From the October 27th USA Today "USS Iowa begins final mission as museum," AP.
As a battleship guy, I've keep up with what is happening to them. I never served on one, but would have liked tohave, especially on the World War II generation of battleships starting with he North Carolina and leading through the four final ones: Iowa, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Missouri.
The USS Iowa departed the US Navy's mothball fleet (Reserve Fleet) in Suisun Bay, California, (by San Francisco) and is heading for a final destination as a museum ship in Los Angeles after a stop in Richmond, California, where the ship will have a hull and exterior scraping and painting which should take until January.
Retired from service since 1990, commissioned in February 1943, "The Big Stick" as its crew called it, served presidents from FDR to George H.W. Bush. When launched, it and its sisters were the very epitomy of battleship power, although already eclipsed in fleet superiority by the aircraft carrier.
With its turn over to the Pacific Battleship Center group in Los Angeles, the US Navy no longer has a battleship in its fleet.
It's Great That the Last Four Battleships Were Kept Instead of Scrapped. --Cooter
No comments:
Post a Comment