Famed US battleship which carried Roosevelt makes final voyage

San Francisco: A famed battleship which saw action during the Second World War and the Korean War and carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a wartime summit travelled along the California coast Sunday on its final voyage.

The iconic USS Iowa left San Francisco Bay on its way to its new home in Southern California.

Surrounded by pleasure boats and other vessels, the 887-foot long, 58,000-tonne battlewagon was towed through the bay and passed under the Golden Gate Bridge at about 2.30pm on Saturday.

Crowds watched from both sides of the bridge as the US Coast Guard Cutter Sockeye provided an official escort and the San Francisco fireboat Phoenix led the way.

At the St Francis Yacht Club on San Francisco’s shoreline, officers and crew members of the USS Decatur, outfitted in their dress whites, saluted as the Iowa drifted past, Rogers said.

Club members also honoured the Iowa with a farewell gun salute and a signal flag message — “Farewell My Dear Friend”.

“Everything has gone beautifully,” said spokesman Bob Rogers of the Pacific Battleship Centre, a non-profit organisation which will operate an interactive naval museum on board the USS Iowa at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. “The Phoenix was spraying water in every direction. She took her right out the Gate."

The Iowa, first commissioned in 1943 and again in 1951 and 1984, saw duty in the Second World War and the Korean War.

The ship once carried Roosevelt to a summit with Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek. It also took part in escorting tankers in the Arabian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war before being decommissioned in 1990.

In recent years, the Iowa sat in the cold and fog, anchored with other mothballed ships in nearby Suisun Bay. Last year, the Pacific Battleship Centre beat out the San Francisco Bay Area city of Vallejo when the US Navy awarded the ship to the organisation.

The centre’s future plans include an interactive tour experience which will allow the visitor to experience what life at sea was like during active duty. Among the highlights will be viewing the inside of one of the main gun turrets, seeing the 17.5-inch armoured conning station on the bridge and viewing Roosevelt's stateroom.

The ship was recently moved to the Port of Richmond, not far from where “Rosie the Riveters” built ships in the 1940s. Workers scrubbed and painted the ship’s exterior, replaced the teak deck and reattached the mast in preparation for the museum commissioning in July.

The Iowa was scheduled to leave on May 20, but was delayed because of a storm system. As it turned out, its departure came on the same day as weekend celebrations were under way marking the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th anniversary.

The trip down the coast is expected to take about four days.