The USS Missouri grounding occurred 17 January 1950 when the battleship ran aground while sailing out of Chesapeake Bay. No one was injured, but the battleship remained stuck for over two weeks before being freed from the sand. The ship was so damaged that she had to return to port and enter dry dock for repairs.
After the battleship was freed, a naval court of inquiry found Captain William D. Brown and a handful of other naval officers guilty of negligence. Brown was moved down 250 places on the promotion list, effectively ending his naval career.
Missouri was repaired and reentered service with the active fleet shortly afterward. She would go on to serve in the Korean War before being decommissioned in 1954. She entered the Puget Sound Reserve Fleet in Bremerton, Washington, where she remained until being reactivated in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan put forth by then President Ronald Reagan and his Navy Secretary John Lehman.
Background
Missouri was one of the "fast battleship" designs planned in 1938 by the Preliminary Design Branch at the Bureau of Construction and Repair. She was laid down at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 6 January 1941, launched on 29 January 1944 and commissioned on 11 June. The ship was the third of the Iowa class, but the fourth and final Iowa-class ship commissioned by the United States Navy. The ship was christened at her launching by Mary Margaret Truman, daughter of Harry S. Truman, then a United States senator from Missouri.
Missouri was active in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, escorting the Fast Carrier Task Forces and shelling beachheads for Allied Army and Marine Corps personnel involved in amphibious operations against the Imperial Japanese forces. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Empire of Japan capitulated to Allied demands, signing the instrument of surrender to the allied powers aboard Missouri on 2 September 1945.
Between 1945 and 1950 the US fleet of battleships had been entirely decommissioned; however, Missouri was spared this fate due to the influence of now-President Truman, who refused to allow the battleship to be decommissioned, and against the advice of Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan, and Chief of Naval Operations Louis E. Denfeld, Truman ordered Missouri to be maintained with the active fleet partly because of his fondness for the battleship and partly because the battleship had been christened by his daughter. As a result, Missouri was involved in various training and flag waving exercises at home and abroad between World War II and the Korean War.Bonner, pp. 24–32
Events leading to the accident In October 1949, amid increasing political scrutiny,Although Missouri had fought against the Japanese in the Pacific Theatre of World War II she was rendered obsolete by the aircraft carrier, and this obsolescence extended past her time in World War II and into the Cold War with the rise of long-range bombers which could carry nuclear ordnance and ICBMs. When combined with the ongoing military drawdown of the armed services and the merger of the formerly independent Department of the Navy and Department of War into the newly created Department of Defense in accordance with the National Security Act of 1947 the Navy came under increasing attacks for being unneeded in an age when it was believed that the Army and Air Force could do the same jobs as the Marine Corps and Navy. This hostile disagreement between the services branches erupted into a war of words in 1949 when then Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson canceled , the first of the so called "supercarriers"; fallout from this incident ultimately compelled the United States Congress to hold hearings on the matter. Missouri arrived at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for three months of scheduled maintenance. During this period Captain Harold Page Smith was relieved by Captain William D. Brown. A graduate of Annapolis and veteran of 30 years, Captain Brown had amassed a distinguished record commanding submarines and destroyers, but had never commanded a ship the size of Missouri, and had not been to sea in a command capacity since World War II.Newell, p. 11Stillwell, p. 145 Captain Brown formally assumed command of Missouri on 10 December, just ahead of the completion of maintenance work on the battleship. On 23 December, Brown took the battleship out for a brief trip around the Virginia Capes and returned to Norfolk on Christmas Eve. Her next scheduled departure was 17 January, at which time Missouri was to sail to Guantánamo Bay for maneuvers.
On 13 January, Brown received a request from the Naval Ordnance Laboratory for the Missouri to proceed through a channel in which the United States Navy had strewn acoustic cables as part of an ongoing project that aimed to identify ships by their propeller signatures. The request was entirely optional, but as the captain was preoccupied with the details of the upcoming sortie to Cuba he gave the letter little attention and instead referred the matter to his operations officer, Commander John R. Millett, who in turn referred the letter to the ship's navigator, Lieutenant Commander Frank G. Morris.Newell, p. 71Stillwell, p.. 146
On 14 January, Captain Brown and his operations and navigating officers met to discuss the upcoming cruise to Cuba and the details surrounding this cruise, and also talk briefly about the acoustical test they were to run. The ship was to pass between two orange-and-white-striped buoys that marked the entrance and exit from the range. The range itself was located precariously close to the "danger bearing"—the shoal area in which the safe of water that could accommodate a ship shoaled to only . To make matters worse, the range through which Missouri was to pass had originally been marked with five buoys, but this number had been reduced to two buoys two days prior to the arrival of Captain Brown. Morris was aware that three of the five buoys had been removed from the range, but had not received authorization to delete the non-existent buoys from the chart. Although informed of this during the conference, Captain Brown and Commander Millett left the conference under the mistaken belief that there were still five buoys marking the acoustical range.
Grounding At 7:25 am 17 January 1950 Missouri set sail for the Atlantic Ocean with harbor pilot R. B. McCoy at the helm. Because of the better view afforded on the forward mast structure, the battleship was sailed through the Chesapeake Bay from the eighth level of the battleship's forward mast structure. At the time she had a full complement of ammunition and water, and her fuel tanks were 95% full, which brought Missouris total displacement to 57,000 tons; she drew at her bow and at her stern. At 7:49 am, near the Elizabeth River Channel Buoy 3, the pilot turned control of the battleship over to Captain Brown and departed for shore. The weather was clear and Missouri was now free to run through the acoustic channel. Missouri sailed toward two red markers that Commander George Peckham believed marked the shoal water in the channel.
With the departure of R. B. McCoy, Captain Brown assumed full command of Missouri. He ordered the battleship engines brought to two-thirds speed and ordered a course set for 053 on the recommendation of navigator, Lieutenant Commander Morris.
At 8:05 am, as Missouri sailed past Fort Wool, Captain Brown turned control of the ship (known in naval terms as the "conn" of the ship) over to the officer of the deck and departed for the chart house. His arrival at the chart house caused Ensign E. R. Harris, who had been tracking the battleship's course on the chart, to move away from the table, resulting in the interruption of the plot. Around the same time Captain Brown informed Commander Peckham that Missouri would soon run an acoustical range. This was the first time that the executive officer had heard about a planned acoustical range run.Newell, p. 72
Approximately two minutes after departing for the chart room, Captain Brown reemerged on the open bridge and reassumed the conn of the battleship. He summoned Lieutenants Hatfield and Arnold, Missouris morning and forenoon officers of the watch, respectively, and informed them of the planned run through the acoustical range. As with Commander Peckham, this was the first time that either of these two men had heard anything about the planned acoustical test run. When Captain Brown noted their confused looks, he promptly informed the men to "Go get yourselves informed", at which point both officers reported to the chart room on level eight. There they learned of the impending run through the acoustical range by looking at the chart with the buoys marking the range; despite this, both remained confused over aspects of the planned run.Stillwell, pp. 146–147
At 8:10 am Captain Brown ordered a course change to 060 degrees and informed the men that the conn for the battleship would remain on the eighth-level bridge until they cleared the course. This was unusual for Missouri, as the conn was usually shifted to the fourth-level bridge during the transit at the point when a ship passed Fort Wool and Old Point Comfort. The initial course change to 060 was altered to 058 as a result of a strong ocean current that swung Missouri too far to the right during the course correction.Stillwell, p. 147
It was at this point that the first indication that something was dangerously amiss during the transit occurred. The executive officer, who passed through the chart room while preparing for the shift change, noticed that Missouri was rapidly approaching the shoal water, and promptly told Morris "For God's sake watch it!" At the same time a discussion occurred on the eighth-level bridge as to whether it would be advisable for the battleship's speed to be increased to 15 knots. Morris and Millet differed in opinion on the idea; the former felt speed should be reduced 5 knots, and the latter felt that any steady speed held during the transition would be okay. Captain Brown therefore decided to increase speed to 15 knots, and the engine room replied by increasing power.
Around the same time, Lieutenant Arnold located a small buoy with orange-and-white stripes away. Initially this buoy was identified as one of the acoustical range markers as a result of the letter "B" painted on it, but this information was not properly relayed to the rest of the crew. Mistakenly believing that this was the marker for the right side of the range, both Captain Brown and the battleship's operations officer agreed to order the battleship to pass to the left of the marker. By then Missouri was sailing for the danger line marking the separation between the deep water of the channel into the shallow water of the shoals. This was made apparent when a pair of spar buoys marking the entrance to a shallow fishing channel appeared ahead of Missouri. Brown incorrectly identified these markers as the end of the acoustical range, but several of the quartermasters, as well as Commander Peckham, Lieutenant Arnold, and other officers knew this was an incorrect assumption. It was at this point the first recommendation to turn right was made by Morris, the navigator; Brown declined because of his mistaken belief that the markers for the fish channel were actually the end of the acoustical range. A similar recommendation from Commander Peckham also went unheeded.Newell, p. 77