USS Missouri barrel moves closer to new home
The much-anticipated 16-inch gun barrel from the USS Missouri has taken the first steps on its journey to Cape Henlopen State Park's Fort Miles. The endeavor is surrounded by more history than most even realize.
On March 8, a crew from Lockwood Brothers Inc. of Hampton, Va., used a 365-ton crane to lift the 116-ton barrel onto a trailer for a two-mile trip from St. Juliens Creek at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard through Portsmouth, Va., and Chesapeake, Va., to the the Old Dominion power station railroad yard.
According to Gary Wray, president of the Fort Miles Historical Association, in about a month, the crane crew will return to the site and lift the 68-foot barrel onto a railroad car for a short trip to the Little Creek railroad terminal. The Little Creek terminal is the location of the former Little Creek-Cape Charles Ferry, which provided a link to the Eastern Shore of Virginia from the 1930s to 1964 when the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was opened.
The next stage of the journey is a historical event in itself as the gun barrel is towed 26 miles across the Chesapeake Bay on a Bay Coast Railroad car float. The tugboat-rail system, started in 1885, is one of only two still operating in the nation.
The barrel will be off-loaded in Cape Charles, Va., to begin the next phase of its journey on the rails up the coast to Sussex County and eventually to its new home at Cape Henlopen State Park at the Fort Miles gunpark. A banner on the cannon will recognize the G.M. Foundation as a major donor to the campaign to save the gun from being scrapped. More than $110,000 was raised to cover costs of moving the massive gun barrel through an effort chaired by Nick Carter of Lewes.
Wray said an official welcoming ceremony has been scheduled in Georgetown at 2 p.m., Monday, April 16, and an unveiling ceremony in the park will take place at 1 p.m., Saturday, April 28. But the work doesn't stop there.
Wray estimates $250,000 will be needed for the second display phase, which he said would take 12 to 18 months. Those funds will be used to sand, refinish and paint the cannon, then restore the carriage components to complete the display.
The Fort Miles Military Museum project is an ongoing, long-term effort to develop a World War II museum within the hidden battery at Cape Henlopen State Park. The USS Missouri cannon - the same size gun that protected the entrance to the Delaware Bay during the war years - will greet visitors to the museum.
The gun barrel is steeped in history as one of three remaining large guns from the USS Missouri, the ship aboard which the Japanese formally surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945, to end World War II.
“It’s the actual barrel the Japanese had to walk by to surrender,” Wray said.
One of the most famous battleships in naval history, the USS Missouri provided firepower during the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and later in Korea and Desert Storm.
Another Missouri gun barrel will be headed to Arizona, and a third is scheduled to be shipped to the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge near Cape Charles, the location of a facility similar to Fort Miles.
