The Infamous
Grounding of The USS Missouri
Thimble Shoal Snags
A Battleship
Not
only are we staying in Virginia for this post, we're still close enough to Thimble Shoal Light, Fort Monroe, and Buckroe Beach to people-watch from the deck of a Battleship. Think I'm kiddin' about the battleship? Read on...
The
Battleship in question was the legendary BB-63, the USS
Missouri. Anyone who
knows anything about
World War II knows about 'The Mighty Mo'
as her crews affectionately called her. USS Missouri was
the last battleship to be completed and commissioned, kicked serious
boot-aye in the Pacific Theater during the last eight months of WWII,
wreaked serious havoc in Korea during the Korean War, and, in her
modified and modernized late 1980s form, added cruise missiles to the 2000 lb high
explosive 16 inch shells fired by her 9 gun main battery and continued opening cans of high explosive whup-ass during Desert Storm
Her best known role, of course, was acting as the venue
for the signing of the Instrument of Surrender in Tokyo Bay,
officially ending World War II. She's now a much loved and oft
visited museum ship in Pearl Harbor.
Her most infamous incident, however, took place
right here in The Old Dominion, in The Chesapeake Bay a mile and a
half from Thimble Shoal Light and a mile off of Old Point Comfort, when her captain inadvertently ordered
his helmsman to run her aground on The Horseshoe...one of the two
sandbars that flank Thimble Shoal Channel to form the channel's
namesake shoal.
'Huh????'
You ask. 'He did what??' Yep, you
read that right. And we'll get to it...but first a quick coin-pocket
history of 'The Mighty Moe...'
She
was ordered in 1940, over a year before Pearl Harbor, as the third
Iowa class Battleship
though she actually ended up being the forth Iowa
class BB commissioned. Her keel was laid on Jan 6, 1941, she was
launched on Jan 29, '44 and commissioned on June 11th
of the same year. When she was launched, BTW, a young lady by the
name of Margaret Truman broke the traditional bottle of bubbly
against her bow. Her dad was a Missouri Senator by the name of Harry
S. Truman. Keep those facts in mind. They'll play an indirect part in
the events to follow.
Her
shakedown cruise and battle practice was on the Chesapeake bay, and
after completing them, she departed for The Pacific on November 11th,
'44, transited the Panama Canal on Nov 18th,
and arrived in San Francisco about a week later to be fitted out as
the Fleet flagship. She steamed for Pearl Harbor on December 14th,
arrived at Pearl on Christmas Eve, 1944, and steamed for the war zone
on January 2nd,
1945...she'd have about 8 months of war to fight.
But
those were eight busy
months. She screened the Carrier Lexington
when
her air group made the first air attacks on the Japanese Home Islands
since the Doolittle Raid, provided heavy fire support at Iwo Jima,
returned to provide a screen for more carrier strikes against the
Japanese Mainland, escorted the badly damaged USS
Franklin part
of the way home, provided heavy fire support at Okinawa,
participating in that campaign for three months during which she
assisted in the sinking of at least one sub, shrugged off a Kamikaze
attack with minor damage, and rode out the typhoon that ripped the
bow off of the heavy cruiser Pittsburgh,
again with only minor damage to herself. While she was at it, she
also shelled the Japanese home islands on multiple occasions, a task
that she was in the middle of when the second atomic bomb was dropped
on Nagasaki.
 | ||
| A welcome and familiar sight for the US forces during WWII, Korea, and Desert Storm...The Mighty Mo's main battery firing. Here Turret II sends a trio of 16 inch shells towards North Korea during that conflict. The North Koreans wouldn't see what was coming until it got to 'em...Those big beasts could lob a shell weighing as much as a Volkswagon Bug about 20 miles. |
 |
| Her best know role...the venue where World War II was officially brought to a close. |
Then
came he biggie, the one she's most remembered for, on Sept 2nd,
1945, when she hosted the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay.
After the war she was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet
and based in Norfolk. She carried the Turkish ambassador's remains to
Istanbul upon his death and 'Carried The Flag', providing a show of
strength during the Greek Civil War (A task that would now be
assigned to one of the carriers...this was also the first mission
designed in part to contain the spread of communism).
She sailed up, down, and along the East Coast on
training missions and generally became the pride of the Atlantic
Fleet, and the darling of the residents of the East Coast as her huge
and distinctive silhouette became a common sight to beach goers along
the coast (Us Virginians, passengers on the Chesapeake Bay Ferries,
and visitors to a then much smaller Va Beach and the beaches along
the shores of the lower Chesapeake Bay got to view the 'Mighty
Moe' up close as she steamed in and out of Hampton Roads...one of
those things I'd love to have been around to see.)
And then came January 1950.
When WWII ended there was a massive reduction in the
Military and by 1950 the Missouri was the last battleship
still in commission due to the simple fact that she was President
Harry S. Truman's favorite. After all, she was named after his home
state and his daughter had christened her. When you're President you
can pretty much push to have your favorite naval vessel remain in
commission. Or, as was the case here, absolutely refuse to allow her
to be decommissioned, against the advice of The Secretary Of Defense,
Secretary Of The Navy, and Chief of Naval Operations at that.
So, as 1949 became 1950 she was still in commission, and
in fact had just undergone a four month long overhaul at Norfolk
Naval Shipyard, which was completed in mid-December '49. This fact
made the events to follow a bit akin to bending your dad's car just
after he got it tuned up, detailed, and repainted. Multiplied by
about a thousand.
She'd also just gotten a new commanding officer. Captain
William D Brown had just taken command of her on December 10th,
1949. Captain Brown had been in the USN for three decades, had
amassed a very distinguished career, and had several commands under
his belt. Only problem was, all of that command experience was in
subs and destroyers, making Missouri the largest vessel he'd
commanded by far.
He took her out on December 23rd for what was
likely both a shakedown cruise after her overhaul and a
familiarization cruise for himself, cruised around off the mouth of
the Chesapeake Bay for a day or so, and returned to Norfolk on
Christmas Eve. Out and back, negotiating the turn that Thimble Shoal
Channel hooks at Thimble Shoal Light without the slightest hitch
both inbound and outbound. She was scheduled to be beside her pier
until January 17th, 1950, when she was to head for
Guantanamo Bay for a training exercise.
Four days before their departure for Guantanamo Bay a
manila envelope was delivered to Captain Brown, containing a request
for Missouri to participate in a test of a new acoustic
identification system that was in the very early development phase.
Ultimately the system would allow sonar operators to identify
contacts by electronically comparing the contact's propeller and
machinery noises with stored sound signatures.
To accomplish this test they laid acoustic cables on the bottom of a stretch of Thimble Shoal Channel,
marked the acoustic range with a quintet of buoys, and asked the
captains of ships departing Hampton Roads during a given period of
time to sail through the acoustic range. The 'Mighty Mo' was
one of the ships tapped to participate.
Participation was voluntary, Captain Brown had a few
thousand tasks to accomplish in the four days before departure, and
really didn't have time to personally deal with some test of some
new-fangled electronic device that the Navy was playing with. He gave
the envelope's contents a cursory look-over and handed them off to
his Operations Officer, Commander John Millet. Comdr Millet gave the
request a little more attention, then lateraled it to The Mighty
Mo's navigator, Lt Commander Frank Morris. Somewhere in all of
this Passing Of The Envelope, the request to participate in the test
was given the 'OK', at the same time inadvertently kicking off one
of the premiere clusters of the peacetime U.S. Navy.
The next day...January 14th...The Missouri's
command staff met to discuss the game plan for their Guantanamo Bay
cruise as well as to briefly..very briefly...discuss the
acoustic range test. The range was set up so that any ship
transiting it would pass through a course marked by five
buoys...originally marked by five buoys, anyway. These buoys marked
the entrance and exit as well as making the edge of the range. There
were a couple of problems though. First, the range was laid out at
the extreme edge of the channel, real close to the invisible
(From the surface, anyway) line where Thimble Shoal Channel's 50-60
feet of water suddenly became The Horseshoe's 10-20 feet. Compounding
this little problem, for reasons unknown the five buoys that had
marked the range had been reduced to two buoys. This change was made
about two days before Captain Brown took command, before he had so
much as an inkling about the acoustic range test. Frank Morris knew
about the change, but even though he knew the three buoys had been
removed from the range, he hadn't been authorized to remove them from
the chart.
This little bureaucratic screw-up was probably why both
Captain Brown and Comdr Millet left the conference with the
impression that the acoustic range was still marked with five buoys.
When Morris told both Captain Brown and Comdr Millet about the
change at the conference, the two them were probably looking at the chart, and the three missing buoys actually appeared
to still exist. The stage, as the Old Fella says, was set.
January 17th, early morning. The Tidewater
area had been enjoying one of those unseasonably warm stretches of
weather that Virginia occasionally manages to score during the
winter, with temperatures in the fifties, sixties, and even a
couple of seventy degree days...1-10-50's 72 degree temperature still
stands as the record for that date in Norfolk. The temps headed back
down to slightly more seasonable, but still not awful levels, with it
hovering somewhere in the low 40s as the Mighty Mo's crew got
ready to head for Guantanamo Bay.
As is customary in all major ports, a harbor pilot was
to take her out, and veteran harbor pilot R.B.McCoy came aboard,
discussed the particulars of the departure with Captain Brown and the
rest of the bridge officers, and prepared to take her out. Capt Brown
and his staff headed up to level 8 of the forward mast structure,
where a bridge identical to the main bridge on level 4 existed,
because it provided an excellent vantage point for conning the ship
through the often congested lower Chesapeake Bay. And at 0725, The
Missouri eased away from the pier, and headed out into the
channel.
 |
| Missouri's fourth level bridge, the bridge that Missouri was normally conned from. That's the outer bulkhead of the navigation bridge to the right. The 8th level bridge, where she was being conned from when she ran aground, was identical (With the exception, of course, of the Navigation Bridge not being there.) |
Lets grab a quick look at some vital stats as she heads
out under the able hand of Mr McCoy...they'll be of interest here
real shortly. When Missouri eased away from her pier,
all of her magazines were chock full of ammunition, all supplies,
equipment, and crew were aboard and her fuel tanks were 95% full.
She was displacing 57000 tons, with a draft of 35' 9" at her
bow, and 36 ' 9" at her stern. In short, normal set-up for
an Iowa class BB heading out to sea. As long as she makes
it out to sea...
Thirty minutes later, as they cleared Elizabeth River
Channel Buoy 3, McCoy handed command back over to Captain Brown and
departed for shore aboard a pilot boat, and Captain Brown had full
command. He probably ordered turns for a quarter speed
ahead and then ordered a new course of 053 degrees, the course
recommended to him by Frank Morris...the course that should have run
them through the acoustic range with no problem at all.
After giving course and engine orders he turned the con
over to his Officer of the Deck and headed to the chart room, where
Ensign E R Harris and the Mighty Mo's Executive Officer,
Commander George Peckham, were tracking their course. Upon entering
the chart room the Captain informed Ensign Harris and his executive
officer that they were about to run the acoustic range, Guess what?
This was the first either of them had ever heard of it. A couple of
minutes later the Captain returned to Missouri's 8th
level bridge, resumed the con, and called for his morning and
forenoon watch officers. When they arrived he also told them that
they were getting ready to make a run through the acoustic range. In
reply the two officers...Lts Hatfield and Arnold...just gave him a
pair of confused expressions. Captain Brown gave their confused looks
a disgusted look and told them to 'Go get yourselves informed about
what's going on'.
I'll pause here for just a sec to note that when none of
your officers have any clue about what's going on it's probably time
to back up, regroup, and have a quick pow-wow to inform them of what
you should have informed them about in the first place.
.jpg) |
| The Missouri's chart room |
Back
to the action...Lts Hatfield and Arnold went to the chart room and
examined the chart...you know, the one with the three nonexistent
buoys on it...to try and get with the game plan. They remained
confused about some aspects of the exercise, but when they returned
to the bridge Lt Arnold did spot an orange and white buoy about 1000
yards away. Capt Brown and his Ops officer IDed it as a marker for
the starboard side of the acoustic range, and a course correction was
ordered and made. Missouri's
bow was swinging so she'd pass to port of the buoy, which by the way,
did not
mark the starboard side of the range. It marked the port
side of the range...the side at the very edge of Thimble Shoal
Channel. At the same time, a discussion as to just how fast they
needed to be going for the acoustic run to be effective was being
carried out. It was decided that any steady speed would work, and
Capt Brown ordered the engine room to 'Make Turns for 15 knots'. At
about this time, the Missouri's
executive
officer was passing through the chart room and glanced out to see
another pair of spar buoys getting closer by the second.
'For Gods sake, Watch it...!'
The
two buoys he'd spotted marked a shallow fishing channel that
traversed the Horseshoe, but Captain Brown had also spotted the buoys
and misidentified them as marking the end of the acoustic range...he
had, in fact, ordered a course correction that would split the middle
between them. In doing so, though, he wasn't getting ready to run
the range...he was running across
it (If he even got to it) at an angle and Missouri
was
heading for The Horseshoe with a bone in her teeth...
On
the bridge, Commander Peckham, Lt Arnold, Ships navigator Frank
Morris, and several others knew exactly
what
the pair of spar buoys were...and most importantly what they weren't.
Morris
was the first to suggest coming to starboard, Commander Peckham made
the same suggestion and Captain Brown ignored both of them despite
the fact that he was being told otherwise by several officers who'd
seen these same buoys regularly as they steamed through Thimble Shoal Channel on repeated occasions.
 |
| On the left, a chart from 1950, showing the course Missouri took out of Hampton Roads and her final grounding location, and on the right, a satellite image of the same area with the course and grounding location drawn on. That's the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel...actually part of I-64...mid-frame in the satellite pic. On both the chart and the map, the solid line represents her actual course and the dotted line represents the course that she should have taken. Take a look at the scale of miles on the Sat. pic and you can see how close she was to Old Point Comfort. The chart's from the USS Missouri Salvage Report, prepared by the U.S.Navy made available by and used Courtesy of the Historic Naval Ships Association. |
At
a quarter after eight Missouri
headed out of the channel into shoal water, a fact that everyone but
Captain Brown seemed to know full well Several people tried to
bodily drag him into the loop.
Commander
Peckham sent a message to the bridge stating that he was entering
shoal water and needed to come to starboard right then...but
the talker who delivered the message apparently mumbled it, and Brown
apparently didn't ask for clarification. Or maybe he didn't ask for
clarification because Frank Morris was in his other ear saying 'Sir,
we're entering shoal water, you really
need to come to starboard like, now...or
words to that effect. Later Captain Brown would say he didn't recall
either
conversation...
Morris
probably inwardly huffed in disgust, went out on the bridge wing,
took a bearing on Thimble Shoal Light...which was off of their
starboard bow at an alarmingly and increasingly wide angle rather than a couple of points off of the port bow as it should have been...took
another bearing on where he estimated The Point Of No Return to be,
and likely went wide-eyed and
pale
even as his hair
stood
on end. As a general rule, proper naval etiquette is always called for on the bridge of a U.S.Navy warship, but he'd just found an
exception to that rule.
He
ran back into the bridge proper pointing and gesturing towards the
bow...and anything off the bow... shouting 'Sir!!! We're entering
shoal water!!! Come right...come right!!!'
Annnnnd...Captain
Brown still
didn't believe him. Not only did he not
believe
him, he told Morris...remember, the ships Navigator, who'd steamed
through Thimble Shoal Channel on multiple occasions?...told Morris
that he needed to calm himself and that he had absolutely no idea
where they were.
But
a tiny prick of rationality must have surfaced at the same time he
was berating his navigator, because he told Commander Millet to
double check Morris' position.
Pity
the Mighty
Mo's
poor helmsman, Quartermaster Travis, as all this was going on.
He was at the helm, in the Navigation Bridge, or pilot house, an enclosed compartment in the middle of the 4th level bridge containing the helm, and helmsman, therefore semi-isolated from the bridge command staff. Helm orders were received over a headset from the Captains Talker on the bridge proper. Barring an imminently life and ship threatening event the helmsman of
a U S Navy ship can't do anything
as far as maneuvering the ship unless he gets a helm order. Whadaya
want to bet Travis had also steamed through these waters a few times
himself, and absolutely knew
what was about to happen, despite having to peer through narrow view-ports ts see out of the bridge windows. He probably felt more than a little
relief when Brown finally
told him to come to starboard, to a course of 058 degrees, even
though he knew it was too late.
.jpg) |
| The navigation bridge, where the helmsman...Quartermaster Travis on that fateful Jan 17th of 1950...actually steers the ship, steering by helm orders given by whoever has 'The Con', or responsibility for actually navigating the ship. |
And
within the space of a few seconds, even as Missouri
hurled
herself onto The Horseshoe at a shade more than 12 knots and
accelerating,
several
things happened at once. There wasn't any noise to speak
of...thankfully all of Thimble Shoals is sand and mud...but there was
a sickening sensation of being bodily lifted, something absolutely
foreign to the crew of an 889 foot long 57000 ton battleship. Even as
they felt themselves lifted upward a frantic message came from her
exec... 'Come right immediately...twist ship!!!'...but smoke like
clouds of mud were already roiling from the sides of the BB as well
as rolling up in her wake. Captain Brown yanked the engine room
telegraphs to 'All Stop! to save both the props and the engines as
everyone on the bridge leaned forward involuntarily, bracing
themselves on whatever was handy as she decelerated slowly. Remember
that 57000 tons? It was now 57,000 tons of pure momentum as, at 0817
on 1-17-50, The Mighty
Mo
shoved herself about three ship-lengths across a sand and mud bar
named 'The Horseshoe'. Three ship lengths for the Missouri,
BTW,
is around 2600 feet, or roughly a half mile. She finally came to a
stop on an even keel with seven feet of her waterline out of the
water and her hull solidly encased in The Horseshoe's bottom mud.
 |
| USS Missouri aground about two hours after she ran aground, with a couple of fleet tugs and a pair of harbor tugs standing by to assist |
 |
| Composite photo showing just how far out of the water she was. The numbers are draft marks, and the dark paint designates her normal waterline...normally no more than a sliver of dark paint would be visible. She had been lifted more than seven feet when she went aground. The two photos used here, as well as the photo above are from TH USS MISSOURI SALVAGE REPORT, made available and used with permission of the Historic Naval Ships Association. |
Engineering
officer Lieut. James Forehan, as well as Ensigns Fredrick Koch and
Robert Walters, who were assigned to the Mighty
Mo's engineering
section, were
on deck when she slid herself onto The Horseshoe, and they knew one
thing that was happening...all that mud that her hull was burrowing
through was getting stuffed into the cooling water intakes for the
engines. As she finally slid to a muddy stop they hauled freight down
to the boiler room and spun the valves controlling oil-flow to the
boilers to 'closed' before Missouri's
four big steam turbines, which were in the process of being shut
down, could overheat due to lack of cooling water and lock up tight.
All three men would have commendations added to their records for
their quick action.
In
the movie 'Backdraft', the 'Career Dissipation Light', an imaginary
orange light that an individual can see flashing at the corner of his
eye when he's screwing up to the point of trashing his career, is
mentioned several times. Ya know what? As The
Mighty Mo ground
to a stop a half mile onto The Horseshoe Captain Brown's Career
Dissipation Light was flashing...and it had gone into overdrive. Not
only was she hard aground, she was hard aground almost within sight of
Norfolk Naval Base, and the numerous Admirals there-in as well as very much within sight of
Fort Monroe and any number of high-ranking Army officers (I've been
told there is somewhat of a rivalry between those two branches of the
U.S. Armed Forces. Trust me on this...this was like Christmas Day
all over again for The Army). On top of that, she was in plain full
view of The Media, any passengers on the Chesapeake Bay Ferries, the
crews of any ships entering or exiting Hampton Roads, and a good
large hunk of the civilian population of the area.
 | ||
| USS Missouri aground with Old Point Comfort in the background...she was aground barely more than a mile off of the beach. This was taken a day or so after her grounding, as she has a boiler lit off to provide steam to her #8 turbogenerator Photo from the USS MISSOURI SALVAGE REPORT, made available by and used with permission of the Historic Naval Ships Association |
Damage
reports were taken, messages were sent to Norfolk Naval Base (They
could have almost used light signals or semaphore they were so close)
informing them of the problem and requesting assistance (Spell that
'Tugs...lots of Tugs) and what had to be one interesting
set of phone calls was made to the various involved commands to let
everyone know what was going on.
So
how were they gonna get out of this little 57000 ton, half mile
screw-up? Know how, if you manage to sink your car in mud you can get
someone with a truck and a tow chain to pull you out? Well this
wasn't going to be anywhere near
that
easy...
An
attempt to pull her off the bar was made that morning...I mean it
couldn't be but sohard, right? Just tow her back out through the channel she made as
she bulled her way across the bar.
Yeaahhhhh...No. Didn't work. They apparently tried to do just that, and they might as well have been trying to tow Fort Monroe itself. Missouri didn't budge. Another attempt to refloat her was to be made that evening, at the next high tide. One problem...she went aground at high tide, and during an unusually high tide at that. That evening's high tide wouldn't be as high. Things weren't looking good.
Yeaahhhhh...No. Didn't work. They apparently tried to do just that, and they might as well have been trying to tow Fort Monroe itself. Missouri didn't budge. Another attempt to refloat her was to be made that evening, at the next high tide. One problem...she went aground at high tide, and during an unusually high tide at that. That evening's high tide wouldn't be as high. Things weren't looking good.
Meanwhile,
ComServLant (That's Commander, Naval Surface Forces, Atlantic, or the
Admiral commanding all U S Navy surface ships on the Atlantic.) Rear Admiral R.H. Good, went aboard to get an idea
of just how bad the situation was. He probably wasn't in a real good
mood at that point in time...see he'd just been told about the
Acoustic Range test. As in 'Just Been Told'. As in he hadn't been
informed about the course or
the request for ships under his command to traverse it. It wouldn't
surprise me if his thought process at that moment wasn't something
like:
'So
let me get this straight...one of my ships is hard aground because
one of my captains decided that a channel dug for fishing boats was
big enough for him to take a battleship through while he was off
course while trying to take her through an acoustic range that I
didn't know was there for a test that I hadn't approved because I
wasn't told about it in the first place. Just freakin' perfect'
Yeah...bet
that generated lots
of interesting discussions.
Admiral
Good went ashore after having surveyed Missouri's
predicament and approving the evening's attempt to pull her off...it
couldn't hurt, had already been scheduled,and might even work. Good,
however, had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't going to be that
easy, and that getting Missouri
off the sand bar was going to be a major operation. So he started
organizing resources and personnel, and about 1630 that afternoon
moved himself and several other officers, including the Admiral who
was ComCruLant (Commander, Cruisers, Atlantic) and the Commodore of
the Norfolk Navy Yard, aboard Missouri
for the duration, however long that may have ended up being. They
immediately began long range plans while at the same time assisting
with preparations for that evenings attempt to free her. Nineteen
hundred hours arrived...Several tugs ran tow lines to her and butted
their bows against her forward hull, all ahead was rung for in
multiple engine rooms, big marine diesels growled, lots of white
water was roiled at multiple sterns...and The Mighty
Moe
didn't budge. This was gonna take awhile.
As
noted above, Admiral Good already suspected this would be the case,
and plans for the salvage operation were well under way before the
second failed attempt. What was to follow, BTW, was to be just as much of an an exemploary bit of organization, resources procurement and plan execution as the grounding itself had been a...well...cluster.
First thing they'd have to do was remove about 12,000 or so tons of weight to reduce her draft, first by removing the majority of her fuel. As the tugs were making their second abortive attempt to pull her off the Horseshoe, the fleet Oiler USS Chemung ( AO30) was standing by to begin removing fuel from the Missouri's bunkers. This operation started almost as soon as the tugs had cast off.
First thing they'd have to do was remove about 12,000 or so tons of weight to reduce her draft, first by removing the majority of her fuel. As the tugs were making their second abortive attempt to pull her off the Horseshoe, the fleet Oiler USS Chemung ( AO30) was standing by to begin removing fuel from the Missouri's bunkers. This operation started almost as soon as the tugs had cast off.
Meanwhile.
Missouri's
crew was working to get at least one of her main generators going so
they could have power...they had a big diesel emergency generator
running for essential equipment, but if they were going to be
aboard...and stuck there...for an extended period of time they needed
to have power and water. Remember me saying that all of her intakes,
etc, were packed with mud? This included all of her steam powered
turbo generators, which I'm betting were cooled with seawater just as her engines
were. Her #8 main turbo generator was apparently the easiest to
access and clear (It's condenser was packed solid with sand). A crew
worked on it until about 5PM, getting it cleared and back on line,
allowing her to have normal power. A big Fleet Tug was along side to
provide seawater for firefighting and throne-flushing, and she was
close enough to Navy Base, Norfolk that all of her needs...including
fresh water...were available with only a slight delay.
Habitability-wise, she was ready for the long haul. Now they had to
get he off the freakin' sand bar.
Using a pair of fleet oilers, they removed most of her
fuel oil (Three tanks couldn't be pumped dry because, as it turned
out, they were now open to the sea), and using a combination of brute
strength, cranes, and barges all of her ammunition and powder
(Including the huge 16 inch shells for her main armament) were
removed, as well as basically anything not essential and not
permanently attached to the ship.
While
all of this was going on, divers went in the water and determined
that she hadn't damaged her propellers or rudder, that there was no
major damage visible to her hull (This was confirmed when her lower
compartments were sounded and found to be dry) and that she was hard
aground (The thought 'No Duh' comes immediately to mind.). The U S
Army Corps of Engineers dredge USS
Comber arrived
the day after the grounding and started dredging on the open side as
the AOs and other auxiliary vessels removed as much weight as they
could (She'd still be about 4000 tons heavier than they wanted when
they tried to pull her off on the 20th.
Two other attempts ...on the evening of the 18th
and morning of the 19th...were
canceled because Admiral Good and company knew
they wouldn't work.)
So on the morning high tide on January 20th a quartet of
big fleet tugs bridled themselves to her stern and pulled while six
more tugs pushed, three on either side of her hull, and again roils
of white water surged at their sterns as their engines rumbled at
full power...and again, she was just as solidly immovable as Old
Point Comfort, visible only a mile or so off of her port side.
Yep...this was gonna take a while.
 |
| Aerial view of the unsuccessful attempt to refloat Missouri on the morning of January 20th. Note the white water astern of the tugs...their big marine diesels were screaming, wide open, at all ahead full, props roiling white water at their sterns...and Missouri wasn't budging. This photo from THE USS MISSOURI SALVAGE REPORT, made available by and used with permission of The Historic Naval Ships Association |
 |
| Color photo of the tow for the Jan 20th attempt to free the Missouri being set up, taken from her bow. |
More
meetings were held, Tide Tables were consulted, and the Salvage team
determined that the next high tide high enough to assist in getting
Missouri
off
of The Horseshoe would be on Feb 2nd .
They had about ten days. The Navy had some work to do.
They
also had a unique problem...publicity, and not the good kind.
Missouri
had run aground in full view of the general population of the Hampton
Roads area. Even though the area's population was a fraction of what
it is today, it was still the most densely populated area of the
Commonwealth.(Northern Virgina hadn't yet become become the
megalopolis it is today and surpassed Hampton Roads and wouldn't for
decades to come). Public statements had to be made and the Media (Who
had already published and broadcast some pretty negative articles)
had to be kept informed, so Admiral Good and his staff went out on a
limb and stated to the press that they were going to pull her off of
The Horseshoe on February 2nd.
Now they just needed to figure out how they were going to do it.
The
answer was, of course, with lots and lots of resources and effort,
and with several different methods all working in concert. They
needed a channel fifty feet deep and 150 feet wide all the way from
Missouri's
bow to deep water. Of course they couldn't dredge directly beneath
her, so divers were assigned to tunnel beneath and parallel to her
hull, to break up the bar and allow her to settle as well as making
the sand under her hull, which had been compacted to the consistency
of really poor grade concrete, more pliable and likely to yield when
they tried to move her. They also dug out around her rudder and
propellers and stern...especially her stern
The
trick would be to unstick her stern, as she was harder aground from
just aft of amidships back than she was forward, so in addition to
dredging and digging beneath her stern, pontoons would be used to
assist in getting her stern off the bottom. While most of her fuel
and a good bit of her ammunition and stores had been removed before
the first attempt to move her on Jan 20th,
not all of her ammunition and stores had been removed, so the rest was taken off according to a schedule so
it'd be off-loaded by Jan 31st .
Keep in mind that they had to coordinate this operation with all of
the other operations going on alongside of her.
Eleven
sets of beach gear...Special sea-anchors and cabling that ran through
blocks and winches that had been anchored to Missouri's
after deck to...hopefully, at any rate...allow her to assist in pulling
herself off ...were also utilized as were the aforementioned pontoons
(Four pair...one pair at the bow and three pair at the stern). Underwater explosions were even used to help break up the sand and lift her
off. And don't forget the tugs. Fifteen of 'em with six of them
astern pulling, and nine at her bow either pushing or twisting.
 |
| Diagrams of both the unsuccessful Jan 31st attempt to free her as well as the successful attempt on Feb 1st. The lines not attached to a tug are the lines going from BIG gasoline powered winches on Missouri's stern deck and fantail to the beach gear anchors. Two sets of beach gear were anchored to submarine rescue ships...one on either side of her stern. The primary difference in the set-ups...the one that made the difference...was the way the twisting unit, tasked with twisting her from side to side...was set up. They did such a good job on the Feb 1st attempt that the towing unit tugs didn't have to even exert any pull to free her. They just towed her out through the channel dug for that very purpose. Diagrams prepared by the US Navy for the USS MISSOURI SALVAGE REPORT, made available by and used with permission of The Historic Naval Ships Association. |
The decision had been made to try to pull her off on the morning high tide each morning from Jan 31st to Feb 4th (IIf they hadn't gotten her off The Horshoe by the fourth, 'More Drastic' measueres would be called for. Specifics of just what those measures would be were not noted.) At any rate. it was obvious that, if they didn't want Missouri to became a permanent part of the view from Old Point Comfort, that they'd have to make some adjustments before next morning's high tide. Some more weight was removed and the twisting unit's harbor tugs were switched out for a trio of big fleet tugs that were rearranged so they were pulling at a right angle to her starboard bow as a unit rather than butted up against both sides of the bow, in the bow unit's wash as the smaller tugs had been in the original game plan. All they had to do was wait for high tide the next morning...
...Which
dawned clear with a twelve knot wind. AT 0530, the twisting unit was
brought up to full power, assisted by the beach gear on the port
bow...in fifteen minutes they'd twisted her 10 degrees. They were
shifted to her port bow and again roared up to full power, big
diesels bellowing. This did the trick...she swung to port so quick that the tugs had to
back off. Then the pulling and towing units took their turn and, with almost no effort at all, she
slid off as smoothly as a hockey puck sliding across the rink. For
the first time in nearly three weeks...and 24 hours earlier than the media had been told...she was floating free.
 | |
| Wish this was a better pic...she's been pulled off the The Horseshoe, and tugs are turning her to head for Norfolk Photo from THE USS MISSOURI SALVAGE REPORT, made available by and used with permission of The Historic Naval Ships Association. |
 |
| Success!! Missouri's eased into dry dock about six hours after she was refloated. Photo from THE USS MISSOURI SALVAGE REPORT, This photo and the one below made available by and used with permission of The Historic Naval Ships Association. |
Damage
was minor...the outer hull plates of her double bottom had been bent
inward and separated when she struck a still unknown submerged object, breaching her outer hull in a couple of places,
breaching a trio of fuel tanks and causing minor flooding, and her
bilge keels had been slightly damaged. There had been no injuries of
any kind to either her crew or the crews working on refloating
her...that itself was a remarkable feat.
 |
| Trust me on this...this was well deserved |
<***>NOTES,
LINKS, AND STUFF<***>
The
U S Navy was not at all happy about the publicity that the Missouri’s
grounding generated, but they really weren’t
amused by the coverage the grounding received in the Soviet Union.
Within 24 hours fairly detailed if not entirely accurate reports of
the incident appeared in the Russian news media, and a satirical and
demeaning article, complete with pictures, was published in ‘Red
Fleet’…the official magazine of the Soviet Navy. Considering the
fact that this was decades before satellite news feeds, and nearly a
decade before satellites in general, quite a few people were most
interested in just how so much detailed information made it behind
the Iron Curtain so quickly.
Of
course, if they thought The Media was a problem then...
imagine what it would have been like had, say, the USS
Ronald Reagan run aground in the
same location sixty or so years later.
<***>
Remember all of those
unseasonably warm days leading up to Jan 17th? Well they
continued, probably not disappointing the crews working on getting
Missouri off of The Horseshoe
at all. During the two weeks and change that she was aground, temps
only dipped barely below freezing overnight once...on the 20th,
the morning that the first organized attempt to free her was made.
Not only was it cold that morning, there even a little freezing rain
falling. The temps only dropped into the thirties 4 times during the
period, with highs in the fifties, sixties, and even
seventies during the day, when the majority of the work was being
done, and lows ranging from the 40s to, a couple of times, the
sixties for the majority of the period. Precipitation-wise, they
didn't make out as well. It rained for at least a portion of eleven
of the sixteen days she was aground.
<***>
Running aground in such a public
location was a definite double edged sword. While the Media gave the
Navy fits, she was aground in protected waters and calling for
resources was almost as uncomplicated as calling for a tow truck
(Really, really big floating
tow truck(s)). While not all of the resources used to refloat her
came from Norfolk...some resources came from as far away as Panama, as
well as other East Coast bases...her location only a few miles from
Norfolk Naval Base, as well as 'The Amphib. Base' as what was then
'Amphibious Base Norfolk-Little Creek' was and is known to Tidewater
area residents, made the operation far easier than it would have been
had she been grounded on, say, Diamond Shoals off of N.C.'s Outer
Banks.
<***>
Though
most of Missouri’s fuel was removed before any serious
attempt to refloat her was made, some had to remain…since her #8
turbo-generator was made operational, one boiler had to remain lit to
generate steam to spin the generator’s turbine. Normally power
generation duties are split between several generators, but this
couldn’t be done on Missouri while she was aground due to
clogged cooling water intakes and sand-crammed condensers, so her #8
turbo generator had to carry the entire load for almost three weeks
<***>
Had
this incident happened this day and time it would have been
considered a potential major environmental disaster, an issue that
wasn’t even considered a factor back in 1950. Still, an oil spill
definitely could have ended up being a problem…remember, three of
her fuel tanks were open to the sea and they were only a couple of
miles off of the beach. The saving grace, of course, was the fact
that oil is lighter than water and it was the bottoms of the tanks
that were breached, so the fuel floated on top of the water that
entered the tanks. The salvage crews were unable to lower the liquid
level by pumping, but they were likely able to pump the
majority of the oil out of the tanks. When the attempts to refloat
her were made, the liquid level in the three damaged tanks was
lowered by pumping high pressure air into them. Difference between
‘Then’ and ‘Now’…had this occurred in, say, 2010 rather
than 1950, environmental issues would have been a major concern, to
the point, very likely, of delaying the operation considerably.
 |
| The worst of the damage to Missouri's hull, caused
by an unknown object which opened three fuel tanks to the sea as her
hull dug it's way through a half mile of The Horseshoe's sand and mud.
To this day no one knows what she hit. Her starboard bilge keel can be
see in the upper right portion of the frame. Had this happened today, environmental concerns would have likely added months to the salvage effort. Photo from THE USS MISSOURI SALVAGE REPORT, made available by and used with permission of The Historic Naval Ships Association. |
<***>
When
the salvage crews removed Missouri's fuel,
anchors, ammunition and stores, among other items, to remove weight
from the ship, one of the 'among Other Items' was her crew. Her crew
numbered well over a thousand, there fore comprised 80+ tons of
removable weight. Special consideration had to given to removing her
crew, though, and not because of any physical obstacle to doing
so...the reason was a purely psychological one.
One
of the long-standing traditions of the U.S. Navy is standing by your
ship until it's obvious that there's no way to save her. Removing her
crew early in the operation could have been a huge blow to their
moral, therefore they were taken off aboard other vessels on Jan
30th,
the day before the 'Dress Rehearsal' and returned to their ship after
she was dry-docked.
<***>
Speakin'
of putting Missouri in
dry dock...The Navy had to do a bit of rearranging first. The dry
dock they needed was occupied by BB66, The
USS Kentucky...
Ahhh...I can hear
everyone saying 'Wait a minute, Rob...you said that Missouri
was the last BB launched and commissioned. And 'BB64 (USS
Wisconsin) had the highest Navy BB Hull Number...so How???
Simple...USS
Kentucky was under construction, and well along in the process at
that, when WWII ended. In fact she was still under
construction...sort of...when Missouri ran aground. At this
point, knowing that the dry-dock would be needed for Missouri
and not being sure what they wanted to do with Kentucky,
construction was halted, and Kentucky's hull was floated
out of the dry dock to allow Missouri to be dry docked for
repairs.
 |
| USS Kentucky's uncompleted hull being towed out of dry dock to make room for USS Missouri |
<***>
For literally decades after Missouri's grounding, there were rumors that she'd sustained poorly repaired major damage, some of which was never really repaired at all. Specifically and supposedly her keel was badly bent, twisting her hull and limiting her top speed to fifteen knots, and that this twisting of her hull had cracked one of the Barbette supporting one of her gun turrets, putting it out of action.
Before
I continue, allow me to stop and say 'Really?? Really
people??' The Mighty Mo
stopped a kamikaze, shrugging off the impact with little more than
scratched paint. Does anyone realize just how much force would be
required to twist her hull at all,
much less in a manner that would limit her speed and crack a gun
turret barbette?
Back
to the show...There was
a crack in the outer facing of the armor, but it was well less than
an half inch deep and far forward of the area where her bottom
sustained some minor damage. When she was being recommissioned back
in the 80s, engineers checked her internal bulkheads, and found no
damage...trust me, if she had hit hard enough to cause a major crack
in an armored barbette, there would
have been visible damage below decks. The crack was basically
cosmetic, caused by the heat treating method that The Midvale
Company, who made the armor, used in it's manufacture. In simple
terms it was cooled too quickly causing surface cracks...the crack
was filled with underwater epoxy and repainted.
As for the damage to her keel...there wasn't any. Her bilge keels
were what was damaged. The bilge keel...a pair of stabilizers made of 3/8 inch steel plate welded into a 'V' at the round
down where the side of the hull becomes the bottom...was bent and
warped a bit, and was an easy fix.
Speed restrictions? What speed restrictions. When she
underwent sea trials for her recommissioning, she maintained 32
knots...that's just shy of 40 MPH...for four hours. Without even
breaking a sweat.
So, no, there was absolutely no major or unrepaired damage at
all.
<***>
LINKS <***>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_USS_Missouri_grounding_incident
But of course there's a Wikipedia article about the grounding!
http://hnsa.org/doc/bbmosalvage/index.htm
The Historic Navy Ships Association has the full salvage report from
the grounding on line. A truly interesting read (And the source of
the vast majority of the information I used for this post). Be sure to check out the photos section as well...The site
itself (And the association itself) pretty much redefines awesome.
Their archive of historic documents and manuals is legitimately ginormous! And...with that thought in mind...
http://www.hnsa.org/index.htm Historic Naval Ships Association homepage. They have literally thousands of historic documents and manuals in their achives...one of the best resources for anyone with any interest in U. S. Navy history on the net.,
http://www.hnsa.org/index.htm Historic Naval Ships Association homepage. They have literally thousands of historic documents and manuals in their achives...one of the best resources for anyone with any interest in U. S. Navy history on the net.,
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-037.htm
Article that goes in to great depth about the rumors of unrepaired
damage and the infamous crack in the Barbette. Written by Richard
Landgraff for the ICPA Newsletter...
http://www.militaryfactory.com/ships/detail.asp?ship_id=USS-Missouri-BB63 A good informative article about The Mighty Mo' from militaryfactory.com
https://www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/aibvn4/us_battleship_uss_missouri_bb63_surrounded_by/ Article from the Subreddit 'Warship Porn' about the grounding, with lots of good commentary and a couple of links that I missed. You can easily loose yourself ofr a very enjoyable afternnon or evening in this subreddit, BTW...especially of you're a Naval History buff!
https://www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/aibvn4/us_battleship_uss_missouri_bb63_surrounded_by/ Article from the Subreddit 'Warship Porn' about the grounding, with lots of good commentary and a couple of links that I missed. You can easily loose yourself ofr a very enjoyable afternnon or evening in this subreddit, BTW...especially of you're a Naval History buff!
 |
| And to finish this post off, Missouri's main battery...all nine of her 16 inch guns...firing off of Hawaii during a Naval training exercise. |
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