bay--a pointed message to the Japanese about the military power of the alliance which had defeated them. To underline the point, at the conclusion of the surrender ceremonies a massed formation of 450 carrier aircraft and a flight of B-29 bombers overflew the anchored vessels.

The armada included ten battleships, five small carriers, five heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers, 48 destroyers, a dozen submarines, and more than two hundred auxiliaries and smaller craft.

New York Shipbuilding was represented that day by these vessels:

• USS South Dakota, battleship, Third Fleet
• USS Colorado, battleship
• USS Idaho, battleship
• USS Bataan, light carrier
• USS Cowpens, light carrier

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your Yorkship memories to Michael Kube-McDowell, Class of '68