Joe Kosaveach stood in the shadow of the biggest gun at Fort Miles. The 16-inch barrel from the battleship USS Missouri's forward turret is 68-feet long and weighs 120 tons. Throw in the huge base, and it's 300 tons of heavy metal.

The Navy veteran and Lewes resident was among the volunteers who rolled up their sleeves to make the gun into the centerpiece of the Fort Miles artillery park.

"We got all the parts up here and started to put it together," Kosaveach said. "We used an engine lift to bring the parts to my house, clean them off and prime them. The problem was, the clearances are so tiny, we had to then wire brush the primer off. If I had to do it again, which I would never do, I'd use oil."

The efforts of those volunteers, known as the Bunker Busters, were recognized at the annual V-J Day ceremony Sept. 2.

It was on that day in 1945 the Japanese formally signed surrender documents on the USS Missouri's deck in Tokyo Bay, underneath that very gun turret.

Members of the committee who worked to bring the gun to Lewes – Nick and Laurie Carter, Jim Ford, Bill Manthorpe, Joe Johnson and the late Dr. Gary Wray – were recognized with a Fort Miles challenge coin and a framed photo of the gun barrel passing over the railroad swing bridge April 17, 2012. The photo was one of the most iconic images taken by the Cape Gazette's Ron MacArthur.

The committee raised $110,000 to move the barrel from Virginia by barge and rail. Another 100 tons of various pieces came by truck.

Wray is credited with pushing the project further.

"[Gary] wanted the whole gun, not just the barrel," said Terrance McGovern, who launched the rescue effort. "The Navy had a lot of parts that had been sitting outside for 50 to 60 years and were pretty corroded. The Fort Miles Bunker Buster volunteers prepped it and put it together. A 500-ton crane raised the barrel into place. It didn't want to fit; it took a lot of grease and pushing, but they got it into the slide."

The V-J Day ceremony honors all 774 Delawareans who died in World War II.

Fort Miles paid tribute to Lt. John Compton of Dover and Motor Machinist Mate Third Class Franklin Edington of Milton. They were among the submariners who went down with the USS Herring off the coast of Japan June 1, 1944. The wreckage was discovered in 2017, and the sailors' remains recently identified.

"We didn't really know what the eventual outcome would be, but when we were contacted, it was a moment of closure," said Julia Fermoile, one of Compton's two nieces who attended the ceremony.

Compton and Edington were among the names of fallen Delawareans that were read in memoriam. That list included seven pairs of brothers and Sgt. William Lloyd Nelson of Middletown, a medal of honor recipient.

The ceremony included a fly-by from Panchito, the World War II-era B-25 bomber maintained by the Delaware Aviation Museum at Delaware Coastal Airport.

Capt. Walter Urban, U.S. Navy retired, a member of the board of trustees for the USS New Jersey in Camden, N.J., gave a presentation on the history of American battleships. His remarks included the immortal words of Gen. Douglas MacArthur at the end of the surrender ceremony on Sept. 2, 1945: "Let us pray that peace be restored in the world and that God will preserve it always. These proceedings are closed."