USS Iowa - Guide 060 (Part 3)

The career of the USS Iowa herself is the subject of this special video

[cliff]

My Father, a U.S. Navy Destroyer Sailor did his final twilight cruise on the U.S.S. Iowa in the early 1980's. He was a CPO Fire Controller (Guns and Missiles). I've got some aerial photo's of her while she was still in the San Francisco Bay Area prior to being towed to Los Angeles. I have in my almost 300 strong Zippo Ship Lighters collection, all four of the Iowa Class BB's along with the Patches.
I also have a Mar Det Ball Cap from the Iowa. Also have a small piece of her teak deck. The fact that the Iowa Class survived WW II and went on to serve up to the Gulf War shows the robust design and somewhat forward thinking that went in to those four ships.

[HARMstudio]

I’ve visited the Iowa in person it’s awesome. I highly recommend it to anyone who visits LA

[nofrackingzone.]

My aunt worked at the Naval Ordnance facilitate based along the Chesapeake. She said the powder used by the Iowa was a combination of Korea war/later WWII material and was so unstable it was stored on barges in the bay. Congress would not approve the money to produce new gun powder. It was no surprise when the accident happened.

[billjenkins]

I appreciate your vast knowledge. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Iowa at San Pedro. I bought a chunk of her old teakwood deck and sent it to my retired U.S. Navy brother.

[stevewaters]

I've been aboard Iowa and Missouri, absolutely awesome ships. They radiate power and purpose and you can feel the pride of the crews.

[jimtalbott]

No mention of the bathtub? The only modern US warship to be fitted with a bathtub??

[misterjag]

The Iowa set the record for the longest straddle in history when she straddled the Japanese destroyer Nowaki at a range of 35, 700 yards (32.6 km; 17.6 nmi) .

[TOMAS-lher]

THE BIG PLAQUE on her superstructure with all her battle ribbons is awesome !!

[ScienceChap]

Wow. Iowa v Tirpitz would have been interesting had the latter sortied on Wesserbung 2...

[dk]

"Our liberties we prize, our rights we will maintain."

[tacoma]

Could you please review the USS Ranger cva/cv-61 ??

[StuieStorm]

2:37 that one fucker smiling while the ship is half under water LMAO

[sandydennylives]

If only Warspite or Rodders was saved instead of the Belfast.

[robertandrews]

The problem watching a series of short videos during prime election time. I've seen more joe Biden ads than blades of grass

[johnnash]

A question was posed about the intro including a bb main aft turret firing with debris flying about; fyi, it is not the 1984 USS Iowa turret explosion, as the bb depicted clearly shows twin turrets. If it’s American, it’s a Colorado Class with 8-16” guns. I like to think of the debris as a forgotten lawn chair and newspaper.

[tarlachx]

Again a short video pointing out mostly the things that went wrong with her, not nearly enough time spent on her actual effectiveness many many years after she was constructed. Also she fired many more times against her enemies than any other ship. For ship that had such poor sea handling, she managed to put more miles underneath her hull then all other battlerships ever built.

[csours]

I think you could devote a whole video to the turret explosion, aftermath, and the different approaches to accident investigation.

[davidvasquez]

I wonder the two geniuses(one each side) that failed to have probably the biggest battle between two legendary battleships

[snakes]

The word to sum up the Iowa Class: The Perfect Battleship

[johnspencer]

Your comments about the cause of the explosion in the centre gun of #2 turret during a training exercise on 19th April 1989 are somewhat off mark. The "official" Navy investigation blamed a deliberate act by one of the turret crew. The conclusions of the Navy's investigation prompted significant enquiries by both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Committee on Armed Services. The committees concluded that the Navy had rushed to judgements that were both speculative and insufficiently supported by facts. The House published a damning report entitled " "USS Iowa Tragedy : An Investigative Failure".


Consequently an independent investigation as to the cause of the accident was commisioned by the GAO from Scandia National Laboratories with the investigative team headed by physicist Dr. Richard Schwoebel. As with virtually all accidents, there was no single cause but a number of different elements combining in sequence at the same time resulting in an accident. A detailed account of the Sandia investigation is published in Richard Schwoebel's book "Explosion aboard the Iowa", Naval Institute Press 1999. ISBN 1-55750-810-0 for those who wish to read further