USS Mississippi BB-41.

 USS Mississippi (BB-41) sits at Hunter’s Point while her dry dock is flooded following overhaul, October 1943. There is an absolute flurry of activity and preparation captured in this image, from crewmen painting (see sailor straddling the A-frame ladder beneath the canvas-covered 5”/25), to checking stores, to cleaning guns... to doing nothing. Note crewmen on the upper edge of the torpedo blister. Also interesting is the location of her towed minesweeping paravanes, propped fins up against the base of the funnel. The pile of stores under the life rafts is interesting, as is the men around Turret II seemingly trying to situate flotation nets on the roof. Canvas curtains protect the old 5”/51s and their crews from the elements on the main deck, a method of protection alluded to in the post of Arizona the other day. Readily visible electronics include the RDF Loop (just forward of the stack, above the rafts and floater nets) for radio direction-finding, the SG Surface Search radar at the very top of her foretopmast, the parabolic (dished) Mk 18 radar on the 5-inch director, and the Mk 3 main battery fire-control radar lightly circled at the apex of the superstructure tower.