Product Description
Iowa is the last lead ship of any class of United States battleships and was the only ship of her class to serve in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. During World War II, in 1943 she carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the Atlantic to Mers El Kébir, Algeria, en route to a meeting in Tehran with Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom and Joseph Stalin, of the Soviet Union. When transferred to the Pacific Fleet in 1944, Iowa shelled beachheads at Kwajalein and Eniwetok in advance of Allied amphibious landings and screened aircraft carriers operating in the Marshall Islands. She was also present at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay.
She served in the Korean War and operated in the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets to counter the Soviet Navy. In 1989 an explosion wrecked her No.2 turret, killing 47 sailors.
She was decommissioned in 1990. She is now berthed in the Port of Los Angeles and is a museum.
