Rare chance to visit battleship in Bay Area
By Thomas Peele
Contra Costa Times
Posted:   02/14/2012 04:19:47 PM PST
Updated:   02/14/2012 04:37:21 PM PST

Click photo to enlarge

The World War II-era battleship USS Iowa draws hundreds of visitors to walk over the fabled-teak...
RICHMOND -- All day people climbed the steep gangway to board the USS Iowa and hear 87-year-old John Wolfinbarger tell stories about serving on the battleship during World War II.
"I was aboard the Iowa for all of its (Pacific Theatre) battles," he said, standing near the ship's sleek prow one Saturday morning, not far from six of its murderous big guns, talking of his time as a young sailor.
During the battle of Saipan in 1944, "I was way up there," he said, pointing high toward the ship's superstructure. "We were bombarding (Saipan) all night long."
The next morning the enemy launched a massive air strike against the U.S. fleet, Wolfinbarger recalled. A torpedo bomber made it through "a sea of fire" from the Iowa and its escorts, and flew right over his head without dropping its torpedo in the water.
"His mechanism must have jammed," Wolfinbarger said. "Either that or he saved it. What they were really after were our (aircraft) carriers."
The enemy pilot never got the chance, though. Seconds later a shell out of a three-inch gun blew the plane out of the sky.
That is just one of the stories told by Wolfinbarger, a volunteer docent who commutes from his home in San Martin south of San Jose on weekends, while the Iowa is docked at the Port of Richmond for cleanup work and painting before being towed in the spring to Los Angeles, where it will become a museum.
Until it leaves, the battle ship is open to the public for limited touring on Saturdays and Sundays.
The ship spent the last decade mothballed in Suisun Bay off Benicia. Members of the nonprofit Pacific Battleship Center work to make the most of its time in Richmond as they prepare the vessel for what could be its final voyage.
The goal is to figure out "how do we make it a living attraction? How do you bring it alive?" said Jonathan Williams, the group's vice president.
Earlier this month, dozens of volunteers tore up rotted wooden decking, opened long-forgotten watertight doors and ushered visitors aboard. Even with only a small portion of the 887-foot ship open to the public and years of work ahead before it is fully restored, as many as a 1,000 people are visiting each weekend, Williams said.
"I am just curious to see the ship," said Marilyn Kelple, who drove from Sacramento on Feb. 4 to look around the Iowa. "They don't build them like this anymore."
"We get to set foot on a real battleship, one of the last ever built," said Karl Okamoto, who accompanied Kelple.
The Navy awarded the Iowa to Williams' group late last year after efforts to make it a museum in San Francisco, Vallejo and Stockton failed.
It is regarded as one of the most historic ships in naval history.
The Iowa was launched in New York in August 1942 as the head of the last class of battleships built by the United States. It ferried President Franklin Roosevelt to Northern Africa for war councils in 1943 and moved to the Pacific in 1944. However, it never engaged in a battle for which it was ultimately designed -- dueling with another battleship -- instead firing thousands of heavy shells at Japanese held islands and protecting aircraft carriers.
During the Korean War, the Iowa again was used in dozens of bombardments before being mothballed from 1958 until 1982, when President Ronald Reagan ordered the ship returned to service as a show of Cold War force.
In April 1989, an explosion in one of the ship's gun turrets during a training exercise killed 47 sailors. The disaster has been blamed on both a murder-suicide plot by an individual sailor and an electrical accident.
How to best honor the men who died in the turret is still being decided, Williams said. Families of the dead "want it sealed off out of respect," he said. "And we are listening to how they want it memorialized."
Plans are for at least one of the 16-inch gun turrets to be accessible, he said. Much of the bridge and superstructure will eventually be open to the public, as well as areas below deck. Those areas include a bathtub that was installed for Roosevelt, who could not stand because of polio. For now, though, the Roosevelt's quarters are not open to the public.
But that didn't stop Wolfinbarger from visiting them a few years ago during a tour while the ship was in Suisun Bay. He said he even jumped in the famous bathtub for a photograph.
But his love of the ship goes far beyond simply having his snapshot taken.
Sitting alone in a chair on the foredeck before the crowds came, Wolfinbarger spoke emotionally about what it means to him to be back aboard the ship and finally seeing its preservation taking place around him. He said he will head south to volunteer on the ship when he can.
"This ship has done a lot to win the war," he said, his voice breaking, tears forming in the corner of his eyes behind sunglasses. "It was an honor to serve on (the Iowa). I am not going to say it was a pleasure because nothing in war is a pleasure. This is a piece of history."
When visitors came, Wolfinbarger stood to meet them, often framing his face with his hands and pointing -- at the bridge, at the giant cannons, their barrels seeming as big as factory smokestacks.
"This was your boat?" a man said to him, a hint of amazement in his voice.
"This was my boat," Wolfinbarger answered, another story beginning, the Iowa's history very much alive.

IF YOU GO
The battleship USS Iowa is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Port of Richmond, 1411 Harbour Way South, Richmond. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children. Go to pacificbattleship.com for more information.