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160-646: 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 carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt across

320-513: A British victory. The German strategy was therefore to try to provoke an engagement on their terms: either to induce a part of the Grand Fleet to enter battle alone, or to fight a pitched battle near the German coastline, where friendly minefields, torpedo-boats and submarines could be used to even the odds. This did not happen, however, due in large part to the necessity to keep submarines for

480-484: A bombardment and continued to support fast carrier strikes until the cessation of hostilities on 15 August. On 27 August, Iowa and her sister ship Missouri entered Sagami Bay to oversee the surrender of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal . Two days later, she entered Tokyo Bay with the occupation forces. Here, a number of sailors from Missouri were temporarily stationed on Iowa for the duration of

640-462: A division headquarters. The next day she entered Wonsan Harbor and shelled warehouses, observation posts and railroad marshaling yards before moving out to rejoin the UN flotilla aiding ground forces around Kosong . On 20 April, in her first combat action above the 38th parallel , Iowa shelled railroad lines at Tanchon , where four railroad tunnels were destroyed, before sailing to Chindong and Kosong for

800-486: A full-power engine run. Other problems included hydraulic fluid leaks in all three main gun turrets, electrical wiring shorts, pump failures, deteriorated bilge piping, unrepaired soft patches on high-pressure steam lines, and frozen valves in the ship's firefighting system. He recommended to the Chief of Naval Operations and Lehman that Iowa be taken out of service immediately. Rejecting this advice, Lehman instead instructed

960-649: A large armored warship of 17,000 tons, armed solely with a single calibre main battery (twelve 12-inch [305 mm] guns), carrying 300-millimetre (12 in) belt armor , and capable of 24 knots (44 km/h). The Russo-Japanese War provided operational experience to validate the "all-big-gun" concept. During the Battle of the Yellow Sea on August 10, 1904, Admiral Togo of the Imperial Japanese Navy commenced deliberate 12-inch gun fire at

1120-598: A large block superstructure nicknamed the "Queen Anne's castle", such as in Queen Elizabeth and Warspite , which would be used in the new conning towers of the King George V -class fast battleships . External bulges were added to improve both buoyancy to counteract weight increase and provide underwater protection against mines and torpedoes. The Japanese rebuilt all of their battleships, plus their battlecruisers, with distinctive " pagoda " structures, though

1280-611: A major NATO exercise, serving as flagship of Vice Admiral Edmund T. Wooldridge, commander of the 2nd Fleet . Upon completion of this exercise, Iowa operated in the Virginia Capes area. Later, in September 1954, she became the flagship of Rear Admiral R. E. Libby, Commander, Battleship Cruiser Force, United States Atlantic Fleet. From January–April 1955, Iowa made an extended cruise to the Mediterranean Sea as

1440-557: A major threat to wooden ships, and these weapons quickly became widespread after the introduction of 8-inch shell guns as part of the standard armament of French and American line-of-battle ships in 1841. In the Crimean War , six line-of-battle ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853. Later in

1600-591: A mine laid by a German U-boat in October 1914 and sank. The threat that German U-boats posed to British dreadnoughts was enough to cause the Royal Navy to change their strategy and tactics in the North Sea to reduce the risk of U-boat attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing concern in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships. As

1760-483: A mine laid by friendly forces, and sank with little loss of life. In May 1937, Jaime I was damaged by Nationalist air attacks and a grounding incident. The ship was forced to go back to port to be repaired. There she was again hit by several aerial bombs. It was then decided to tow the battleship to a more secure port, but during the transport she suffered an internal explosion that caused 300 deaths and her total loss. Several Italian and German capital ships participated in

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1920-571: A mixed-caliber secondary battery amidships around the superstructure. An early design with superficial similarity to the pre-dreadnought is the British Devastation class of 1871. The slow-firing 12-inch (305 mm) main guns were the principal weapons for battleship-to-battleship combat. The intermediate and secondary batteries had two roles. Against major ships, it was thought a 'hail of fire' from quick-firing secondary weapons could distract enemy gun crews by inflicting damage to

2080-450: A number of 12-pound (3-inch, 76 mm) quick-firing guns for use against destroyers and torpedo-boats. Her armor was heavy enough for her to go head-to-head with any other ship in a gun battle, and conceivably win. Dreadnought was to have been followed by three Invincible -class battlecruisers, their construction delayed to allow lessons from Dreadnought to be used in their design. While Fisher may have intended Dreadnought to be

2240-605: A part in major engagements in Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean theaters; in the Atlantic, the Germans used their battleships as independent commerce raiders. However, clashes between battleships were of little strategic importance. The Battle of the Atlantic was fought between destroyers and submarines, and most of the decisive fleet clashes of the Pacific war were determined by aircraft carriers . Shakedown cruise If

2400-513: A partial consequence, Congress passed Pub. L.   109–163 (text) (PDF) , the National Defense Authorization Act 2006, requiring that the battleships be kept and maintained in a state of readiness should they ever be needed again. Congress ordered that measures be implemented to ensure that, if need be, Iowa could be returned to active duty. These measures closely mirrored the original three conditions that

2560-569: A propeller, and her wooden hull was protected by a layer of thick iron armor. Gloire prompted further innovation from the Royal Navy , anxious to prevent France from gaining a technological lead. The superior armored frigate Warrior followed Gloire by only 14 months, and both nations embarked on a program of building new ironclads and converting existing screw ships of the line to armored frigates. Within two years, Italy, Austria, Spain and Russia had all ordered ironclad warships, and by

2720-761: A quartet of Phalanx Close-in weapon system Gatling guns for defense against enemy anti-ship missiles and enemy aircraft. Sometime after June 1986, Iowa was the first battleship to receive the RQ-2 Pioneer Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). She could carry up to eight of the remotely controlled drones, which replaced the helicopters (although helicopters were not carried by battleships) previously used to spot for her nine 16 inch (406 mm)/50 cal Mark 7 guns. Also included in her modernization were upgrades to radar and fire-control systems for her guns and missiles, and improved electronic warfare capabilities. Armed as such, Iowa

2880-407: A record for the longest-ranged 16 in (406 mm) shell ever fired. In February, the battleship sailed for New Orleans for a port visit before departing for Norfolk. On 10 April, the battleship was visited by the commander of the 2nd Fleet , and on 13 April she sailed to participate in a fleet exercise. During a gunnery exercise, at 0955 on 19 April 1989, an explosion ripped through

3040-484: A result of pressure from Admiral Sir John ("Jackie") Fisher , HMS Dreadnought rendered existing battleships obsolete. Combining an "all-big-gun" armament of ten 12-inch (305 mm) guns with unprecedented speed (from steam turbine engines) and protection, she prompted navies worldwide to re-evaluate their battleship building programs. While the Japanese had laid down an all-big-gun battleship, Satsuma , in 1904 and

3200-686: A result of the damaged turret. Iowa was originally berthed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and later at Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island from 24 September 1998 to 8 March 2001, when the tug Sea Victory began her tow to California. The ship arrived in Suisun Bay near San Francisco on 21 April 2001 and joined the Reserve Fleet , where she remained in reserve until struck again from

3360-676: A result of the typhoon, but suffered a loss of one of her float planes, and damage to one of her shafts. The damaged shaft required Iowa to return to the US, and she arrived at San Francisco on 15 January 1945, for repairs. During the course of the overhaul Iowa had her bridge area enclosed, and was outfitted with new search radars and fire-control systems. Iowa sailed on 19 March 1945 for Okinawa, arriving on 15 April to relieve her sister ship New Jersey . From 24 April, Iowa supported carrier operations which aimed to establish and maintain air superiority for ground forces during their struggle for

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3520-690: A result, Iowa , with TF 38, steamed after the Japanese Northern Force off Cape Engaño , Luzon. On 25 October 1944, when the ships of the Northern Force were almost within range of Iowa ' s guns, word arrived that the Japanese Central Force was attacking a group of American escort carriers off Samar . This threat to the American beachheads forced TF 38 to reverse course and steam to support

3680-427: A ship of the line could wreck any wooden enemy, holing her hull , knocking down masts , wrecking her rigging , and killing her crew. However, the effective range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards, so the battle tactics of sailing ships depended in part on the wind. Over time, ships of the line gradually became larger and carried more guns, but otherwise remained quite similar. The first major change to

3840-536: A similar design in the Bellerophon and St. Vincent classes . An American design, South Carolina , authorized in 1905 and laid down in December 1906, was another of the first dreadnoughts, but she and her sister, Michigan , were not launched until 1908. Both used triple-expansion engines and had a superior layout of the main battery, dispensing with Dreadnought ' s wing turrets. They thus retained

4000-469: A speed of 12 knots (22 km/h), regardless of the wind. This was a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement. The introduction of steam accelerated the growth in size of battleships. France and the United Kingdom were the only countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships although several other navies operated small numbers of screw battleships, including Russia (9),

4160-521: A strong naval force to the area to support South Korea. As part of the naval mobilization, Iowa was reactivated on 14 July 1951, and formally recommissioned on 25 August, with Captain William R. Smedberg III, in command. Iowa sailed for Korean waters in March 1952. On 1 April she relieved her sister ship USS  Wisconsin and became the flagship of Vice Admiral Robert P. Briscoe , Commander of

4320-453: A suicide attempt after the end of an alleged affair with another sailor. To support this claim, naval officials pointed to several different factors, including Hartwig's life insurance policy, which named Kendall Truitt as the sole beneficiary in the event of his death, the presence of unexplained materials inside turret 2, and his mental state, which was alleged to be unstable. Although the Navy

4480-549: A total of 19 16-inch (406 mm) shells and 32 5-inch (127 mm) shells during a 10-hour period and operating in rough seas. During the live fire exercise, a small number of Iowa marines were put ashore to monitor the fall of shot and advise the battleship of gunnery corrections. Afterward, Iowa visited ports, including Portsmouth, in England and Germany before returning to the United States in October. In December,

4640-515: A two-day bombardment of North Korean positions. On 25 May Iowa , following her sister ship Missouri ' s example, arrived in the waters off Chongjin , a North Korean industrial center approximately 48 nmi (55 mi; 89 km) from the Russian border. Upon arrival, Iowa proceeded to shell the industrial and rail transportation centers in Chongjin, after which she moved south to aid

4800-578: A war scare with France and the build-up of the Russian navy gave added impetus to naval construction, and the British Naval Defence Act of 1889 laid down a new fleet including eight new battleships. The principle that Britain's navy should be more powerful than the two next most powerful fleets combined was established. This policy was designed to deter France and Russia from building more battleships, but both nations nevertheless expanded their fleets with more and better pre-dreadnoughts in

4960-578: The Hiei received a more modern bridge tower that would influence the new Yamato class . Bulges were fitted, including steel tube arrays to improve both underwater and vertical protection along the waterline. The U.S. experimented with cage masts and later tripod masts , though after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor some of the most severely damaged ships (such as West Virginia and California ) were rebuilt with tower masts, for an appearance similar to their Iowa -class contemporaries. Radar, which

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5120-737: The King George V class . It was in the Mediterranean that navies remained most committed to battleship warfare. France intended to build six battleships of the Dunkerque and Richelieu classes , and the Italians four Littorio -class ships. Neither navy built significant aircraft carriers. The U.S. preferred to spend limited funds on aircraft carriers until the South Dakota class . Japan, also prioritising aircraft carriers, nevertheless began work on three mammoth Yamato s (although

5280-634: The 600-ship Navy plan and operated in both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets 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 in October 1990 after 19 total years of active service, and was initially stricken from the Naval Vessel Register (NVR) 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

5440-455: The Allied and Axis powers built battleships during World War II, though the increasing importance of the aircraft carrier meant that the battleship played a less important role than had been expected in that conflict. The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during their heyday. There were few of the decisive fleet battles that battleship proponents expected and used to justify

5600-536: The Bikini atomic experiments , the old battleship Nevada was selected as a target for a live fire exercise to be carried out by Iowa and other sea and air assets of the navy. The exercise began with separate shellings from a destroyer, heavy cruiser , and Iowa , but this did not sink the ship, and so Nevada was finished off with one aerial torpedo hit amidships, sinking her 65 mi (105 km) from Pearl Harbor on 31 July 1948. In September 1948, as part of

5760-885: The First Geneva Naval Conference (1927), the First London Naval Treaty (1930), the Second Geneva Naval Conference (1932), and finally the Second London Naval Treaty (1936), which all set limits on major warships. These treaties became effectively obsolete on September 1, 1939, at the beginning of World War II , but the ship classifications that had been agreed upon still apply. The treaty limitations meant that fewer new battleships were launched in 1919–1939 than in 1905–1914. The treaties also inhibited development by imposing upper limits on

5920-756: The Marshall Islands . She also served as the Third Fleet flagship , flying Admiral William F. Halsey 's flag at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay . 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 , better known as the "mothball fleet." She was reactivated in 1984 as part of

6080-739: The Naval Vessel Register in March 2006. (She and her sister ships had been struck previously in 1995.) She remained at the Suisun Bay anchorage until November 2011. Section 1011 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996 required the US Navy to reinstate to the Naval Vessel Register two of the Iowa -class battleships that had been struck by the Navy in 1995; these ships were to be maintained in

6240-499: The Ottoman Empire (3), Sweden (2), Naples (1), Denmark (1) and Austria (1). The adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad : powered by steam, protected by metal armor, and armed with guns firing high-explosive shells . Guns that fired explosive or incendiary shells were

6400-563: The Royal Navy was able to use her imposing battleship and battlecruiser fleet to impose a strict and successful naval blockade of Germany and kept Germany's smaller battleship fleet bottled up in the North Sea : only narrow channels led to the Atlantic Ocean and these were guarded by British forces. Both sides were aware that, because of the greater number of British dreadnoughts, a full fleet engagement would be likely to result in

6560-631: The San Bernardino Strait and Surigao Strait , where they would rendezvous and attack the US beachheads. Iowa accompanied TF 38 during attacks against the Japanese Central Force under the command of Admiral Kurita as it steamed through the Sibuyan Sea toward San Bernardino Strait. The reported results of these attacks and the apparent retreat of the Japanese Central Force led Admiral William "Bull" Halsey to believe that this force had been ruined as an effective fighting group; as

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6720-534: The US X Corps . En route to US positions, Iowa again bombarded Sŏngjin, destroying several railroad tunnels and bridges in the area. On 28 May, Iowa rejoined the main body of the US fleet supporting the X Corps, heavily shelling several islands in Wonsan Harbor. Throughout June, Iowa trained her guns on targets at Mayang-do, Tanchon, Chongjin, Chodo– Sokcho and the ports of Hŭngnam and Wonsan in support of

6880-443: The "unsinkable" German World War I battleship SMS  Ostfriesland and the American pre-dreadnought Alabama . Although Mitchell had required "war-time conditions", the ships sunk were obsolete, stationary, defenseless and had no damage control. The sinking of Ostfriesland was accomplished by violating an agreement that would have allowed Navy engineers to examine the effects of various munitions: Mitchell's airmen disregarded

7040-451: The 1890s. In the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th, the escalation in the building of battleships became an arms race between Britain and Germany . The German naval laws of 1890 and 1898 authorized a fleet of 38 battleships, a vital threat to the balance of naval power. Britain answered with further shipbuilding, but by the end of the pre-dreadnought era, British supremacy at sea had markedly weakened. In 1883,

7200-489: The 5th Fleet. She returned to the United States on 25 March 1946 and resumed her role as a training ship. During her usual routine of drills and maneuvers she also embarked Naval Reserve elements and midshipmen for training. In October, Iowa underwent a period of overhaul and modernization, which resulted in the addition of the SK-2 Radar and the loss of a number of 20 mm and 40 mm gun mounts. In July, following

7360-468: The 8-inch battery being completely unusable, and the inability to train the primary and intermediate armaments on different targets led to significant tactical limitations. Even though such innovative designs saved weight (a key reason for their inception), they proved too cumbersome in practice. In 1906, the British Royal Navy launched the revolutionary HMS  Dreadnought . Created as

7520-530: The American amphibious operations against Mindoro in the Philippines. The task force rendezvoused with Captain Jasper T. Acuff and his fueling group on 17 December with the intention of refueling all ships in the task force and replacing lost aircraft. Although the sea had been growing rougher all day, the nearby cyclonic disturbance gave relatively little warning of its approach. On 18 December,

7680-604: The Army General George C. Marshall , Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King , Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces Henry "Hap" Arnold , Harry Hopkins , and other military leaders to Mers El Kébir , Algeria, on the first leg of the journey to the Cairo and Tehran conferences. On 14 November, in waters east of Bermuda , USS  William D. Porter  (DD-579) , a destroyer that

7840-618: The Atlantic campaign. Submarines were the only vessels in the Imperial German Navy able to break out and raid British commerce in force, but even though they sank many merchant ships, they could not successfully counter-blockade the United Kingdom; the Royal Navy successfully adopted convoy tactics to combat Germany's submarine counter-blockade and eventually defeated it. This was in stark contrast to Britain's successful blockade of Germany. The first two years of war saw

8000-589: The Atlantic coast. She got underway on 27 August for Argentia, Newfoundland , to counter the threat of the German battleship Tirpitz which was reportedly operating in Norwegian waters, before returning to the United States on 25 October for two weeks of maintenance at the Norfolk Navy Yard. In November 1943, Iowa carried President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull , Roosevelt's Chief of Staff Admiral William D. Leahy , Chief of Staff of

8160-588: 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

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8320-609: The British and French blockade. And in the Mediterranean , the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault on Gallipoli . In September 1914, the threat posed to surface ships by German U-boats was confirmed by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the sinking of three British armored cruisers by the German submarine SM  U-9 in less than an hour. The British Super-dreadnought HMS  Audacious soon followed suit as she struck

8480-531: The British fleet. Less than two months later, the Germans once again attempted to draw portions of the Grand Fleet into battle. The resulting Action of 19 August 1916 proved inconclusive. This reinforced German determination not to engage in a fleet to fleet battle. In the other naval theatres there were no decisive pitched battles. In the Black Sea , engagement between Russian and Ottoman battleships

8640-553: The Central Philippines to neutralize enemy air power for the long-awaited invasion of the Philippines. On 10 October, Iowa arrived off Okinawa for a series of air strikes on the Ryukyu Islands and Formosa . She then supported air strikes against Luzon on 18 October and continued this duty during General Douglas MacArthur 's landing on Leyte on 20 October. In a last-ditch attempt to halt

8800-634: The Dardanelles Campaign and the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought SMS  Szent István by Italian motor torpedo boats in June 1918. In large fleet actions, however, destroyers and torpedo boats were usually unable to get close enough to the battleships to damage them. The only battleship sunk in a fleet action by either torpedo boats or destroyers was the obsolescent German pre-dreadnought SMS  Pommern . She

8960-400: The German Navy, and prevented Germany from building or possessing any capital ships . The inter-war period saw the battleship subjected to strict international limitations to prevent a costly arms race breaking out. While the victors were not limited by the Treaty of Versailles, many of the major naval powers were crippled after the war. Faced with the prospect of a naval arms race against

9120-415: The High Seas Fleet be disarmed and interned in a neutral port; largely because no neutral port could be found, the ships remained in British custody in Scapa Flow , Scotland. The Treaty of Versailles specified that the ships should be handed over to the British. Instead, most of them were scuttled by their German crews on June 21, 1919, just before the signature of the peace treaty. The treaty also limited

9280-434: The International Naval Review off Hampton Roads , Virginia on 13 June. On 3 September, Iowa sailed for Scotland for NATO's Exercise Strikeback . She returned to Norfolk on 28 September, and departed Hampton Roads for the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on 22 October. She was decommissioned on 24 February 1958 and entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Philadelphia. As part of President Ronald Reagan 's and Secretary of

9440-446: The Iran–Iraq War. Iowa and other vessels operating in the gulf were assigned to escort Kuwaiti tankers from Kuwaiti ports to the open sea, but because US law forbade military escorts for civilian ships flying a foreign flag, the tankers escorted by the United States were reflagged as US merchant vessels and assigned American names. For the remainder of the year Iowa escorted Kuwaiti gas and oil tankers reflagged as US merchant ships from

9600-470: The Mare Island–Vallejo site. In October 2007 the Navy informed HSMPS that they were the only viable candidate to acquire Iowa , and their application would be further reviewed after evidence was presented that financing was in place, and when the Stockton and San Francisco groups withdrew or failed to submit a final application respectively. On 25 April 2009, Iowa Senate Resolution No. 19 was approved, endorsing HSMPS as USS Iowa ' s custodian and supporting

9760-399: The Mediterranean Sea on 10 September to join the 6th Fleet based there. She remained in the Mediterranean until 22 October, when she was detached from the 6th Fleet and departed for operations in the North Sea. On 25 November, as part of Operation Earnest Will , Iowa transited the Suez Canal and set sail for the Persian Gulf , which at the time was one of the battlefields of

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9920-473: The Moray Firth. Whilst the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower at Jutland was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers successfully turning away the British battleships, the German attempt to rely on U-boat attacks on the British fleet failed. Torpedo boats did have some successes against battleships in World War I, as demonstrated by the sinking of the British pre-dreadnought HMS  Goliath by Muâvenet-i Millîye during

10080-413: The National Defense Authorization Act of 1996 which laid out for the maintenance of Iowa while she was in the "mothball fleet". In March 2007, the Historic Ships Memorial at Pacific Square (HSMPS) of Vallejo , site of the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard , and a Stockton group submitted proposals to use the ship as a museum. The HSMPS, which had attempted to place the ship in San Francisco, supported

10240-496: The Navy John F. Lehman 's effort to create an expanded 600-ship Navy , Iowa was reactivated in 1982 and towed by USNS Apache to Avondale Shipyard near New Orleans, Louisiana , for refitting and equipment modernization in advance of her planned recommissioning. During the refit, Iowa had all of her remaining Oerlikon 20 mm and Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns removed, due to their ineffectiveness against modern fighter jets and anti-ship missiles . Additionally,

10400-410: The Navy's Yorktown, Virginia , Naval Weapons Station during a 1988 dry-docking of Iowa . As it degrades, gunpowder gives off ether gas, which is highly flammable and could be ignited by a spark. 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, concluding that there

10560-458: The North Korean forces. In July, Iowa received a new skipper, Captain Joshua W. Cooper, who assumed command of the battleship for the remainder of her Korean War tour. On 20 August, Iowa took aboard nine wounded men from the destroyer USS  Thompson after Thompson was hit by a Chinese artillery battery while shelling enemy positions at Sŏngjin. At the time, Iowa was operating 16 mi (26 km) south of Sŏngjin, and after receiving

10720-468: The North Sea were battles including the Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank and German raids on the English coast, all of which were attempts by the Germans to lure out portions of the Grand Fleet in an attempt to defeat the Royal Navy in detail. On May 31, 1916, a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on German terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets in the Battle of Jutland . The German fleet withdrew to port after two short encounters with

10880-427: The Number Two 16-inch (406 mm) gun turret, killing 47 crewmen. A gunner's mate in the powder magazine room quickly flooded the No. 2 powder magazine, likely preventing catastrophic damage to the ship. At first, Naval Investigative Service (NIS, later renamed Naval Criminal Investigative Service or NCIS) investigators theorized that one of the dead crewmen, Clayton Hartwig , had detonated an explosive device in

11040-428: The Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz . On 20 February 1988, Iowa departed from the Persian Gulf, transited the Suez Canal, and set sail for the United States, arriving at Norfolk on 10 March for routine maintenance. In April, she participated in the annual Fleet Week celebrations before returning to Norfolk for an overhaul. On 26 May, Fred Moosally replaced Larry Seaquist as Captain of Iowa . After

11200-533: The President to the United States. Roosevelt addressed the crew of Iowa prior to leaving by stating, "... from all I have seen and all I have heard, the Iowa is a 'happy ship,' and having served with the Navy for many years, I know—and you know—what that means." He also touched on the progress made at the conference before concluding his address with "... good luck, and remember that I am with you in spirit, each and every one of you." As flagship of Battleship Division 7 (BatDiv 7), Iowa departed

11360-484: The Puerto Rican Operating area. After a short period in her new home port of Norfolk, Virginia, she spent the two periods of time during the rest of 1984 and early 1985 conduction "presence" operations shakedown in the area around Central America. During this time she transited the Panama Canal to operate off the west coast of Central America while also conducting people-to-people humanitarian operations, including in El Salvador, Costa Rica and Honduras , before returning to

11520-550: The Republic, killed their officers, who apparently supported Franco's attempted coup, and joined the Republican Navy. Thus each side had one battleship; however, the Republican Navy generally lacked experienced officers. The Spanish battleships mainly restricted themselves to mutual blockades, convoy escort duties, and shore bombardment, rarely in direct fighting against other surface units. In April 1937, España ran into

11680-501: The Royal Navy's battleships and battlecruisers regularly "sweep" the North Sea making sure that no German ships could get in or out. Only a few German surface ships that were already at sea, such as the famous light cruiser SMS  Emden , were able to raid commerce. Even some of those that did manage to get out were hunted down by battlecruisers, as in the Battle of the Falklands , December 7, 1914. The results of sweeping actions in

11840-506: The Russian flagship Tzesarevich at 14,200 yards (13,000 meters). At the Battle of Tsushima on May 27, 1905, Russian Admiral Rozhestvensky's flagship fired the first 12-inch guns at the Japanese flagship Mikasa at 7,000 meters. It is often held that these engagements demonstrated the importance of the 12-inch (305 mm) gun over its smaller counterparts, though some historians take the view that secondary batteries were just as important as

12000-584: The Secretary of the Navy struck Iowa and Wisconsin from the NVR, which cleared the way for both ships to be donated for use as museum ships ; but the United States Congress remained "deeply concerned" over the loss of the naval surface gunfire support that the battleships provided, and noted that "navy efforts to improve upon, much less replace, this capability have been highly problematic." As

12160-555: The Secretary of the Navy to strike New Jersey from the Naval Vessel Register and transfer the battleship to a not-for-profit entity in accordance with section 7306 of Title 10 of the United States Code . It also required the transferee to locate the battleship in the state of New Jersey . The Navy made the switch in January 1999, allowing New Jersey to open as a museum ship in her namesake state. On 17 March 2006,

12320-687: The Seventh Fleet. In her first combat operation of the Korean War, Iowa fired her main guns near Wonsan – Sŏngjin on 8 April 1952, with the goal of striking North Korean supply lines. In the company of other naval vessels Iowa again engaged North Korean forces the following day, this time against enemy troop concentrations, supply areas, and suspected gun positions in and around Suwon Dan and Kojo. In support of South Korea's I Corps , Iowa shelled enemy positions on 13 April, killing 100 enemy soldiers, destroying six gun emplacements, and wrecking

12480-442: The Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the lack of a perceived threat against the United States came drastic cuts to the defense budget and the battleships were deemed uneconomical. As a result, Iowa was decommissioned for the last time on 26 October 1990, after a total of 19 years of commissioned service. She was the first of the reactivated battleships to be decommissioned, and this was done earlier than originally planned as

12640-636: The Task Force's second strike on Truk, on 29 and 30 April, and bombarded Japanese facilities on Ponape in the Carolines on 1 May. In the opening phases of the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign , Iowa protected the American carriers during air strikes on the islands of Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Rota, and Pagan Island on 12 June. Iowa was then detached to bombard enemy installations on Saipan and Tinian on 13–14 June, which resulted in

12800-496: The U.S. Navy's nascent aircraft carrier program. The Royal Navy , United States Navy , and Imperial Japanese Navy extensively upgraded and modernized their World War I–era battleships during the 1930s. Among the new features were an increased tower height and stability for the optical rangefinder equipment (for gunnery control), more armor (especially around turrets) to protect against plunging fire and aerial bombing, and additional anti-aircraft weapons. Some British ships received

12960-449: The UN and South Korean forces. On 9 June, a helicopter from Iowa rescued a downed pilot from the carrier USS  Princeton . At the time, Princeton was operating with TF 77, and with other carriers in the task force who were involved in a bombing campaign against North Korean supply lines, troop concentrations, and infrastructure; additionally, the carriers were flying close air support missions for ground forces fighting against

13120-516: The United Kingdom and Japan, which would in turn have led to a possible Pacific war , the United States was keen to conclude the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. This treaty limited the number and size of battleships that each major nation could possess, and required Britain to accept parity with the U.S. and to abandon the British alliance with Japan. The Washington treaty was followed by a series of other naval treaties, including

13280-700: The United Kingdom had 38 battleships, twice as many as France and almost as many as the rest of the world put together. In 1897, Britain's lead was far smaller due to competition from France, Germany, and Russia, as well as the development of pre-dreadnought fleets in Italy, the United States and Japan . The Ottoman Empire, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway , the Netherlands , Chile and Brazil all had second-rate fleets led by armored cruisers , coastal defence ships or monitors . Pre-dreadnoughts continued

13440-598: The United States Navy reserve fleets (or "mothball fleet"). The Navy was to ensure that both of the reinstated battleships were in good condition and could be reactivated for use in the Marine Corps' amphibious operations. Due to Iowa ' s damaged turret, the Navy selected New Jersey for placement into the mothball fleet, even though the training mechanisms on New Jersey ' s 16-inch (406 mm) guns had been welded down. The cost to fix New Jersey

13600-701: The United States campaign to recapture the Philippines, the Imperial Japanese Navy struck back with Shō-Gō  1, a three-pronged attack aimed at the destruction of American amphibious forces in Leyte Gulf . The plan called for Vice-Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa to use the surviving Japanese carriers as bait to draw US carriers of TF 38 away from the Philippine beachheads, allowing Imperial Japanese Admirals Takeo Kurita , Kiyohide Shima , and Shōji Nishimura to take surface task forces through

13760-491: The United States in April 1985 for a period of routine maintenance. In August 1985, Iowa joined 160 other ships for Exercise Ocean Safari, a NATO naval exercise aimed at testing NATO's ability to control sea lanes and maintain free passage of shipping. Owing to bad weather, Iowa and the other ships were forced to ride out rough seas, but Iowa made use of the time to practice hiding herself from enemy forces. While serving with

13920-554: The United States on 2 January 1944 for the Pacific Ocean, transiting the Panama Canal on 7 January in advance of her combat debut in the campaign for the Marshall Islands . From 29 January to 3 February, she supported carrier air strikes made by Rear Admiral Frederick C. Sherman 's Task Group 58.3 (TG 58.3) against Kwajalein and Eniwetok atolls. Her next assignment was to support air strikes against

14080-464: The advent of air power and the need to gain and maintain air superiority came a need to protect the growing fleet of Allied aircraft carriers ; to this end, Iowa was fitted with an array of Oerlikon 20 mm and Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns to defend Allied carriers from enemy airstrikes. On 24 February 1943, Iowa put to sea for a shakedown cruise in the Chesapeake Bay and along

14240-777: The areas of Wonsan, Songjin, Kojo, Chaho, Toejo, Simpo, Hungnam and northern Inchon North Korea, and in 27 bombline operations. During these operations, 16,689 rounds were fired from her main and secondary batteries on enemy installations. This action established eligibility for the United Nations Service Medal and the Korean Service Medal with one bronze star. Iowa embarked midshipmen for at-sea training to Northern Europe in July 1953, and shortly afterwards took part in Operation Mariner,

14400-647: The battleship and her crew during Naval Gunfire Support requalification off Vieques Island near Puerto Rico. On 17 August, Iowa set sail for the North Atlantic, and in September she participated in Exercise Northern Wedding by ferrying Marines ashore and assisting helicopter gunships. During the exercise Iowa fired her main guns at Cape Wrath range in Scotland in support of a simulated amphibious assault on 5–6 September, firing

14560-413: The battleship's placement at Mare Island. Battleship A battleship is a large, heavily armored warship with a main battery consisting of large- caliber guns , designed to serve as capital ships with the most intense firepower . Before the rise of supercarriers , battleships were among the largest and most formidable weapon systems ever built. The term battleship came into use in

14720-499: The concept of an all-big-gun ship had been in circulation for several years, it had yet to be validated in combat. Dreadnought sparked a new arms race , principally between Britain and Germany but reflected worldwide, as the new class of warships became a crucial element of national power. Technical development continued rapidly through the dreadnought era, with steep changes in armament, armor and propulsion. Ten years after Dreadnought ' s commissioning, much more powerful ships,

14880-562: The cruiser having escaped Truk the day before following Operation Hailstone , the US air attack on Truk. On 21 February, she was underway with the Fast Carrier Task Force (alternatively designated TF 38 while with 3rd Fleet and TF 58 while with 5th Fleet ) while it conducted the first strikes against Saipan , Tinian , Rota , and Guam in the Mariana Islands . On 18 March 1944, Iowa , flying

15040-486: The decisive Battle of Tsushima in 1905, the outcome of which significantly influenced the design of HMS Dreadnought . The launch of Dreadnought in 1906 commenced a new naval arms race. Three major fleet actions between steel battleships took place: the long-range gunnery duel at the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904, the decisive Battle of Tsushima in 1905 (both during the Russo-Japanese War ) and

15200-558: The destruction of a Japanese ammunition dump. On 19 June, in an engagement known as the Battle of the Philippine Sea , Iowa , as part of the battle line of TF 58, helped repel four massive air raids launched by the Japanese Middle Fleet. This resulted in the almost complete destruction of Japanese carrier-based air-forces, with Iowa claiming the destruction of three enemy aircraft. Iowa then joined in

15360-618: The end of World War I, aircraft had successfully adopted the torpedo as a weapon. In 1921 the Italian general and air theorist Giulio Douhet completed a hugely influential treatise on strategic bombing titled The Command of the Air , which foresaw the dominance of air power over naval units. In the 1920s, General Billy Mitchell of the United States Army Air Corps , believing that air forces had rendered navies around

15520-702: The exercise force, Iowa crossed the Arctic Circle . In October, she took part in Baltic operations, and fired her phalanx guns, 5 in (127 mm) guns, and 16 in (406 mm) guns in the Baltic Sea on 17 October while operating with US and other allied ships. After these operations during which she visited Le Havre in France, Kiel in Germany, Copenhagen (where the current King of Denmark visited

15680-528: The first Gulf War (also referred to as the Iran–Iraq War ). The presence of US naval vessels in the gulf was in response to a formal petition from Kuwait , whose ships were being raided by Iranian forces who were attempting to cut off weapons shipments from the United States and Europe to Saddam Hussein 's regime in Iraq, via Kuwaiti territory. This phase of the war would later be called the " Tanker War " phase of

15840-519: The first shots of World War II with the bombardment of the Polish garrison at Westerplatte ; and the final surrender of the Japanese Empire took place aboard a United States Navy battleship, USS  Missouri . Between those two events, it had become clear that aircraft carriers were the new principal ships of the fleet and that battleships now performed a secondary role. Battleships played

16000-811: The flag of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee ( Commander, Battleships, Pacific ), joined in the bombardment of Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Although struck by two Japanese 4.7 in (120 mm) projectiles, Iowa suffered negligible damage. She then rejoined TF 58 on 30 March, and supported air strikes against the Palau Islands and Woleai of the Carolines for several days. From 22 to 28 April, Iowa supported air raids on Hollandia (now known as Jayapura), Aitape , and Wake Islands to support Army forces on Aitape and at Tanahmerah and Humboldt Bays in New Guinea . She then joined

16160-496: The flagship of the Commander, 6th Fleet . She departed on a midshipman training cruise on 1 June, and upon her return entered Norfolk for a four-month overhaul. 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. Upon completion, Iowa embarked midshipmen for a South American training cruise and joined in

16320-464: The inconclusive Battle of Jutland in 1916, during the First World War . Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of dreadnoughts of the war, and it was the last major battle in naval history fought primarily by battleships. The Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships, though technical innovation in battleship design continued. Both

16480-460: The island. She then supported air strikes off southern Kyūshū from 25 May to 13 June. Afterward, she sailed toward northern Honshū and Hokkaidō , and participated in strikes on the Japanese home islands on 14–15 July by bombarding Muroran , Hokkaidō, destroying steel mills and other targets. The city of Hitachi on Honshū was shelled beginning the night of 17 July and lasting to 18 July. On 29 and 30 July, Iowa trained her guns on Kahoolawe for

16640-481: The larger weapons when dealing with smaller fast-moving torpedo craft. Such was the case, albeit unsuccessfully, when the Russian battleship  Knyaz Suvorov at Tsushima had been sent to the bottom by destroyer -launched torpedoes. The 1903–04 design also retained traditional triple-expansion steam engines . As early as 1904, Jackie Fisher had been convinced of the need for fast, powerful ships with an all-big-gun armament. If Tsushima influenced his thinking, it

16800-412: The last Royal Navy battleship, the design was so successful he found little support for his plan to switch to a battlecruiser navy. Although there were some problems with the ship (the wing turrets had limited arcs of fire and strained the hull when firing a full broadside, and the top of the thickest armor belt lay below the waterline at full load), the Royal Navy promptly commissioned another six ships to

16960-515: The last battleship to be launched being HMS  Vanguard in 1944. Four battleships were retained by the United States Navy until the end of the Cold War for fire support purposes and were last used in combat during the Gulf War in 1991, and then struck from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register in the 2000s. Many World War II-era American battleships survive today as museum ships . A ship of

17120-442: The late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship , now referred to by historians as pre-dreadnought battleships . In 1906, the commissioning of HMS  Dreadnought into the United Kingdom 's Royal Navy heralded a revolution in the field of battleship design. Subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS Dreadnought , were referred to as " dreadnoughts ", though the term eventually became obsolete as dreadnoughts became

17280-744: The leaders of the Atlantic Fleet to ensure that Iowa ' s deficiencies were corrected. Afterward, Iowa returned to the waters around Central America and conducted drills and exercises while providing a military presence to friendly nations. On 4 July, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan boarded Iowa for the International Naval Review, which was held in the Hudson River . On 25 April, Captain Larry Ray Seaquist assumed command of

17440-463: The line was a large, unarmored wooden sailing ship which mounted a battery of up to 120 smoothbore guns and carronades , which came to prominence with the adoption of line of battle tactics in the early 17th century and the end of the sailing battleship's heyday in the 1830s. From 1794, the alternative term 'line of battle ship' was contracted (informally at first) to 'battle ship' or 'battleship'. The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant

17600-405: The major Japanese naval and logistics base at Truk , Caroline Islands . Iowa , in company with other ships, was detached from the support group on 16 February 1944 to conduct an anti-shipping sweep around Truk, with the objective of destroying enemy naval vessels escaping to the north. During this action, Iowa , along with her sister New Jersey , sank the Japanese light cruiser Katori ,

17760-415: The mid-1870s steel was used as a construction material alongside iron and wood. The French Navy's Redoutable , laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876, was a central battery and barbette warship which became the first battleship in the world to use steel as the principal building material. The term "battleship" was officially adopted by the Royal Navy in the re-classification of 1892. By the 1890s, there

17920-465: The non-intervention blockade. On May 29, 1937, two Republican aircraft managed to bomb the German pocket battleship Deutschland outside Ibiza , causing severe damage and loss of life. Admiral Scheer retaliated two days later by bombarding Almería , causing much destruction, and the resulting Deutschland incident meant the end of German and Italian participation in non-intervention. The Schleswig-Holstein —an obsolete pre-dreadnought —fired

18080-452: The only type of battleship in common use. Battleships dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, and for decades were a major intimidation factor for power projection in both diplomacy and military strategy . A global arms race in battleship construction began in Europe in the 1890s and culminated at

18240-474: The overhaul, Moosally took Iowa on a shakedown cruise around Chesapeake Bay on 25 August. Encountering difficulty in conning the ship through shallow water, Moosally narrowly missed colliding with the frigate Moinester , destroyer Farragut , and the cruiser South Carolina before running aground in soft mud outside the bay's main ship channel near the Thimble Shoals. After one hour, Iowa

18400-584: The post World War II drawdown of the armed forces, Iowa was deactivated at San Francisco, and then formally decommissioned into the United States Navy reserve fleets on 24 March 1949. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, prompting the United Nations to authorize military intervention. President Harry S. Truman ordered US forces stationed in Japan to transfer to South Korea. Truman also sent US based troops, tanks, fighter and bomber aircraft, and

18560-593: The pursuit of the fleeing enemy fleet, shooting down one torpedo plane and assisting in splashing another. Throughout July, Iowa remained off the Marianas supporting air strikes on the Palaus and landings on Guam. After a month's rest, Iowa sailed from Eniwetok as part of the Third Fleet, and helped support the landings on Peleliu on 17 September. She then protected the carriers during air strikes against

18720-470: The rules, and sank the ship within minutes in a coordinated attack. The stunt made headlines, and Mitchell declared, "No surface vessels can exist wherever air forces acting from land bases are able to attack them." While far from conclusive, Mitchell's test was significant because it put proponents of the battleship against naval aviation on the defensive. Rear Admiral William A. Moffett used public relations against Mitchell to make headway toward expansion of

18880-439: The same broadside, despite having two fewer guns. In 1897, before the revolution in design brought about by HMS  Dreadnought , the Royal Navy had 62 battleships in commission or building, a lead of 26 over France and 50 over Germany. From the 1906 launching of Dreadnought , an arms race with major strategic consequences was prompted. Major naval powers raced to build their own dreadnoughts. Possession of modern battleships

19040-488: The same class, this shakedown performance will be the standard of the class's capabilities, and its success may determine whether the class is to enter full production. In the travel industry a shakedown cruise is also undertaken to test the ship and service crew. These test cruises are sometimes made with passengers travelling at a discount. A vessel is typically not committed to any timetables or tasks until it completes its shakedown cruise. As such, problems detected during

19200-429: The shakedown cruise can be fixed at minimal cost. While the ship is assigned to the industrial activity for this purpose, this period is known as an "availability". In the US Navy, the typical length of an availability is 45 to 120 days, and per regulation, must be completed no more than eleven months after the month the ship was first delivered. This is also known as a "post-shakedown availability". The USS Triton ,

19360-625: The ship as a schoolboy) and Aarhus in Denmark, and Oslo in Norway where the King of Norway was entertained at lunch, she returned to the United States. Beginning on 17 March 1986, Iowa underwent her overdue InSurv inspection. The inspection, which Iowa ultimately failed, was conducted under the supervision of Rear Admiral John D. Bulkeley . Bulkeley found that the ship was unable to achieve her top speed of 33 kn (38 mph; 61 km/h) during

19520-490: The ship became the test bed for the Navy's RQ-2 Pioneer (UAV). The drone was designed to serve as an aerial spotter for the battleship's guns, thereby allowing the guns to be used against an enemy without the need for an airplane or helicopter spotter. Pioneer passed its tests and made its first deployment that same month aboard Iowa . From January–September 1987 Iowa operated in the waters in and around Central America and participated in several exercises until sailing for

19680-440: The ship is the first of its class, it will likely also be performing its sea trials , a test of its performance. In this context, 'shakedown cruise' and 'sea trials' may be used interchangeably, though each has a slightly different meaning. In such a case, it is likely that the ship's systems will be pushed to redline , or maximum capacity, to demonstrate the class's speed and other important traits. Until bested by another ship of

19840-467: The ship of the line concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system . Steam power was gradually introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century, initially for small craft and later for frigates . The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850 —the first true steam battleship. Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her

20000-539: The ships of TF 38 unexpectedly found themselves in a fight for their lives when Typhoon Cobra overtook the force—7 fleet carriers, 6 light carriers, 8 battleships, 15 cruisers, and about 50 destroyers—during their attempt to refuel at sea. At the time, the ships were operating about 300 mi (480 km) east of Luzon in the Philippine Sea . The carriers had just completed three days of heavy raids against Japanese airfields, suppressing enemy aircraft during

20160-716: The small but violent typhoon overtook the task force while many of the ships were attempting to refuel. Many of the vessels were caught near the center of the storm and buffeted by extreme seas and hurricane-force winds. Three destroyers— Hull , Monaghan , and Spence —capsized and sank with nearly all hands, while a cruiser, five aircraft carriers, and three destroyers suffered serious damage. Approximately 790 officers and men were lost or killed, with another 80 injured. Fires occurred in three carriers when planes broke loose in their hangars, and some 146 planes on various ships were swept overboard or damaged beyond economical repair by fires or impacts. Iowa reported zero injured sailors as

20320-472: The strategic position had changed. In Germany , the ambitious Plan Z for naval rearmament was abandoned in favor of a strategy of submarine warfare supplemented by the use of battlecruisers and commerce raiding (in particular by Bismarck -class battleships). In Britain, the most pressing need was for air defenses and convoy escorts to safeguard the civilian population from bombing or starvation, and re-armament construction plans consisted of five ships of

20480-659: The super-dreadnoughts, were being built. In the first years of the 20th century, several navies worldwide experimented with the idea of a new type of battleship with a uniform armament of very heavy guns. Admiral Vittorio Cuniberti , the Italian Navy's chief naval architect, articulated the concept of an all-big-gun battleship in 1903. When the Regia Marina did not pursue his ideas, Cuniberti wrote an article in Jane ' s proposing an "ideal" future British battleship,

20640-528: The superstructure, and they would be more effective against smaller ships such as cruisers . Smaller guns (12-pounders and smaller) were reserved for protecting the battleship against the threat of torpedo attack from destroyers and torpedo boats . The beginning of the pre-dreadnought era coincided with Britain reasserting her naval dominance. For many years previously, Britain had taken naval supremacy for granted. Expensive naval projects were criticized by political leaders of all inclinations. However, in 1888

20800-651: The surrender ceremony which took place aboard Missouri . After serving as Admiral Halsey's flagship for the surrender ceremony on 2 September, Iowa remained in the bay as part of the occupying force. As part of the ongoing Operation Magic Carpet , she received homeward bound GIs and liberated US prisoners of war before departing Tokyo Bay on 20 September, bound for the United States. Iowa arrived in Seattle, Washington , on 15 October 1945, then sailed for Long Beach, California , where she engaged in training operations until returning to Japan in 1946 to serve as flagship for

20960-487: The technical innovations of the ironclad. Turrets, armor plate, and steam engines were all improved over the years, and torpedo tubes were also introduced. A small number of designs, including the American Kearsarge and Virginia classes , experimented with all or part of the 8-inch intermediate battery superimposed over the 12-inch primary. Results were poor: recoil factors and blast effects resulted in

21120-555: The third, Shinano , was later completed as a carrier) and a planned fourth was cancelled. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War , the Spanish navy included only two small dreadnought battleships, España and Jaime I . España (originally named Alfonso XIII ), by then in reserve at the northwestern naval base of El Ferrol , fell into Nationalist hands in July 1936. The crew aboard Jaime I remained loyal to

21280-463: The threat posed to dreadnought battleships proved to have been largely a false alarm. HMS Audacious turned out to be the only dreadnought sunk by a submarine in World War I. While battleships were never intended for anti-submarine warfare, there was one instance of a submarine being sunk by a dreadnought battleship. HMS Dreadnought rammed and sank the German submarine U-29 on March 18, 1915, off

21440-596: The time of the famous clash of the USS ; Monitor and the CSS ; Virginia at the Battle of Hampton Roads at least eight navies possessed ironclad ships. Navies experimented with the positioning of guns, in turrets (like the USS Monitor ), central-batteries or barbettes , or with the ram as the principal weapon. As steam technology developed, masts were gradually removed from battleship designs. By

21600-528: The two 5 in (127 mm) gun mounts located at mid-ship and in the aft on the port and starboard sides of the battleship were removed. Iowa was then towed to Ingalls Shipbuilding , Pascagoula, Mississippi , where over the next several months the battleship was upgraded with the most advanced weaponry available. Among the new weapons systems installed were four MK 141 quad cell launchers for 16 AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, eight Armored Box Launcher mounts for 32 BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles, and

21760-449: The vast resources spent on building battlefleets. Even in spite of their huge firepower and protection, battleships were increasingly vulnerable to much smaller and relatively inexpensive weapons: initially the torpedo and the naval mine , and later attack aircraft and the guided missile . The growing range of naval engagements led to the aircraft carrier replacing the battleship as the leading capital ship during World War II, with

21920-464: The vulnerable escort carrier fleet, but fierce resistance by the 7th Fleet in the Battle off Samar had already caused the Japanese to retire and Iowa was denied a surface action. Following the Battle of Leyte Gulf , Iowa remained in the waters off the Philippines screening carriers during strikes against Luzon and Formosa. She sailed for the West Coast late in December 1944. On 18 December,

22080-484: The war wore on however, it turned out that whilst submarines did prove to be a very dangerous threat to older pre-dreadnought battleships, as shown by examples such as the sinking of Mesûdiye , which was caught in the Dardanelles by a British submarine and HMS  Majestic and HMS  Triumph were torpedoed by U-21 as well as HMS  Formidable , HMS  Cornwallis , HMS  Britannia etc.,

22240-568: The war, French ironclad floating batteries used similar weapons against the defenses at the Battle of Kinburn . Nevertheless, wooden-hulled ships stood up comparatively well to shells, as shown in the 1866 Battle of Lissa , where the modern Austrian steam two-decker SMS  Kaiser ranged across a confused battlefield, rammed an Italian ironclad and took 80 hits from Italian ironclads, many of which were shells, but including at least one 300-pound shot at point-blank range. Despite losing her bowsprit and her foremast, and being set on fire, she

22400-642: The weights of ships. Designs like the projected British N3-class battleship, the first American South Dakota class , and the Japanese Kii class —all of which continued the trend to larger ships with bigger guns and thicker armor—never got off the drawing board. Those designs which were commissioned during this period were referred to as treaty battleships . As early as 1914, the British Admiral Percy Scott predicted that battleships would soon be made irrelevant by aircraft . By

22560-468: The world obsolete, testified in front of Congress that "1,000 bombardment airplanes can be built and operated for about the price of one battleship" and that a squadron of these bombers could sink a battleship, making for more efficient use of government funds. This infuriated the U.S. Navy, but Mitchell was nevertheless allowed to conduct a careful series of bombing tests alongside Navy and Marine bombers. In 1921, he bombed and sank numerous ships, including

22720-650: The wounded destroyer crewmen, Iowa covered Thompson as she retreated into safer waters. On 23 September, General Mark W. Clark , the Commander-In-Chief of United Nations Forces in Korea, came aboard Iowa . Clark observed Iowa in action as her guns shelled the Wonsan area for a third time, accounting for the destruction of a major enemy ammunition dump . On 25 September, Iowa fired her guns at an enemy railroad and 30-car train. The following month, Iowa

22880-480: Was able to extricate herself without damage and return to port. Iowa continued with sea trials throughout August and September, then began refresher training in the waters around Florida and Puerto Rico in October, during which the ship passed an Operation Propulsion Program Evaluation. 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

23040-573: Was also determined that Captain Fred Moosally was more concerned with the maintenance of the missiles than the training and manning of guns. Powder from the same lot as the one under investigation was tested at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division . Spontaneous combustion was achieved with the powder, which had been originally milled in the 1930s and improperly stored in a barge at

23200-462: Was an increasing similarity between battleship designs, and the type that later became known as the 'pre-dreadnought battleship' emerged. These were heavily armored ships, mounting a mixed battery of guns in turrets, and without sails. The typical first-class battleship of the pre-dreadnought era displaced 15,000 to 17,000  tons , had a speed of 16 knots (30 km/h), and an armament of four 12-inch (305 mm) guns in two turrets fore and aft with

23360-513: Was considered less than the cost to fix Iowa ; as a result, New Jersey and Wisconsin were reinstated to the Naval Vessel Register and placed back in the reserve fleet. New Jersey remained there until the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act of 1999 required the Secretary of the Navy to list and maintain Iowa and Wisconsin on the Naval Vessel Register. The Act also required

23520-1109: Was donated to the Los Angeles –based non-profit 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 . Ordered in July 1939, USS Iowa was laid down at New York Naval Shipyard in June 1940. 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. USS Iowa ' s main battery consisted of nine 16 in (406 mm)/50 caliber Mark 7 guns , which could fire 2,700 lb (1,200 kg) armor-piercing shells 20 nmi (23 mi; 37 km). Her secondary battery consisted of twenty 5 in (127 mm)/38 cal guns in twin mounts, which could fire at targets up to 12 nmi (14 mi; 22 km) away. With

23680-411: Was effective beyond visual range and effective in complete darkness or adverse weather, was introduced to supplement optical fire control. Even when war threatened again in the late 1930s, battleship construction did not regain the level of importance it had held in the years before World War I. The "building holiday" imposed by the naval treaties meant the capacity of dockyards worldwide had shrunk, and

23840-559: 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. In order to expedite the schedule, many necessary repairs to Iowa 's engines and guns were not completed and the mandatory Navy Board of Inspection and Survey (InSurv) inspection was skipped. From April to August 1984, Iowa underwent refresher training and naval gunfire support qualifications at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and

24000-400: Was no real evidence to support the claim that he had intentionally killed the other sailors. Iowa captain Fred Moosally was severely criticized for his handling of the matter, and as a result of the incident the Navy changed the powder-handling procedures for its battleships. The incident remains one of the surface Navy's worst losses of life during peacetime operations. With the collapse of

24160-425: Was not only seen as vital to naval power, but also, as with nuclear weapons after World War II , represented a nation's standing in the world. Germany , France , Japan , Italy , Austria , and the United States all began dreadnought programmes; while the Ottoman Empire , Argentina , Russia , Brazil , and Chile commissioned dreadnoughts to be built in British and American yards. By virtue of geography,

24320-492: Was part of Iowa ' s anti-submarine screen, accidentally discharged a torpedo toward Iowa during a drill. Following warnings from the destroyer and her own lookouts, Iowa turned hard to avoid the torpedo, which detonated approximately 1200 yards astern in the ship's wake. Iowa trained her guns on William D. Porter , concerned that the smaller ship might have been involved in an assassination plot. Iowa completed her presidential escort mission on 16 December by returning

24480-483: Was part of the force involved in Operation Decoy, a feint to draw enemy troops into Kojo and bring them within striking distance of the battleships' big guns. During the operation, Iowa provided anti-aircraft support to USS  Mount McKinley , an amphibious force command ship. In October 1952 Iowa was serving as flagship for the Commander, Seventh Fleet, and she engaged in 43 gun strikes on targets in

24640-400: Was ready for action again the very next day. The development of high-explosive shells made the use of iron armor plate on warships necessary. In 1859 France launched Gloire , the first ocean-going ironclad warship. She had the profile of a ship of the line, cut to one deck due to weight considerations. Although made of wood and reliant on sail for most journeys, Gloire was fitted with

24800-402: Was restricted to skirmishes. In the Baltic Sea , action was largely limited to the raiding of convoys, and the laying of defensive minefields; the only significant clash of battleship squadrons there was the Battle of Moon Sound at which one Russian pre-dreadnought was lost. The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought fleet remained bottled up by

24960-551: Was satisfied with the investigation and its results, others were unconvinced, and in October 1991, amid increasing criticism, Congress forced the Navy to reopen the investigation. This second investigation, handled by independent investigators, was hampered as most of the original debris from Iowa had been cleaned up or otherwise disposed of by the Navy before and after the first investigation, but it did uncover evidence pointing to an accidental powder explosion due to over-ramming rather than an intentional act of sabotage. While Iowa

25120-425: Was sunk by destroyers during the night phase of the Battle of Jutland. The German High Seas Fleet, for their part, were determined not to engage the British without the assistance of submarines; and since the submarines were needed more for raiding commercial traffic, the fleet stayed in port for much of the war. For many years, Germany simply had no battleships. The Armistice with Germany required that most of

25280-441: Was to persuade him of the need to standardise on 12-inch (305 mm) guns. Fisher's concerns were submarines and destroyers equipped with torpedoes, then threatening to outrange battleship guns, making speed imperative for capital ships . Fisher's preferred option was his brainchild, the battlecruiser : lightly armored but heavily armed with eight 12-inch guns and propelled to 25 knots (46 km/h) by steam turbines . It

25440-447: Was to prove this revolutionary technology that Dreadnought was designed in January 1905, laid down in October 1905 and sped to completion by 1906. She carried ten 12-inch guns, had an 11-inch armor belt, and was the first large ship powered by turbines. She mounted her guns in five turrets; three on the centerline (one forward, two aft) and two on the wings , giving her at her launch twice the broadside of any other warship. She retained

25600-438: Was undergoing modernization in the early 1980s, her sister ship New Jersey had been dispatched to Lebanon to provide offshore fire support. At the time, New Jersey was the only commissioned battleship anywhere in the world, and it was found that, in an effort to get another battleship commissioned to relieve New Jersey , the modernization of Iowa was stepped up, leaving her in poor condition when she recommissioned in 1984. It

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