Battleship Iowa to be Los Angeles museum

The Iowa, first of four identical battleships, was commissioned in 1943. It is 887 feet long, and displaces 48,000 tons. It is armed with nine 16-inch guns, the largest ever mounted on an American battleship. The guns could fire a shell 23 miles. The Iowa served in World War II, in the Korean war, and was laid up and recommissioned as part of President Ronald Reagan's expansion of the Navy. However, in 1989, an explosion in the ship's No. 2 turret killed 47 sailors.
The Navy at first said the explosion was sabotage and blamed a gay sailor who was supposedly attempting suicide. However, a further investigation discredited this theory and the Navy apologized to the sailor's family. The ship was taken out of service in 1990 and has not sailed on its own power since. In 2001, the Iowa was towed from Newport, R.I., to the Ghost Fleet on Suisun Bay, a 5,700-mile voyage that took 43 days and cost $3 million.
The Navy said the battleship will be towed in the next few weeks to a San Francisco dry dock, to be refurbished for the sea voyage to Los Angeles this fall.