Woody’s rivet: Birth of the Mighty ‘Mo
85 Years Ago Today.
Driving the first rivet, during keel laying ceremonies of the future Iowa-class battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, 6 January 1941.
The soon-to-be-retired Atlanta-born RADM Clark Howell “Woody” Woodward (Annapolis 1899), then-Commandant of the Navy Yard (second from right), did the honors on this occasion. That fits as he was a salty battleship officer with a Navy Cross and DSM behind him, earned across two declared and several undeclared wars.
He was 63, but not quite done, retirement be damned.
U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 96796
Future VADM Woody Woodward, while still a mid at Annapolis, saw active combat along with several of his classmates during the War with Spain in 1898 on the armored cruiser USS Brooklyn in the Battle of Santiago. He then went on fto ight against Philippine insurrectionists and Chinese Boxers while on Asiatic station, before, rifle in hand, commanded landing forces in Nicaragua in 1912 (and 1932), Mexico in 1914, and Haiti in 1915.
While XO of the battlewagon USS New York during the Great War and present for the internment of the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow, he earned a Navy Cross and, called back to the colors in 1942, would add a Legion of Merit and his second Distinguished Service Medal to his salad bar during WWII as the Chief of the Industrial Incentive Service and a trouble shooter for the CNO and SECNAV.
A nephew of Clark Howell, the famed editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Woody cut his teeth in the newsroom there as a lad in 1895 before shipping off for Annapolis and, after he retired the first time from the Navy in 1941, penned numerous articles on naval matters for the International News Service wire, something he returned to once he finally took his stars off.
Retiring a second time in 1948 after a solid 50 years in uniform, Woodward came back to work for the Navy on retired status during the Korean War.
He passed in 1967, aged 90, and is buried at Arlington, leaving a daughter, two grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren to mourn him. His papers are maintained in the NHHC collection.
As for Missouri, she is probably his greatest and most appropriate legacy, with the “Mighty Mo” having the DNA of Santago and Scapa Flow in her family tree due to him.
