This column appeared in the April 8 edition of the Delaware State News.
By Andrew West
Delaware State News
LEWES — A silent witness to World War II history will spend the Easter weekend in the shadows of the Delaware State Fair in Harrington.
It’s a 66-foot, 116-ton barrel from the USS Missouri, upon which the Japanese surrendered to the Allied Forces on Sept. 2, 1945, on Tokyo Bay.
The 16-inch gun barrel is on the final legs of a long historical journey that almost suffered the fate of scrap metal.
Thanks to the determination and donations of Delawareans who rescued it, it will become the centerpiece of the Fort Miles military museum and displays at Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes.
Fort Miles will get Barrel 371, from the center gun of Turret 1 of the USS Missouri. The battleship had nine big guns.
“When (the Japanese) got off the long boat, they had to walk right past our barrel to go up on the deck to surrender to Gen. McArthur and all the allied powers,” said Gary D. Wray, president of the Fort Miles Historical Association.
A 16-inch gun — like one of two that were in beach bunkers on the Delaware coastal fort during World War II — has been the coveted prize of the historical association founders and its members.
“We’ve been trying to get a 16-inch gun ever since we got started about 10 years ago,” Mr. Wray said.
***
Mr. Wray said the Navy scrapped 15 such barrels that were in Nevada in 2010, never getting a chance to obtain one.
The barrels were cut up into 8-foot chunks of scrap metal and sold by the Navy for $380,000.
“That really lit us up,” said Mr. Wray.
The search intensified. It turned out that the association had a great friend in Jim Poyner of Dahlgren, Va. He located eight barrels, lying side by side, outside the Norfolk Naval Base in St. Julien’s Annex.
Research on identification numbers for the barrels showed that they were from the USS Missouri, the USS New Jersey and the USS Iowa.
“We quickly realized that these weren’t just any barrels,” said Mr. Wray.
Mr. Wray said his group contacted the U.S. Navy right away. That was in May.
The Navy first said they had until September to get together logistical and funding plans or the barrels would be scrapped. But a deal was worked out to postpone the deadline until February.
“We had no money and needed $110,000 to move the gun,” said Mr. Wray.
The association put together a fundraising committee, chaired by Nick Carter.
By December, $122,000 was raised.
Mr. Wray said there were more than 100 donors — including two boys, ages 4 and 6, who brought in $9.
The General Motors Foundation gave $25,000, Sussex County Council and anonymous donor each added $10,000. Several people, including Fort Miles Historical Association board members, donated $1,000.
“People told us bad economic times and all that, but I tell you, we live in a good community here,” Mr. Wray said. “With people around here, and generally in the state of Delaware, if you’ve got credibility and people see the project as worth doing, they’ll open their pocketbooks up. And that’s exactly what happened.”
***
The move of the barrel from Virginia to Delaware started Monday.
Lockwood Brothers of Hampton, Va., started the process of moving it by crane to the railroad. A barge brought it across the Chesapeake and then a Norfolk Southern train brought it northward.
Mr. Wray said Norfolk Southern is donating the costs of the rail trip.
From Harrington, the big gun will follow the railroad tracks to Georgetown for a big celebration 2-5 p.m. Monday, April 16.
The train will stop at the crossing on Market Street near The Circle in Georgetown.
There will be a parade, featuring WWII reenactors and the Sussex Tech High School marching band.
An honored guest for the ceremony will be U.S. Army Air Corps Col. Newt Tyndall, 93, of Georgetown.
Like the prized gun barrel, Mr. Tyndall was another witness to the surrender on the Missouri.
He had a birds-eye view during a flyover of the USS Missouri that day, piloting a B-29 that had been used in the bombing of Japan.
The photo with the article today gives an idea of what the planes looked like from the deck of the battleship.
Mr. Wray proudly points out that the barrel pointing up in the center of the photo is the one coming to the Fort Miles museum.
***
From Georgetown, the Delaware Coastline Railroad will deliver the barrel to Lewes.
By Cape Shores, the Lockwood Brothers will have a truck with 12 axles and 96 wheels ready for the barrel’s final mile-and-a-half journey to Fort Miles.
Fort Miles will have a welcome celebration at 1 p.m. April 28.
***
In case you’re wondering, the other two USS Missouri barrels are also en route to future homes.
One is going Phoenix, where it will be part of a WWII memorial. The other will reside on Delmarva in St. Charles, Va.
***
Mr. Wray said there are four additional pieces needed to finish the static display of the big gun. All are available from Dahlgren, but more funds — about $250,000 is the goal — need to be raised, Mr. Wray said.
This barrel is going to become the centerpiece of our Fort Miles museum inside Battery 519, Mr. Wray said.
There are about 6,000 tours a year now at the battery museum, which is 420 feet long and in the Great Dune at Cape Henlopen State Park.
Mr. Wray said he and three other men — the late Lee Jennings, David Main and Bob Frederick — started the Fort Miles Historical Association a decade ago.
In the association’s spring newsletter, Mr. Wray wrote, “We have gone from a dark, dank, musty, critter-infested casement to a wonderful museum with a great gun park.”
For more information on the Fort Miles Historical Association, visit http://www.fortmilesha.org/
Follow the train’s path by GPS tracking at http://home.comcast.net/~denniskarol/BigGUN.htm.
RSS