This story originally appeared in the July 2012 issue.
Robert Kent stands with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the eleventh level atop the USS Iowa as it makes its final journey down San Pedro’s Main Channel. On shore, thousands of cheering spectators line Harbor Blvd. to view the ship’s arrival; it’s a proud day for the community that rallied together to witness a piece of military history. The WWII era battleship is finally making its home at Berth 87 in the Port of Los Angeles, where it will open as a museum ship this month.
Only two short years ago, Kent was marshalling every resource he could to persuade the Port to reconsider making room for a battleship. “It’s real satisfaction,” he says. “We’re home. Our mission was accomplished.”
Veterans, dignitaries, and community leaders roam the ship’s lower levels, getting a sneak peek before the ship opens to the public on July 7.
On the main deck, Yolanda Valle-Sedillo shows off a photo album of her older brother, Charlie, on the Iowa during the Korean War. He is among many veterans on board today, each wearing a hat identifying their ship of service. “I remember seeing him in uniform coming up Sixth Street,” Valle-Sedillo says. “I thought, ‘Oh, there’s my brother. He’s so handsome!’”
Charlie points down at the decks he hasn’t set foot on in years. “They didn’t look like that!” he laughs. “We had a lot of fun out here. We had movies, and you could even get a malt or a sundae. We had our own laundromat. This thing was a floating hotel!”
He and other Iowa veterans will return in early July for a reunion. They’ll have access to the ship before it opens for public tours.
“We’ve created a tour called Tour Alpha, which is basically a trek around the ship all the way from the main deck, up to the flying bridge,” says Kent, President of the nonprofit Pacific Battleship Center, which runs the museum. “You get to see pretty much everything on the outside of the ship, and then we’re allowing people to go inside into the main bridge, to the captain’s cabin, and the officers’ boardroom.”
He’s crossing his fingers that the tour will also include the crew’s galley.
Tour-goers are strongly encouraged to buy tickets online in advance, since space is limited. Four additional tours are also in the works, but each costs about a million dollars to stage. Kent hopes the next general tour will be open by next summer.
HALF A CENTURY OF SERVICE
Built in Brooklyn in 1940 for $110 million (it would cost $2.5 billion in today’s dollars to replace it), the USS Iowa was the lead ship of its class of fast battleships, so advanced that it served for more than 50 years. The more than 15-story, 887 ft. long battleship was the fastest and most powerful of its time, nicknamed “The Big Stick.”
The ship earned 11 battle stars for its service, beginning in the Pacific Theater during WWII. It saw action again in the Korean War and was recommissioned during the Cold War. In 1989, a turret explosion killed 47 crewmen aboard the ship off the coast of Puerto Rico.
The Iowa hosted more U.S. presidents than any other battleship, beginning in 1943, when it transported President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a secret meeting in Tehran with Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Chiang Kaishek. A special bathtub was added to accommodate Roosevelt, who suffered from polio.
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan boarded the Iowa to celebrate the Statue of Liberty’s restoration and centenary. President George H.W. Bush visited the ship twice, first for its recommissioning in 1984 and again for the memorial service for the crewmen who perished in 1989.
FROM MOTHBALL FLEET TO MUSEUM
By 2001, the Iowa had joined other mothballed vessels in reserve at Suisun Bay near San Francisco. Four years later, it was struck from the Naval Registry, becoming the last remaining battleship available for donation to become a naval museum. Groups in Stockton, San Francisco, and Vallejo took interest.
Kent, who had successfully helped find homes for other decommissioned warships, originally worked with the group in Vallejo. But its bid was denied in 2007 because of concerns about fundraising needed for a massive dredging project. Kent decided Los Angeles was the best bet to save the Iowa from being scrapped. In 2009, he formed the Pacific Battleship Center and began seeking funding and real estate in the Port of Los Angeles.
In early 2010, he proposed to the Port that a berthing site be provided for the battleship, but the proposal was rejected, citing interference with waterfront redevelopment.
A few months later, the Navy issued another call for bids. With the deadline approaching, Kent turned to the community to rally support for his proposal. It would take a lot of convincing to get the Port to reconsider; a museum ship wouldn’t be as profitable for the Port as it would be for San Pedro.
“Once the Port said no, I went to the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council, and they passed a vote to support this project. Then, right after that, we were invited to the other neighborhood councils, and it was pretty much unanimous support,” Kent recalls.
The response from not only San Pedro but the entire Harbor Community was overwhelmingly supportive. Soon, residents were collecting hundreds of petition signatures to sway the Port. Mayor Villaraigosa pledged his support, and then-Councilwoman Janice Hahn secured the L.A. City Council’s passage of a resolution backing the proposal. Endorsements even came from President George H.W. Bush and FDR’s grandson, H. Delano Roosevelt.
“At that point, the Harbor Commission was on notice that this really was a City- and community-based supported project and they needed to listen,” Kent says. “And they did.”
In summer 2010, the Port decided to study the financial feasibility of berthing the battleship. There were a few wrinkles to iron out, but on November 18, 2010, the Board of Harbor Commissioners unanimously voted to make room for the ship. The decision came in the nick of time, just days before the bid deadline. Kent overnighted the Pacific Battleship Center’s application to the Navy. The only other bidder was Vallejo.
On September 6, 2011, the U.S. Secretary of the Navy officially awarded the Iowa to Los Angeles. “Without the community support for this project, this ship would not be sitting here right now, and that is the absolute truth,” Kent says.
Former San Pedro Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Camilla Townsend, first approached by Kent three years ago, agrees. “I think the community had a big voice on this one, which was nice. It’s a good feeling for the community to be heard,” she says. “The credit really goes to Robert Kent. He’s worked tirelessly for eight years to make this happen.”
The Iowa underwent refurbishments in Richmond, Calif., before being towed to L.A. in late May of this year, passing under the Golden Gate Bridge on the bridge’s 75th anniversary.
A PART OF PEDRO
USS Iowa fever swept San Pedro long before the ship’s arrival. A street party is scheduled for July 6 in Downtown San Pedro to welcome the ship before its ribbon-cutting the next day.
Business owners and community leaders have been key players in the effort to bring the ship to the waterfront. “It’s a really big deal for us to have this ship, so we’re really excited both as business owners and as residents,” says Mona Sutton, owner of the Omelette & Waffle Shop. “We finally have a good cornerstone attraction and a big piece of history.”
“I think our community is really happy and excited because it’s a good thing, and we’ve been needing to see a positive thing happen in all of our revitalization,” says Townsend. “It’s going to be a beautiful sight here on the waterfront.”
The USS Iowa is now the premier surface warship museum on the West Coast (the other two are aircraft carriers), making it a hot spot for veterans of not only battleships but also cruisers and destroyers.
Television production companies have already been calling, asking when the ship will be available for filming. There is even a virtual reality experience in the works with a video game developer to recreate some of the attacks the Iowa saw during WWII.
For many, the USS Iowa is more than a sorely needed tourist attraction; it is a symbol of San Pedro’s naval history. “The Port of L.A. has a rich Navy history going back to the early part of the 20th century, where it used to house the city battle fleet,” says USS Los Angeles veteran Jim Whitt, who rode the Iowa the day it settled at Berth 87. “There’s a very rich history, but all that has just about disappeared, so it’s nice to get some of that back.” Efforts to turn the USS Los Angeles into a museum ship never saw fruition, and it was eventually scrapped. “This is kind of a second chance for us,” Whitt says.
Preventing the same fate for the USS Iowa, the world’s last remaining battleship, was a big part of Kent’s motivation.
“People ask me why I’ve been working 18-hour days, seven days a week pretty much for no pay for the last two years, living off my savings and putting in $250,000 of my own money for the project,” Kent says. “Well, I met a lot of crewmen along the way whose hopes were dashed so many times when each group that tried before failed. I was determined not to let the Pacific Battleship Center fail. I wanted these crewmen to finally get the satisfaction that their ship was going to be saved and be home again.” spt
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