What’s in a Name?

Last weekend, the USS Iowa (SSN 797), the most recent U.S. naval ship, and the first submarine carrying the name Iowa, was christened in formal ceremonies at Croton, Connecticut. It is one in a long line of naval vessels to proudly bear the name of the Hawkeye State.

Many already know of the BB-61, the battleship U.S.S. Iowa, which served during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, then was retired until refitted and commissioned back into active service in 1984. That Iowa, again, was retired in 1991 and now floats at the World Cruise Port in Los Angeles as a military museum.

But what about the BB-4, the largest warship of its time to enter the rolls of an active duty ship in the U.S. Navy?

The era of the 1890s was one of great economic prosperity in the United States as the country gained in standing around the world as one of the leading industrial nations on the planet. To retain that standing, in 1892, Congress foresaw the need for a strong naval force to uphold America’s new international interests.

On July 19, the House and Senate approved construction of “one seagoing coastline battleship designed to carry the heaviest armor and most powerful ordnance.” It would be the first battleship under that new designation in the U.S. Navy and would prominently carry the name Iowa across her stern.

Construction on the BB-4 began shortly thereafter in the Naval Shipyards at Philadelphia. The mammoth vessel would stretch 362 feet five inches in length and sport a beam 72 feet 3 inches amid deck at her greatest width. The behemoth dreadnought stood solid with fourteen inch thick plates of steel protecting her hull and was equipped with eight guns above deck shooting shells eight inches in diameter. Four guns had an intimidating bore of twelve inches, and six smaller guns were four inches in diameter.

All totaled, the ship, and its armament, displaced 11,400 tons and when completed in 1896. It cost what was then a record for a single vessel, at 3.1 million dollars or more than $35 million in today’s market. Named the Iowa, she slid down the docks, received her full crew of 486 and was commissioned June 16, 1897.

The Iowa’s fame was only about to begin, however. Spain had colonized the Philippines and Cuba and was accused of human rights atrocities. On Feb. 15, 1898, the U.S.S. Maine exploded and sunk in the harbor at Havana, Cuba and the United States declared war on the Spaniards (although the cause of the explosion was later blamed on a fire in one of the ship’s coal bunkers, not as a result of sabotage).

Iowa, as the most powerful warship of the Atlantic Fleet, was dispatched to Santiago, at the east end of the island (near Guantanamo Bay), where the Spanish fleet had pulled up anchor and was preparing to flee the port.

The harbor was quickly surrounded by the U.S. fleet, including the Iowa and the torpedo boat, U.S.S. Ericsson, built four years before by the Iowa Iron Works at Dubuque. At 9:30 a.m. July 3, the Spanish flotilla made a desperate dash for the open sea.

Iowa immediately began a bombardment and lobbed a rain of shells upon four of the escaping vessels. By that afternoon, at the hands of the Iowa and support ships, cruisers and gunboats of the Spanish navy were burning in ruins or had dropped to the bottom of the bay.

The crew of the Iowa then sent out recovery parties to the burning ships, including the crown of the fleet, the Vizcaya, and rescued the surviving sailors. For their effort, the crew was praised by the commander of the mission, Commodore Winfield Scott Schley, and credited with averting the escape of the Spanish fleet.

Despite these accolades, however, the Iowa was soon to earn an even higher distinction. Remaining in the harbor as part of the occupying forces to relieve the Cubans of Spanish control, on July 20, a main gasket on the ship blew out of the boiler in Fire Room Number 2.

Two men, Coppersmith Philip Keefer, of Washington, D.C. and Fireman Robert Penn, of Virginia, the only African American assigned to the ship, skimmed above the water as it lapped their legs and felt their way through the steam to reach the vessel’s furnaces.

If the pressure from the steam could not be stopped, the hull of the ship would crack and burst, sending a massive plume into the sky and sinking the superstructure. Keefer and Penn endured painful burns, but successfully extinguished the flames, preventing the loss of the vessel.

On Dec. 14, each was accorded the Medal of Honor, the highest tribute our nation can bestow. Penn died in 1912 at the age of forty. In 1921, Keefer was given the privilege of serving as an honorary pallbearer for the burial of the first warrior to be laid to rest at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Both Keefer and Penn were buried nearby on hillsides near the Tomb.

In this year of 2023, may we remember them, their valor, and the storied ship which they saved from destruction 125 years ago this month. Long may their names, and that of the Iowa, live on.

David V. Wendell is a Marion historian, author and special events coordinator specializing in American history.