Over the weekend I received a personal invitation by the fellow who was Structural Mgr. for Naval Architecture at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard to come aboard the Iowa and go inside. I had been on the outside many times but of course never inside as no one gets inside. This gentleman is 74 and has braces on both knees and is a walking encyclopedia of how battleships are/were built. He only knew of me via a Naval Warfare Forum and that I was with the USS Hornet Museum and had many trips to the Suisun Reserve Fleet.

He wrote the book "A History of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard" which is 538 pages and chronicles the history of the yard and the ships they worked on. Now, when I arrived at MARAD I didn't see anyone old enough to be him in the group of 15 going onto the Iowa. I asked and he wasn't there so I just blended in as I didn't want to miss this. Turns out he over slept and came out and hour later on another launch. Met him then, saw he had a cataract, was a little hard of hearing, slow to walk, but had story after story. He asked me to go with him down to ammunition storage for 5" shells to count how many could be stored. Needed the exact number in order to replace them to ballast the Iowa and bring her bow down. As we left someone told him to be careful and then quietly said to me not to let him go below 2nd deck. Ammo storage, for these guns, is on 3rd deck. Later in the day we got down to 7th deck looking for a manual on operation of the anchor windlass. He made it as you weren't going to keep him from it.

Didn't get to go everywhere as this is a big ship and we ran out of time. So I didn't see much of the stern of the ship but mainly amidships to the bow. So no shots of the main galley, crew's mess, auxiliary machinery, aft steering or shaft alley. Some notes. The ship is 108" at it's widest but inside there is only about 80' of room. The other 28', give or take, is taken up by the hull, armor and voids. The center of the ship enclosing the propulsion plant of Fire (2), Engine, Fire(2), Engine, Fire(2), Engine, Fire(2), Engine is armored top and sides. The armored barbettes for the turrets are 17" thick on the sides. The conning station is enclosed in 17" thick armor on the bridge. The armor belt is not welded being too thick but is held by large bolts all the way through to a backing plate and it is angled at 19 degrees to deflect torpedoes. Her bottom is a triple hull which I have a shot of and she goes from 7th deck all the way to O12 at the extreme top of the tower containing the forward main gun director.

Some shots below and the rest are on the link from page 7 through 10.

USS Hornet CV-12 CVS-12

Below her battle ribbons, Turret 2 barbette outside Medical on deck 3 and FDR's bath tub in Admiral's stateroom.

 

Next are Fire Control for the 5"/38 cal gun mounts, a shot of the caps covering the nuts that secure the bolts holding the armor plate to the backing plate and then some sailor art in Engine Room 4.

 

Captain's Bridge with the armored conning station, the helm and a shot of the armor hatch at 17".

 

I spent four years on the Kennedy (CV-67) in the mid-80's and as impressive as it was to look at my ship, I used to stand at the end of Pier 11 or 12 at Naval Base ***** City and be in awe of the Iowa when she was in port. We really should have a few of these patrolling the seas right now just because they are intimidating looking.

Great photos by the way. Looks like the Iowa is in pretty decent shape still. Good to see.

 

Thanks for sharing sir! All of these beautiful girls are in amazing condition.

 

Nice pics , i have a few old pictures of the USS Hornet during WWII , my dad was a gunner on that ship.....Lew

 

They really built things to last back then.
Looks like a few weeks of maintenance, and she could steam out and sortie off to war.

Can you imagine being on the receiving end of those 16" guns?

 

Thanks for posting..

I couldn't get over the bath tub in the picture..

That is the same one I have in my house..

 

She is in great shape inside! Only missing a few radar repeaters, no doubt some of the Tomahawk equipment (I couldn't get back there), and some of her communication equipment as seen in the photos. I can't say much since there is still a competitive process for the ship but the Navy is to announce the winner sometime near the end of April I was told. Till then I have to stay quiet on a few things.

You know battleships were supposed to be obsolete right after Pearl Harbor which was the dawn of the attack aircraft carrier. The design of the Iowa started in early 1940 so she and her sisters were still thought to be the top dogs of the sea till December 7th. As they were launched in 1942 and 1943 the other two of the original six had their work stopped on the ways. They were Kentucky and Illinois which were 72% complete and 21% complete. Both were later scrapped in the 50's after sitting on the ways for a decade.

Little known but none of the Iowa Class ever got to fire their 16" guns in anger at the enemy. In fact they rarely got to fire their guns. These fast BB's were used to provide intense AA coverage for the fast attack carriers as they could match their speed of 33 knots. The only relatively new BB"s that got to shoot at the enemy were the South Dakota and Washington. That was at the Battle of Savo Island in November 1942. Later the old BB's of Pearl Harbor, in Jesse Oldendorf's Task Force, got to fire their guns at enemy ships during the Battle of Surigao Strait in October 1944. The Iowas had gone north with Halsey when he took the bait and chased empty Japanese carriers. They missed out on their chance at the Yamato and their Captain's knew it. Most shore softening was also done by the old BB's and not the Iowas.

They did get to use their guns against shore targets in Korea and the New Jersey continued in Vietnam and Lebanon yet never against an enemy battleship. However, Billy Mitchell was wrong about battleships being an out dated. One only needed to change their mission profile. Today with all our carriers having full dance cards having two Iowas out there would come in handy. There isn't much of an air threat to them so you could actually use one off Libya for example. They still have their place and their use if the Navy had the money to keep them active. However, all the spare 16" gun barrels in Nevada were put up for sale at $500,000, provided you cut them up and then transported them away. They didn't sell as their value as scrape is about $40,000 in the steel. I know the Iowa can start up her boilers so she is not in deep sleep.

 

Great pics Mike, thanks for sharing! Go Navy!

 

The BB's were oil burners / steam driven. Not much bunker sea oil being burned in the Navy today, mostly JP-type fuel for the gas turbines.

I would have to agree on one point. The Navy would strongly benefit from having one BB per carrier battle group. I would never suggest that we send sailors to sea on ships this old and out dated. I would suggest that we build 12 new ones to the original hull specs (at billions of dollars each) modernize them for todays standards and build them to last the life of a carrier which is about 50 years.

Seeing one of these ladies entering your port is scary enough.

 

these are beautiful ships and it's a shame that we don't still have them (or perhaps a new version of the same design as Tim suggests) out there showing the flag and putting some awe into everyone they come across. Thanks for sharing these pics!

 

These ships are gorgeous but they were very expensive to operate and maintain, that's the main reason why they went away.

Compare the superstructure of one of the WWII BB's and the superstructure of an Arleigh Burke class destroyer. The new ships are built to shed NBC, Nuclear, Biological, Chemical attacks and to deflect a radar transmission. Plus their lower overall profile makes them less visible over the horizon and aids in their sea keeping abilities.

These ships were an important part of our history. They are the model that we use when we discuss freedom, American ingenuity, raw power and craftsmanship.

 

I bet with some dry-dock time and re-fit, she could go up against the entire NAVIES of most countries, clean their clocks, and never break a sweat!

 

She wouldn't have to sweat because the opponents would cut and run.........if they were smart.