The Battleship USS Iowa

The American battleship USS Iowa is one of the most famous warships of World War Two era. Built in 1943 at New York Naval Yard she was the lead ship of a series of four battleships of the class named after her and deemed some of the world s largest and best. During the Second World War USS Iowa went into history as a ship aboard which the president of the USA Franklin Delano Roosevelt travelled to Tehran, where the infamous Tehran Conference, in which two other leaders: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet prime minister Joseph Stalin participated, was held. Later the ship was sent to serve in the Pacific, where she took part in almost all major operations against Japanese forces. After a short overhaul in San Francisco in early 1945 she continued operations against Japan, taking part among others in shelling of Kyushu, Honshu and Hokkaido islands, and on 27 August 1945 the ship s crew accepted surrender of Yokosuka naval base. After the end of the war, in early 1946 Iowa was the flagship of the 5th Fleet, operating in Gulf of Tokio waters and after the return to the US her role was limited to that of a training ship.