The Grey Ghost of the Korean Coast, 70 years ago today
Here we see the super dreadnought USS Iowa (BB-61) firing off Koje, Korea, 17 October 1952 with those beautiful 16″/50cal Mk7 guns.
Laid down 18 months prior to Pearl Harbor, she was a war baby and meant to show the Germans, Italians, and Japanese that the U.S Navy would come correct in the battlewagon department should the Great Neutral be drawn into the war. She commissioned more than a year after Pearl Harbor to a very different conflict than what she was intended but she and her three sisters proved their worth as floating AAA batteries for carrier task forces and, as seen above, in shore bombardment.
Iowa earned 11 battle stars in WWII before being laid up in 1949. Recommissioned on 25 August 1951 and rushed to Korea, by 24 February 1958 she would again see mothballs for a long 26-year nap before modernized for the Reagan 600-ship Navy. Decommissioned an amazing third time in 1990, she has been a museum ship at the Port of Los Angeles since 2012.
Why was she called the “Grey Ghost” during the Korean war?
Just what the crew wanted, I suppose. She even flew a Grey Ghost flag.