Battleship

The USS Iowa spent half its life in mothballs at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where its great gray form became as much a riverfront landmark as the bridges spanning the Delaware. Bristling with cannon, the battleship Iowa is at once threatening and majestic. Painted dark gray, most of its 887-foot length is decked in well- scrubbed wood. It is one of four remaining ships of the Iowa class, the largest battleships ever built by the United States, weighing 58,000 tons and armed with nine 16-inch guns capable of hurling shells the weight of a compact car as far as 25 miles.

Taps were sounded. Old Glory was brought down. With veterans of three wars paying tribute yesterday, the USS Missouri, America's last active battleship, was retired. The ship where Japan formally surrendered in 1945, and that pounded Iraqi forces during the Persian Gulf war, was decommissioned because of defense cuts and a diminished Soviet threat. "It's sad," Bob Schwenk, one of the sailors of her past, said softly, blinking away the tears. "They won't bring her back again," said Schwenk, who was on the ship for Japan's surrender.

Silently, gracefully, the mammoth gray battleship USS New Jersey floated between two high walls of scarred, blackened concrete in the Panama Canal with just six inches of space on either side, moving slower than a stroller on a Sunday afternoon. After a few minutes, the quick, low-pitched grind of iron scraping concrete came from its left side. Then a puff of white smoke, as the covers over the holes in the ship's hull burned. Canal workers tightened the steel cables tied between the ship and small locomotives ("mules")

Amid concerns over budgetary red ink, the Navy is planning to take the battleship Missouri on a nearly 1,000-mile round trip for a recommissioning ceremony next month - at a cost that outraged congressional critics say could run as high as $5 million. At the May 10 ceremony in San Francisco, the World War II ship, on which Japan formally surrendered to the United States, will be welcomed back into the active fleet. Navy officials say the ceremony will cost no more than any other warship commissioning.

The group working to turn the USS New Jersey into a museum has chosen a Camden firm to design the pier for the battleship on the city's waterfront. The Home Port Alliance's board decided at a special meeting Wednesday night to award the contract of more than $200,000 to S.T. Hudson Engineers Inc., a firm with a background in pier and waterfront construction. David McGuigan, the board's president, said design work for the 600-foot, T-shaped pier should take about 2 1/2 months.

The group working to turn the USS New Jersey into a museum will decide this evening if it will have to postpone the planned Labor Day weekend opening for the battleship because Tropical Storm Barry has delayed a shipment of mooring piles. A tug pulling the four 110-foot steel piles from Houston resumed its journey to Camden yesterday after spending four days in safe harbor in Pascagoula, Miss. Weather permitting, the tug should arrive in 12 or 13 days, but it was not clear if that would leave enough time for the piles to be driven into the riverbed and for the tons of concrete that will be poured into them to cure.

The USS New Jersey will not be towed to its permanent home near the Tweeter Center in Camden on Sunday, as had been scheduled. Because of the attacks on New York and Washington, the Coast Guard will not be available to guide the battleship up the Delaware River from the Broadway Terminal of the South Jersey Port Corp. to its new home. Members of the Home Port Alliance board of directors voted unanimously Wednesday night to proceed with the towing but were told yesterday that the Coast Guard could not provide the escort required to clear river traffic.

The war over the battleship USS New Jersey ends today in Trenton as a state panel decides which city the vessel will call home. But just hours before the vote, Camden and Jersey City learned they may already be losers. The ship may have already sailed - to Bayonne. An internal report for the battleship commission recommends that the warship be docked in Bayonne, a local newspaper reported yesterday. The report was compiled before the commission's second visit to Camden on Aug. 28, according to the Courier-Post.

The Delaware River waterfront has won a timeless prize: The great battleship New Jersey will dock forever in Camden, near the old Philadelphia shipyard where she was built. A long tug-of-war over the World War II-vintage ship ended yesterday as Navy Secretary Richard Danzig chose the South Jersey city over Bayonne, in North Jersey, as the final port for the decorated veteran of four wars. The 887-foot warship, now sealed up at the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, will be turned into a naval museum - a draw to tourists and residents on both sides of the river.

The USS New Jersey will open for public tours on Oct. 15, a day after an official ceremony commissioning the battleship for duty as a memorial and museum. Ticket prices will be $10 for adults and $7 for seniors, children under 12, and veterans with identification. Members of the armed forces in uniform will be admitted free. On Thursday, Camden County Surrogate Patricia Jones, cochairwoman of the Home Port Alliance, said all tickets would probably be sold in advance to avoid long lines.

Old-school solution on booze Kudo's to Pennsylvania's Republican governor for having the courage to act on what he firmly believed was in the best interest of our state concerning the sale of liquor. The highly unpopular action he took was certain to provoke outrage, not just from Democrats but from within his own party. Of course, this man of courage and principle was not today's incumbent, but Gov. Gifford Pinchot in 1933. When Prohibition ended, Pinchot set up the State Store system and focused on making buying liquor "as inconvenient and expensive as possible.

Battered by waves of state funding cuts and troughs of low attendance, the crew that operates Camden's Battleship New Jersey has a new plan to blast the tourist attraction out of its predicament. The Turret II Experience opens up a new world of heavy firepower to museum visitors by letting them load mock powder bags and pull the lever, sending a dummy artillery shell up to the massive turrets. The visitors help target "the enemy" on a computer and pull the big brass trigger as a color screen shows footage of the mammoth 16-inch gun firing as the whole deck rumbles - just as it did when the New Jersey pounded Iwo Jima in World War II and Lebanon in the 1980s.

T ATTLE'S FAVORITE AWARDS SHOW has announced its nominations, and we'd like to congratulate "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2" for dominating the 33rd annual Golden Raspberry Awards (a/k/a the "Razzies"), celebrating "the worst accomplishments in film. " "TS: BD2" received 11 nominations - not bad, considering there are only 10 categories - including worst picture, worst actor ( Robert Pattinson ), worst actress ( Kristen Stewart - also feted for "Snow White and the Huntsman")

Love and war are the driving themes for this week's new DVD releases. Think Like a Man , Grade A-minus: A relationship expert has trouble with his own love life. Anyone thinking about making a romantic comedy should take a look at director Tim Story's Think Like a Man before shooting the first frame of film. It's not often you see a movie that touches your heart and funny bone so perfectly. It proves romantic comedies can work if you start with the right mixture of love and laughs, toss in a cast that's so endearing you want the best for them, and tie it all together with a smart comical thread.

Battleship 's flop at the box office dragged on NBCUniversal during the second quarter, but Comcast Corp.'s cable division produced solid revenue and profit, with gains in business services and Internet subscriptions. Wall Street shrugged off the NBCUniversal news and sent Comcast's shares soaring 3.07 percent, up $1 at the close Wednesday, at $33.55 a share. "I'm here in London, and this is indeed an exciting time for all parts of the company," Brian L. Roberts, chief executive officer and chairman, said in a conference call with analysts Wednesday morning.

AS WE THINK about ways to reintegrate vets into society, "Battleship" presents an attractive option: Give them starring roles in summer blockbusters, next to supermodel Brooklyn Decker — precisely where Iraq War vet Gregory Gadson found himself last year, on leave from the Wounded Warrior program he headed by virtue of his leadership skills and status as a double amputee (in 2007, he survived an IED). "It's been a real treat," said Gadson, trying to describe his sudden liftoff into the orbit of Hollywood stardom.

The Delaware River Port Authority board renewed a $900,000 loan guarantee Wednesday to help keep the Battleship New Jersey moored on the Camden waterfront. The financially struggling tourist attraction faced default on the loan if DRPA did not extend the three-year guarantee, first signed in 2003. A default would have required DRPA to repay the loan to TD Bank and would have worsened the ship's financial plight. With declining tour visits and dwindling state financial aid, the battleship has been forced to cut its budget and staff.

Like their life-size counterparts, self-propelled toy boats can be an expensive hobby. To see just how expensive, take a look at some of the sea craft that Bertoia Auctions will offer beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday at the gallery in Vineland. At least 18 of the more than 150 vessels that dominate the 210-lot sale are expected to bring five-figure prices and at least one has a six-figure presale price estimate. The fleet was assembled by Richard T. "Dick" Claus, a 30-year collector who lives in the Philadelphia area and at age 80 is planning to downsize, according to Bertoia associate Richard Bertoia.

The battleship New Jersey is in another fight. This time it must ward off efforts to move the ship from the Camden waterfront to New York, in view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Every effort should be made to keep the most decorated battleship in U.S. history harbored on the Delaware River, where it has been for more than a decade. Thanks to a sluggish economy and state budget cuts, the tourist attraction is struggling to make ends meet. Its state subsidy has plummeted from $1.7 million in 2010 to just $32,500 last year, not even enough to pay the monthly electricity bill for the 887-foot, 45,000-ton battleship museum.