THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 14, 1995 TAG: 9504120179
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
There has been much press of late surrounding the idea of bringing a battleship to the Norfolk waterfront.
Exactly which of the now-retired behemoths might end up moored alongside Nauticus is still a matter of conjecture, but the World War II-era USS Iowa is the odds-on favorite among many locals.
Recently a ``blue ribbon'' panel of interested citizens and experts from Norfolk and Portsmouth journeyed to the Philadelphia Shipyard and paid a call on BB-61. No doubt they returned a ``stacked jury'' in favor of having such a historic ship return to this harbor as a museum exhibit.
But there has also been a strong crosscurrent of critics who doubt that funds are in public or private coffers to return the battleship to the Elizabeth River in her fighting trim. Some doubt there is adequate room along the Norfolk waterfront to tie up such a giant ship without obstructing the channel.
There are still others who argue that with the existence of the MacArthur Memorial, ``going after'' the battleship USS Missouri instead of the Iowa is the right course since the Missouri has instant national and international recognition as the ship on which Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepted the unconditional surrender of Japan ending the Pacific theater of World War II.
No matter how you slice it, the thought of having such a ship in this harbor brings out strong emotions, and that should be expected when you look back over the history of America's ``battlewagons'' and their relation to the maritime history of Hampton Roads.
In the first place, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth was the birthplace of the nation's first modern steel battleship USS Texas, launched from the old building ways at what is today Trophy Park on June 28, 1892. Small when you compare it to the giants of World War II that were nearly 900 feet in length and over 100 feet in width in Missouri's case, Texas was barely 300 feet in length and just over 60 feet wide. Her armament of two 12-inch guns, six 6-inch guns, six 1-pound guns and four 37-mm guns would hardly be a match for a modern battleship's battery, which could include nine 16-inch guns capable of throwing a shell roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle over a mile and twenty 5-inch guns.
Texas' fighting prowess during the Spanish-American war, when the ship played a major role in obliterating Spain's wooden fleet off Santiago harbor, Cuba, further amplified the call for more and larger battleships. The shipyard and Norfolk harbor were once again center-focus in battleship development when the Navy announced in the spring of 1903 that the USS Illinois would come to Portsmouth for a complete overhaul. Some of the very same doubts that today surround the homeporting of a Missouri or Iowa were prevalent then as well.
So-called naval experts and pundits doubted that the Elizabeth River channel and yard anchorage could even handle the Illinois with her 23 1/2-foot draft. However a May 5, 1903, announcement in the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch silenced the doomsayers: ``The groundless fear, which kept larger vessels of the Navy away from the Navy Yard because it was thought the channel was not deep enough for them, has been set to rest for good and all. The Illinois of 11,525 tons displacement and drawing nearly 24 feet, came up yesterday on an average tide. There wasn't a bit of trouble about it.''
The successful arrival of the Illinois and the 1919 construction of the 1,011-foot-long drydock 4 helped pave the way for a whole fleet of battlewagons to call at the shipyard for repairs, earning it the nickname of the ``garage of the American battleship.''
From 1925 to 1934, the second Texas, New York, Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi and Idaho went through the Navy's battleship-modernization program in Portsmouth. But nothing caused more excitement about battleships in Norfolk harbor than the construction and launch of the battleship USS Alabama from the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on Feb. 16, 1942.
Still reeling from the shock of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that destroyed the Arizona, the ongoing construction of the 28,000-ton battleship Alabama in the winter of 1942 was a tremendous morale booster. As a tangible symbol of America's industrial might, giant steel girders rose above the building ways with the Alabama's 374-foot-long hull taking shape below.
Out of the thousands of shipyarders then employed, there was hardly one who wasn't committed directly or indirectly to the project. At the war's end, the Alabama had earned nine battle stars and had participated in the actual shelling of the Japanese home islands. With the addition of the 1,092-foot-long drydock 8 in March 1942, the yard was the Navy's premier repair facility for its largest warships.
During the 1950s, Norfolk Naval Shipyard was once again called upon to write a new chapter in America's battleship history as both the Iowa and Missouri paid calls for repairs and alterations. In 1982 when the Navy called for the return of several World War II-era battleships, the Iowa returned once more to Portsmouth with much fanfare.
With so much battleship lore along these shores coupled with the large number of local veterans in Hampton Roads who either built, repaired or served on America's modern battleships, the question of whether or not Norfolk harbor would be an appropriate place for the return of the Iowa or Missouri as a museum ship seems like a moot question. ILLUSTRATION: File photo
The Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth was the birthplace of the
nation's first modern steel battleship, the Texas, launched in
1892.
by CNB