PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WVEC) -- Three 16-inch gun barrels that were once used aboard the battleship USS New Jersey will be transported from Norfolk Naval Shipyard to new homes in Philadelphia and New Jersey.
The guns more closely resemble giant cannons, weighing 237,000 pounds each and measuring 66 feet in length. The cannons belonged to the Iowa-class battleship New Jersey, which was commissioned in 1942 and went on to be the most decorated battleship in its class before being decommissioned in 1991.
The gun barrels have been located at Norfolk Naval Shipyard's Saint Juliens Creek Annex for more than 60 years. They will be moved by crane and transported by truck and railroad cars north to their new homes: one will go to the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard where the battleship was constructed, another will go to the battleship New Jersey Museum in Camden, and the third will go to the Mahan Collection Foundation in Basking Ridge, NJ.
The battleship New Jersey itself is currently a floating museum in Camden.