Arizona’s two aft turrets were salvaged in 1943 and installed in shore batteries, one of which was ready to fire by VJ Day. This was a waste. I could understand remounting the 8” turrets from Lexington and Saratoga in early 1942; there may still have been some concern about a Japanese attack, but that was no longer an issue after the battle of Midway. If there was felt to be a need to get the turrets back into the war, perhaps they.could have been put into a couple of monitors similar to the British ships. I’m not aware of shipbuilding facilities in Hawaii, but the ships could be built on the west coast (Kaiser?) and sent to Hawaii for installation of turrets.
Were the British monitors you mentioned blue water worthy? Or just able to be used in coastal settings?
Their combat use was in coastal waters, but they were capable of ocean transits; Terror went to Singapore and served there for much of the 1930s, and many of them operated in the Mediterranean. The largest carried twin 15" gun turrets weighing around 1000 tons, so they were fairly substantial ships. Slow though, no more than about 12 knots. Churchill mentions that when WWII broke out, it had been planned to send the monitor Erebus to South Africa for some reason. He asked the South African prime minister, Jan Smuts, if they could retain the ship in European waters, and Smuts agreed.
Yes, they were. As Buxton points out in this book, The British built monitors because they were a cheap way to get shore bombardment heavy artillery at sea. Monitors of this sort, in the 20th Century, were almost exclusively a British thing. Other navies either saw little value in a ship exclusively for shore bombardment or didn't have the resources to devote to such ships. The British used what were essentially left over 'bits' to build theirs having a large inventory of obsolescent, one-off, or otherwise disposed of naval ordinance from ships no longer in service.
Some monitor background from an old post: "The WWI monitors came about more or less by accident. Around 1911 the Greeks had ordered a battleship (Salamis) to be built in Germany, but the largest German naval guns at the time were 12". The Turks then had a 13.5"-gunned battleship under construction in Britain (Reshediah, later HMS Erin) which the Greeks wanted at least to match, so they ordered their ship's armament, four twin 14" turrets, from Bethlehem Steel in the US. Came WWI, of course the British were not going to allow heavy guns to be shipped to Germany. This left Beth Steel with four expensive turrets. Since from their point of view the British had created the problem, Charles Schwab, president of Beth Steel, approached Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, and asked if he could use them. The western front had by then settled down to the point where the British were interested in bombarding German positions along the Belgian coast, but they had few warships that could do the job in shallow waters (one expedient was anchoring an old battleship as close as it could get and heeling it over so the guns could reach land). Churchill, who loved innovative ideas, feasible or not, jumped at the chance and ordered four shallow-draft hulls built to carry the turrets. He also suggested the names General Grant, Admiral Farragut, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson; but these were deemed indiscreet since the US was still neutral, so they ended up being named for British commanders like Lord Raglan, who inadvertently ordered the Charge of the Light Brigade. Once they had monitors the British became very enthusiastic about them. Four of the old Majestic class battleships were disarmed and converted to troopships to provide 12" turrets for eight more monitors. Then they started building new 15" turrets, the most powerful in the RN or the world at that point, for new monitors. Two of these turrets, in different hulls, went on to serve in WWII." There were also smaller monitors in WWI mounting 6" or 9.2" guns, mostly from old cruisers. One 9.2" ship is still extant, M-something. IIRC at least one carried one of Fisher's odd triple 4" mounts.
More monitor trivia: The first two 15”-gun monitors were named Marshal Ney and Marshal Soult, presumably as a gesture of solidarity with their French allies; but a smarta$$ might note that these were the only two of Napoleon’s marshals present at Waterloo, neither of whom served him well. The monitors were equally disappointing, only able to make about 6 knots. Ney had her turret removed and spent the war as a stationary guard ship. AFAIK these were the only guns/turrets actually built for monitors, but two more became available. These had been built for Furious in case her single 18” guns didn’t work out. An improved class of monitors were built - Terror and Erebus - one with Ney’s turret. Marshal Soult spent the interwar years as a gunnery training ship; 13 of the RN’s 15 capital ships had twin 15” turrets. When WWII began, the RN’s last two monitors were built - Roberts and Abercrombie - using Soult’s turret and the other spare from Furious.
