FBI BOSTON RETURNS LONG-MISSING USS MASSACHUSETTS ARTIFACTS TO BATTLESHIP COVE

FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS — Historical records and artifacts connected to one of the most decorated American battleships of World War II are back where they belong after being missing for roughly three decades.

The FBI Boston Division returned nine historical items belonging to the USS Massachusetts, BB-59, the World War II battleship known by generations of sailors as “Big Mamie” and preserved today as a museum ship at Battleship Cove in Fall River.

The recovered material includes records offering a direct connection to the operation, maintenance, and daily life of a major U.S. Navy warship during one of the most consequential periods in American military history.

Among the returned items is a folder labeled “Plan of the Day for 1942,” containing documents that provide a window into how the Navy organized daily operations aboard the battleship during World War II.

Another recovered artifact is a rusted metal crate marked “Missile Hazards Within.”

Investigators also recovered a First Lieutenant’s Damage Control Book containing detailed engineering and structural information associated with keeping the battleship operational, afloat, and prepared for combat.

Documents of that type carried practical importance aboard a warship. Damage-control information could help officers and sailors understand the ship’s compartments, structural systems, engineering requirements, and the measures needed to keep the vessel afloat and combat-ready.

Their historical importance extends well beyond the physical pages.

Records produced aboard active warships can preserve operational details that photographs and later historical accounts cannot fully capture. Instructions, technical documentation, schedules, engineering records, and routine administrative material can reveal how a ship actually functioned during wartime.

The FBI said the artifacts were believed to have been missing for approximately 30 years.

Their recovery began after a family in Texas discovered the items among the belongings of their late father while examining property stored in a storage unit.

The family’s father had worked on refurbishment of the USS Massachusetts during the 1990s.

After discovering the material, the family voluntarily relinquished the artifacts so they could be authenticated and returned to the museum.

FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Ted E. Docks credited the family for choosing to return the historical property.

“These are enduring pieces of our nation’s history that reflect the courage, sacrifice, and service of the sailors who served aboard ‘Big Mamie,’” Docks said.

He said returning the artifacts would allow future generations to better understand the sailors who served aboard the battleship during World War II and thanked the family for its cooperation and commitment to preserving the historical record.

The case began taking shape in 2025 after the Fall River Police Department contacted the FBI on behalf of the museum’s curator.

Museum volunteers noticed several of the missing artifacts appearing in a social media post and alerted the museum’s curator.

That discovery gave investigators a path toward identifying and eventually recovering the material.

FBI Boston opened an investigation and coordinated with the FBI Dallas Field Office as agents worked to secure the artifacts in Texas.

The items were subsequently authenticated before being returned to Battleship Cove.

Christopher Nardi, Chief Operating Officer of Battleship Cove, expressed appreciation for the federal investigation and the return of the historical property.

“We are very grateful to the FBI for their invaluable assistance in bringing these historic artifacts home to Battleship Massachusetts,” Nardi said.

The artifacts are returning to a vessel with an extensive combat record.

USS Massachusetts was a 35,000-ton South Dakota-class battleship built at Quincy, Massachusetts, and commissioned on May 12, 1942. The ship entered wartime service only months after the United States entered World War II.

Her first major combat operation came during the Allied invasion of North Africa.

On November 8, 1942, Massachusetts fought off Casablanca, Morocco, where she engaged French naval forces, including the battleship Jean Bart. According to the Naval History and Heritage Command, Massachusetts fired the first American 16-inch naval shells used against Axis-aligned forces in the European theater.

The battleship later transferred to the Pacific and participated in operations across a vast portion of the theater.

Her wartime service included operations connected to the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, Hollandia, raids against Japanese-held positions, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, operations supporting the Philippines campaign, strikes connected to Iwo Jima, and sustained operations around Okinawa.

During the closing weeks of World War II, USS Massachusetts bombarded targets on the Japanese home islands using her 16-inch main guns.

The Naval History and Heritage Command credits the battleship with firing what was probably the final 16-inch shell fired in combat during World War II during the bombardment of Kamaishi on August 9, 1945.

Massachusetts received 11 battle stars for her World War II service.

After the war, the battleship was decommissioned in March 1947 and remained in the reserve fleet until she was removed from the Naval Vessel Register in 1962.

Preservation efforts eventually saved the ship from scrapping.

In 1965, USS Massachusetts was transferred to the Massachusetts Memorial Committee and began a new role as a memorial and museum ship in Fall River.

That history gives additional significance to the records recovered by federal investigators.

The documents are not disconnected collectibles from an unidentified military vessel. They belong to a battleship that participated in major operations across two theaters of World War II and later became a permanent public memorial.

Returning those records restores pieces of the ship’s institutional history to the same vessel and museum responsible for preserving the physical battleship itself.

The investigation also falls within the work of the FBI Art Crime Team.

The team consists of special agents and other FBI personnel trained to investigate crimes involving art, cultural property, historical objects, and other valuable artifacts.

According to the FBI, the Art Crime Team has recovered more than 20,000 objects valued collectively at more than $1 billion since the program was established.

Cases involving cultural property can differ significantly from conventional theft investigations because ownership histories, provenance, authentication, historical records, private collections, museums, auction activity, and material that has changed hands over decades can all become part of the investigation.

Public assistance can also become critical.

In this case, volunteers recognized artifacts connected to the museum after seeing them displayed online, law enforcement was notified, a family cooperated voluntarily after finding the items, and FBI offices in two states worked together to recover and authenticate the material.

No dramatic seizure was required to bring the artifacts home.

A chain of people recognizing their significance, reporting what they had seen, and cooperating with investigators ultimately restored the collection to the USS Massachusetts.

The recovery also demonstrates why historical records can carry value that cannot be measured solely in dollars.

A wartime operations folder, an engineering damage-control book, or an aging metal container may appear ordinary when separated from its history.

Placed back within the story of a battleship that fought from North Africa through the Pacific, those objects become surviving pieces of the daily operation of a ship and crew that served through World War II.

The USS Massachusetts has survived for more than eight decades.

The return of these nine artifacts adds another piece to that preservation effort, restoring records and objects that had been separated from “Big Mamie” for roughly 30 years and returning them to the museum responsible for carrying her history forward.

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