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Hi All,

The US Navy announced a few days ago that it is retiring the 4 remaining 
battleships in the inventory, the Iowa, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Missouri.

These ships had been mothballed and re-activated several times since their 
construction at the end of WWII.

This time, however, the Navy intends to scrap them because of the expense of 
maintaining them in the mothball fleet, their age, and the small liklihood that 
that they would ever be reactivated.

Since the Missouri was the ship that the Japanese surrender in WWII was signed 
on, its historical significance will save it from the scrap yard.

The state of New Jersey has also expressed interest in obtaining its namesake 
as a floating memorial. Maintaing a ship as a memorial is quite expensive, 
1-2 million dollars per year for the North Carolina and Alabama which are kept 
as memorials by those states.

The Wisconsin and Iowa are still available. The state of Wisconsin may be able 
to get its namesake across the Great Lakes to Milwaukee for display, but I 
don't know if there is any interest in doing so.

I doubt that the Iowa can be moved up the Mississippi River to that state to 
be put on display, even if there were interest.

I think one of these ships would make a great artificial reef. It would make a 
fantastic dive site.

The preparation would be expensive because of the size of the ship, but it 
would be a one time cost. So this would be an inexpensive way of maintaing this 
ship as a memorial.

I'd rather see one of these great ships visited by fishing boats and divers 
than cut up to make razor blades.

I think it would be neat to sink it upright in water deep enough to keep most 
of it from being a hazard to navigation but still have some of the 
superstructure above the water as a marker.

It would be easy to find that way, and divers of all skill levels could dive 
it, even snorkelers could dive around the superstructure.

Two of the ships are mothballed on the West coast and I believe two are in 
Norfolk, Virginia.

The article I read said that there was talk that all four ships might be put 
at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a sort of re-creation of "Battleship Row". It 
would be very expensive for one state or the Park Service to maintain all four 
ships in one location, so I don't imagine that will happen.

Anybody have any idea which agency of the Navy decides what is done with these 
ships? 

Rick Fincher
rnf@sp*.tb*.co*

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