This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
Having been laid up in mothballs since 1958, the namesake of the /ona-tiass battleships looked anything but classy when she began her return to active duty at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (facing page). In September 1982, the battleship was towed by tugs to Avondale Shipyards in New Orleans for a three-month drydocking period, where work was done on her outer hull and propulsion shafting. Then, the Iowa was gently nudged along the Gulf Coast to the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton in Pascagoula, Mississippi (below). There, the rest of her reactivation work was completed.
The World War II-era battlewagon really came to life when she underwent her sea trials from 18 to 23 March, 1984. Complemented with a crew of 1,500 enlisted men and 60 officers, the Iowa’s 887-foot length bristled with activity. Sailors swabbed the fir planking of the ship’s main deck in a time- honored ritual, and that same planking felt the heavy-booted footsteps of a U. S. Marine Corps detachment. The most spectacular reawakening took place when the mammoth 16-inch guns were fired, hurling 2,700-pound projectiles at targets miles away.
|
| j | HUer.. H9 |
| c j | |
|
| fijajflP | i ! |
| k | |
|
|
| j | |||
[ | HE* |
| —■ t / , • ■£ |
|
|
Proceedings / Ju*-'
On 28 April 1984, the 58,000-ton warship’s 26-year slumber officially ended as Vice President George Bush, escorted on board by the Iowa's commanding officer, Captain Gerald E. Gneckow, U. S. Navy, personally recommissioned the ship. Her flags flew, her brightwork glistened, and her crew members manned their stations in dress white uniforms. The USS Iowa (BB-61) was back.
| ] Hr « ] |
1 iwr |
|