The ‘Mighty Mo’ meets ‘General Mud’: When the USS Missouri ran aground in the Chesapeake Bay
For more than two weeks in early 1950, the USS Missouri was stuck on the bottom of the lower Chesapeake Bay east of Fort Monroe and west of Thimble Shoal lighthouse.
The massive battleship ran aground early on Jan. 17, 1950.
The next day, the front page of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot quipped that “The ‘Mighty Mo,” was a “loser in yesterday’s encounter with ‘General Mud.’”
The Missouri was the only active battleship in the U.S. fleet at the time of its grounding.
The ship was finally floated again on Feb. 1.
Here’s the front-page story from Jan. 18, 1950, in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. See a copy of the front page at the bottom:
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16 Tugs Fail to Pull USS Missouri From Bay Mire
Army Dredge To Suck Mud In New Try
Held Near Thimble Shoal, Warship Half Mile North of Channel
Cause Not Revealed
Cuba-Bound Sea Giant Possibly Was Trying ‘Acoustic Range’
By Ralph Winnett
The USS Missouri, aground, west of Thimble Shoals Light in Chesapeake Bay since 8 a.m. yesterday, stood motionless high on the mud shoal this morning after the failure last night of an hour-long high tide pull by 16 powerful Navy and Coast Guard tugs.
When the only active battleship in the United States fleet mired to a stop yesterday, its position was more than a half mile north of the usual shipping route leading seaward from Hampton Roads.
The mishap occurred at the start of a routine training cruise from Norfolk to Guantanamo, Cuba — a voyage that would have been battleship’s first sea trip under its new skipper, Capt. W.D. Brown, USN.
Mighty Push Into Mud
Navy men who saw the Missouri immediately after the accident said the 45,000-ton vessel must have lifted itself at least six feet out of the water in pushing onto the mud shoal.
These observers based the statement on the fact that they saw the ship’s 31-foot mark above water at the stern, while the Missouri’s draft is listed at 37 feet, seven inches.
A Navy source speculated last night that ammunition as well as oil might have to be unloaded before the ponderous battlewagon would float again. That salvage efforts might proceed even further than mere unloading operations was indicated by the scheduled arrival this morning of an Army suction dredge from Baltimore. The dredge’s assignment, according to predictions, would be the removal of mud around the Missouri, and possibly the carving of a channel back to deep water.
Second Attempt Fails
Last night’s unsuccessful effort to float the Missouri at high tide was the second in 12 hours. The first attempt took place shortly after the battlewagon went aground.
Navigator’s charts showed that the shoal water around the battleship was between 24 and 28 feet deep. As the powerful tugboats churned and muddied the water in their vain effort to pull the marooned sea giant loose, merchant vessels could be seen plying the normal shipping lane far to the south. Grizzled tug skippers scratched their heads and wondered how the great ship could be strayed into the unfrequented part of the lower bay.
Mud, clogging the warship’s condensers, put all but a few emergency generators out of action. Power was supplied during the day through lines from the Navy submarine rescue ship Kittiwake, which moored alongside the battleship shortly after the accident.
No Harbor Pilot Aboard
When the warship ground to a stop, it was pointed slightly north of Thimble Shoal Light on a course that, if continued, would have taken it through the 16-foot deep Horseshoe Shoal. There was no harbor pilot aboard. The docking pilot, Capt. R.B. McCoy, disembarked after taking the ship from its Naval Base pier.
A spokesman for the Virginia Pilots Association said last night that the Navy usually requisitions a harbor pilot to guide larger warships seaward out past Thimble Shoal Channel in bad weather. The weather yesterday morning was favorable, with moderate sea and wind, and good visibility — a condition in which the Navy seldom asks the assistance of civilian pilots.
Oil Removed
Around noon yesterday an armada of large and small Navy tankers converged on the Missouri to lighten its weight by removing about 8,000 tons of oil from its bunkers. The operation will continue.
Listed in command of the vast salvage effort was Rear Adm. Roscoe F. Good, USN, commander of Atlantic Fleet Service Forces, assisted by Capt. W.L. Ware, USN, port director, and Capt. Henry Treakle, USN, senior pilot in charge of tug operations.
Causes of the grounding will not be revealed officially, nor action taken, until the meeting of a Naval Board of Inquiry to be appointed by the commander of Atlantic Fleet Cruisers here.
The Missouri was christened by Margaret Truman at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and launched there in 1944. On her historic “surrender deck” in Tokyo harbor the Japanese government signed the capitulation that ended World War II in September, 1945.
President Truman, once a passenger on the battleship on its 1947 trip to Rio de Janeiro, visited the vessel at Norfolk in December, 1948, to present the crew with a 181-piece silver service gift from the people of Missouri. On that occasion, he declared that the battlewagon would not join its sister ships in the mothball fleet as long as he remained President.
The Missouri is 887 feet long and 108 feet of beam, and carries a complement of 71 officers and 1,400 men. Its official displacement, 45,000 tons, reportedly is some 20,000 tons under its actual displacement.
An unofficial but informed observer guessed last night that the Missouri may have run aground in its effort to follow an “acoustic range” — a device used to test degaussing equipment on Navy ships. Details of the device are “classified” (kept secret for military reasons).
A source familiar with the history of Navy shipping here said that the accident marked the first grounding of a capital ship in local waters in recent memory.
