Our Wisconsin, coming home to Norfolk to become the showpiece of the inner harbor. Its decks didn't serve as the stage for the dramatic VJ Day surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay as did those of the battleship Missouri. There will be tears shed by some of those aging veterans who ride it one last time, bringing it home to Norfolk on Thursday. While the most dramatic images of the Wisconsin are those showing its big guns firing a salvo, vast yellow fireballs surrounded by dense, dark brown clouds of smoke, the fact is that the Wisconsin attracted far more attention, albeit unwanted, from this collision than from any other single event. At least one naval engineer suggested that such a departure from the original design would likely throw the whole ship out of kilter.
Truth is, no one seems to know for sure.
The accident apparently had been triggered by the Eaton responding to an erroneous man-overboard report from the nearby carrier Coral Sea. Both ships were brought back to Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth. Workmen began cutting off the damaged section of the Wisconsin, including the temporary removal of the entire first deck forward section, including the bullnose prow, which was not damaged. At the same time, workmen at Newport News Shipbuilding began cutting on the unfinished Kentucky. The Kentucky had been completed only up to the second deck before construction was stopped after World War II ended.