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Article: Obsolete battleships find second lives as floating museums.
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- February 15, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The last group of America's dreadnoughts, the U.S. Navy's Iowa-class battleships, began life in the second year of World War II when the USS Iowa was launched from the New York Naval Shipyard on Aug. 27, 1942. It carried the official designation BB-61.
In rapid succession came the other three Iowa-class ships: BB-62, the USS New Jersey, from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on Dec. 7, 1942; BB-64, the USS Wisconsin, launched from the same yard on Dec. 7, 1943 _ and on Jan. 29, 1944, BB-63, the USS Missouri, launched from the New York Naval Shipyard.
Over the next 50 years, all the Iowa-class ships were in and out of active service _ mothballed, then ...