Save the Barrel!

[Subdeacon Joe]

https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/411WA8?psid=75b4a0209c05478096f8d1ac1c3ab4bc

 

 

The Pacific Battleship Center and the Veteran’s Association of the USS IOWA (BB-61) is seeking your help to raise funds to move the remaining USS Iowa 16-inch/50 Mark 7 barrel, located at St. Juliens Creek Naval Annex in Chesapeake, VA or the barrel will be cut into eight feet sections and scrapped. The US Navy is purging all the USS Iowa class materials in their inventory including the16-inch/50 reserve barrels that have been in storage for the last 60 years. The US Navy is allowing qualified organizations to adopt these barrels for free, but those organizations need to pay for the transportation to move them to new homes. While the cost of moving a 70-foot long object weighing about 120-tons is large, several groups have already organized and funded the movement of four of these 16-inch/50 barrels to new homes. The US Navy has believes that they have given enough time for interested parties to claim a barrel, so they want to liquidate them (as they did for 14 similar barrels in storage at Hawthorne, NV in 2011) this year. One of the barrels at St. Juliens Creek saw wartime service during World War II and Korea on the USS Iowa. This 16-inch/50 Mark 7 barrel #270 was installed in Turret One (Left) when the ship was built in 1942 and remained on the ship throughout WWII and the Korean War until it was replaced in 1955. The barrel was relined and placed in storage at St. Juliens Creek for the last 60 years.