USS Wisconsin-Desert Storm Patch
USS Wisconsin (BB-64) – Operation Desert Storm
USS Wisconsin (BB-64) is an Iowa-class battleship whose keel was laid on 25 January 1941 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Launched on 7 December 1943 and commissioned on 16 April 1944, Wisconsin served with distinction across three wars spanning nearly five decades of American naval power. During World War II, the battleship joined the Pacific Fleet and participated in the Philippines campaign, the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the bombardment of the Japanese home islands, sailing 105,831 nautical miles before entering Tokyo Bay just three days after Japan's formal surrender aboard her sister ship, USS Missouri. Reactivated for the Korean War in 1951, Wisconsin shelled North Korean targets as flagship of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, famously destroying an enemy troop train trapped outside a destroyed tunnel and, after receiving her only direct hit from a 155mm shore battery, obliterating the offending battery with a single 16-inch salvo in what became known as the "Temper, Temper" incident.
Reactivated again on 1 August 1986 under President Reagan's 600-Ship Navy initiative, Wisconsin was modernized with Tomahawk cruise missiles, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and Phalanx CIWS close-in weapon systems alongside her legendary nine 16-inch/50-caliber main guns. When Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990, Wisconsin and her battle group deployed for Operation Desert Shield. On the opening night of Operation Desert Storm, Wisconsin served as the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile strike commander for the Persian Gulf, directing the sequence of launches that marked the start of offensive operations and firing 24 of her own TLAMs during the first two days of the campaign. Over the course of the war, the battleship delivered over 300 tons of 16-inch high explosive projectiles across 36 separate naval gunfire support missions and pioneered the use of remotely piloted vehicles for naval gunfire spotting—with an Iraqi garrison on Faylaka Island becoming the first recorded instance of enemy troops surrendering to an unmanned aircraft. Wisconsin was decommissioned for the final time on 30 September 1991, earning six battle stars and a Navy Unit Commendation across her three-war career. She now serves as a museum ship at the Nauticus Maritime Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
Perfect For: USS Wisconsin veterans and plankowners, Iowa-class battleship enthusiasts, Desert Storm and Gulf War veterans, surface warfare officers, naval history collectors, and museum ship visitors.
This patch commemorates the last combat action of the American battleship era—when USS Wisconsin's 16-inch guns and Tomahawk missiles thundered across the Persian Gulf in defense of a free Kuwait.
