Effort to save USS Iowa sets sail

DES MOINES – Supporters of the USS Iowa launched a new effort Monday to preserve the storied battleship as a national museum and memorial.

“It's really important,” said Gary Marlin, a former sailor from Winterset who served aboard the USS Iowa from 1956 to 1958.

Marlin was among a crowd of veterans, state officials, schoolchildren and other interested Iowans who gathered near an encased replica of the battleship on display at the state Capitol to watch Gov. Chet Culver sign a resolution establishing a 10-member commission to coordinate efforts for the preservation and relocation of the USS Iowa.

The battleship – built in 1943 at a cost of $120 million and decommissioned in 1990 -- currently is berthed with the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisan Bay near San Francisco and is awaiting donation to a not-for-profit organization for use as a museum ship.

Merylin Wong of the nonprofit Historic Ships Memorial at Pacific Square entity said it's estimated that $18 million to $20 million will be needed in the process of assigning the Iowa to museum duty since the U.S. Department of the Navy declared the proposal to berth the USS Iowa in the San Francisco Bay area near Mare Island as the sole viable bid to preserve the battleship.

“If we can get everybody to help out and chip in, it can happen,” said Wong, who noted that $4 million already has been raised and spent in California in the effort to save the Iowa. She said a mix of corporate, philanthropic, federal and individual contributions will be needed to make the museum a reality.

“We're going to see that this happens,” said Senate President Jack Kibbie, D-Emmetsburg, who was floor manager of Senate Joint Resolution 2007 that Culver signed Monday establishing the special voluntary committee with administrative help from the state Department of Cultural Affairs.

“This ship has got a tremendous history,” said Kibbie, who as a tank operator during the Korean War in 1952 remembered the support provided from nearby by the USS Iowa – the lead vessel of the most powerful and fastest class of U.S. warships ever made.

Anyone interested in contributing to the preservation as a museum ship can send donations to Historic Ships Memorial at Pacific Square, P.O. Box 361, Vallejo, Calif., 94590 or go to the Web site www.battleshipiowa.org, Wong said.

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