USS Iowa (BB-61)

History

USS Iowa (BB-61) is a retired battleship, the lead ship of her class, and the fourth in the United States Navy to be named after the state of Iowa. Owing to the cancellation of the Montana-class battleships, Iowa is the last lead ship of any class of United States battleships and was the only ship of her class to serve in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.

During World War II, she once carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the Atlantic to Mers El Kébir, Algeria, en route to a conference of vital importance in 1943 in Tehran with Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. When transferred to the Pacific Fleet in 1944, Iowa shelled beachheads at Kwajalein and Eniwetok in advance of Allied amphibious landings and screened aircraft carriers operating in the Marshall Islands.

During the Korean War, Iowa was involved in raids on the North Korean coast, after which she was decommissioned into the United States Navy reserve fleets. She was reactivated in 1984 and assigned to the United States 2nd Fleet homeported in Norfolk, Virginia, as part of the 600-ship Navy plan and operated in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to counter the recently expanded Soviet Navy. In April 1989, an explosion of undetermined origin wrecked her No. 2 gun turret, killing 47 sailors.

Iowa was decommissioned for the last time on 26 October 1990 after 19 total years of active service, and was initially stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 1995, before being reinstated from 1999 to 2006 to comply with federal laws that required retention and maintenance of two Iowa-class battleships. In 2011, Iowa was donated to the Los Angeles–based nonprofit Pacific Battleship Center and was permanently moved to Berth 87 at the Port of Los Angeles in 2012, where she was opened to the public as the USS Iowa Museum.

Text from Wikipedia: USS Iowa (BB-61), CC BY-SA 4.0, lightly trimmed.

Wars and campaigns

From Wikidata (CC0).

Key dates

1. 1942
   She was launched on 27 August 1942, sponsored by Ilo Wallace (wife of Vice President Henry Wallace), and commissioned on 22 February 1943 with Captain John L. McCrea in command.
2. 1944
   On 18 March 1944, Iowa, flying the flag of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee (Commander, Battleships, Pacific), joined in the bombardment of Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
3. 1945
   Iowa sailed on 19 March 1945 for Okinawa, arriving on 15 April to relieve her sister ship New Jersey.
4. 1957
   Afterward, Iowa continued intermittent training cruises and operational exercises, until 4 January 1957, when she departed Norfolk for duty with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean.
5. 1984
   Armed as such, Iowa was formally recommissioned on 28 April 1984, ahead of schedule, within her budget at a cost of $500 million, and under the command of Captain Gerald E. Gneckow.
6. 1989
   On 20 January 1989, during an improperly authorized gunnery experiment off Vieques Island, Iowa fired a 16-inch (406 mm) shell 23.4 nmi (26.9 mi; 43.3 km), setting a record for the longest-ranged 16 in (406 mm) shell ever fired.
7. 1999
   This revelation resulted in a shift in the Navy's position on the incident, and Admiral Frank Kelso, the chief of Naval Operations at the time, publicly apologized to the Hartwig family in 1999, concluding that no real evidence supported the claim that he had intentionally killed the other sailors.
8. 2009
   On 25 April 2009, Iowa Senate Resolution No. 19 was approved, endorsing HSMPS as USS Iowa's custodian and supporting the battleship's placement at Mare Island.
9. 2010
   On 18 November 2010, the Port of Los Angeles Harbor Commissioners voted unanimously on a resolution to support Berth 87 as the future home of USS Iowa, clearing the way for the PBC to send its completed application to the Navy.

Dates and events quoted from the same Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Records that place someone aboard this ship

A ship history doesn't name everyone who served. These records do:

• Navy muster rolls, 1939–1949 (National Archives guide)
• Deck logs: how to get them (Naval History and Heritage Command)
• Crew lists research guide (NHHC)
• Search the National Archives Catalog for “USS Iowa (BB-61)”

More history

• Naval History and Heritage Command (DANFS)
• HyperWar (official histories)
• Wikipedia: USS Iowa (BB-61)