Iowa (BB 61) - Naval Cruise Book

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Keel Laid Down (New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn), June 27, 1940 Launched: August 27, 1942 Commissioned: February 22, 1943 Decommissioned: San Francisco, March 24, 1949 (9 WWII battle stars) Recommissioned: August 25, 1951 Decommissioned: Philadelphia, February 24, 1958 (2 Korea battle stars) Recommissioned: April 28, 1984 Length: 887 ' 3 Beam: 108 ' 2 (one foot less than the Panama Canal) Draft: 38 ' Height: 209 ' from keel to mast top (approximately as tall as an 18 storv building) m Displacement: 58,000 tons m Original cost: $110,000,000 Scope of Construction: 800 miles of welding, 1,135,00 driven rivets, 16 miles of ventilation ducts, 14,140 valves and 80 miles of piping; 17 miles which is used for refrigeration and cooling purposes. Fuel Oil Capacity: 2,582,000 gallons Electrical Capacity: sufficient to handle the industrial and domestic load of a city of 20,000 population, and includes over 900 electrical motors, 5,300 lighting fixtures, 250 miles of electric cable and 1,091 ship ' s service telephones. Food Storage Capacity: 100 tons of fresh fruit and vegetables, 650 tons of dry stores and 84 tons of frozen meats. Armor: sides 12.1 ; maximum conning tower thickness 17 V2 Guns: Three 16 ' 750 turrets (9 guns) - range 42,345 yds (23 miles) Each 16 projectile weighs approximately 2,700 pounds and can penetrate up to 30 feet of concrete. Each barrel is 66 ' 8 long M Six, 5 ' 738 twin gun mounts (12 guns) - range 17,575 yards % Four, Phalanx Close-In Weapons systems (each capable of 3,000 rounds minute) Missiles: Eight Tomahawk armored box launchers (32 long-range cruise missiles) Four, 4-canister Harpoon launchers (16 anti-ship cruise missiles) Main Engines: 4 geared Westinghouse turbines; 53,000 horsepower each j Boilers: 8 Babcock Wilcox I Propellers: two 5-bladed 17 ' ; two 4-bladed 18 ' 3 (total of four? Rudders: two Speed: 30+ knots Design Complement (WWII): 117 officers, 1,804 enlisted Complement (after modernization): 60 officers, 1,500 enlisted

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As the flagship for Battleship Divison 7, IOWA supported carrier actions off Okinawa until May. Shortly thereafter, she rejoined Task Force 38 for strikes against Kyushu, one of Japan ' s home islands. During the summer of 1945, IOWA turned her 16-inch guns on installations at Honshu and Hokkaido. Just prior to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she raided Nagoya and Tokyo. However, lOWA ' a sister ship MISSOURI was selected as the sight for the surrender ceremonies, in deference to President Harry Truman. With the coming of peace, IOWA did not remain in Japanese waters for long. She sailed for Seattle from Tokyo on September 20, 1945, bringing home former POW ' s and hundreds of American GI ' s. By January, 1946, however, she was back in Tokyo Bay as flagship of the 5th fleet. She remained there until March, when she returned to the United States. For the next two years, she served as a naval reserve training vessel, welcoming aboard midshipmen and taking part in the traditional cruises, drills and training exercises of the peacetime Navy. IOWA was finally decommissioned on March 24, 1949, and placed in reserve mothball fleet in San Francisco. OWA and her sister ships might have been scrapped had it not been for the Korean conflict. On April 1, 1951, she was recommissioned to support United Nations forces off the east coast of Korea. As flagship of the Seventh Fleet, she fired more than 4,500 rounds of 16-inch ammunition, more than double the amount she fired in all of WWII. Vince Leonard, a seaman journalist at the time, later described in a column the effects of shelling from the big guns: The firing of a single 16-inch gun during the Korean conflict was a blinding burst, three-quarters earthquake and one-quarter fireworks, a bone-jarring, teeth shattering microcosm of war. But the Korean conflict proved not to be a naval war. Shortly after leading an unsuccessful mock amphibious assault on Kojo, hoping to expose the enemy, she was ordered to Norfolk, Virginia, for overhaul. J OWA moved from assignment to assignment in the next six years. She served as flagship for NATO exercises in 1953 and 1957, and between those cruises joined a Battleship - Cruiser force, showing the colors in Scotland and South America. During this time, she also made several Mediterranean cruises. Sunday, July 4, 1954, saw IOWA in New York City. Ed Sullivan and CBS broadcast TV ' s 1 variety show, Talk of the Town , on the fantail. lOWA ' s Marine Detachment performed on the show, and afterwards a reception for Sullivan was held in the wardroom. IOWA was ultimately berthed next to WISCONSIN in Philadelphia, and decommissioned on February 24, 1958. With eleven battle stars in her distinguished career, she was the fifth most decorated battleship in U. S. history. Despite periodic plans to modernize and reactivate her, lOWA ' s future did not look promising — if she were lucky, she might become a floating museum, like other BB ' s Alabama, North Carolina and Texas. If not, scrapping was always possible. But with the coming to power of the Reagan administration, plans to reactivate the four mothballed battleships became serious, and in 1981, the Secretary of the Navy decided to modernize and reactivate IOWA. On September 1, 1982, she began her tow to Avondale Shipyard, New Orleans, for hull repairs and removal of obsolete equipment. In January of the following year, IOWA arrived in Pascagoula, Mississippi, for completion of modernization and reactivation at the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries. Offers from sailors who had sailed her in Korea and even WW II began to pour into Washington, most willing to come out of retirement to sail her again. The total cost of modernization was $385 million, giving the Navy a modernized battleship at approximately the cost of a new frigate, and in less than half the time to build one. With her extensive armor, speeds in excess of 30 knots, and longest cruising range of any conventional ship, IOWA is undeniably the most survivable ship afloat. JOWA ' s mission is to serve as the predominant unit of a surface ship action group (SAG) working with carrier battle forces or as an independent force. lOWA-claas ships will also fill a void in naval gunfire needed to support amphibious operations and provide off-shore support to any U.S. forces on the beaches or in coastal waters.

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COMMANDING OFFICER