Historic Battleship Becoming Naval Museum in SoCal

Firing its 16-inch guns in the Arabian Sea, the U.S.S. Iowa shuddered. As the sky turned orange, a blast of heat from the massive guns washed over the battleship.

This was the Iowa of the late 1980s, at the end of its active duty as it escorted reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran-Iraq war.

Some 25 years later, following years of aging in the San Francisco Bay area's "mothball fleet," the 887-foot long ship that once carried President Franklin Roosevelt to a World War II summit to meet with Churchill, Stalin and Chiang Kai Shek is coming to life once again as it is being prepared for what is most likely its final voyage.

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