By the end of World War II, West Virginia received five battle stars. In February-March 1945, the ship participated in the battles of Iwo Jima and in the landings on Okinawa. During the battle, West Virginia scored several gunnery hits on Japanese battleship Yamashiro and cruiser Mogami. In the autumn of 1944, the battleship returned to the Pacific Ocean, just in time for the start of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Together with the installation of torpedo bulge and reinforcement of armored decks, the ship received a completely new superstructure, a new dual purpose gun battery, radar, and other improvements. In May 1942, the battleship was raised, hastily patched up in Hawaii, and towed to Puget Sound, Washington, where she underwent a radical upgrade. She sank on an even keel in the shallow bay. However, the ship would never go through the scheduled modernization, because on DecemWest Virginia received seven torpedo and two bomb hits as a result of the raid on Pearl Harbor. Immediately before World War II, the battleship had to undergo an upgrade, which included the installation of torpedo bulge, strengthening of deck armor and air defenses, and replacement of the boilers and fire control systems, but in the end the modernization was postponed to 1942. The ship spent the interwar period conducting exercises and training voyages. She was laid down in April 1920, launched in November 1921, and commissioned in December 1923. USS West Virginia BB-48 was the third and final Colorado-class battleship. American battleship West Virginia '44, Tier VII
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