The Gun Barrel Story

The Gun Barrel Story. . The vision of trying to obtain a 16" - 94 ton 62 ft long battleship gun barrel had it's beginning in November 1992. While Captain Witte, USNR (Ret), president of the Battleship Memorial Foundation was showing a Veterans Day guest speaker the memorial he was given information on the location of a number of 16" gun barrels. The barrels, left over from World War II were in storage at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, Virginia. , Capt Witte contacted the Navy requesting the loan of a gun barrel for display at the memorial in Sioux Falls, S.D. Receiving an encouraging reply he set out to obtain quotations on trucking the gun barrel to Sioux Falls as there were no RR tracks serving the Dahlgren Base. Transportation by truck would require the barrel to be cut in two pieces and would cost $18,000 to $24,000. , Capt Witte was the keynote speaker at the crew members reunion in July 1993. He shared his information on locating a gun barrel and the cost of transporting it to the battleship on the prairie. He challenged the crew to organize a fund drive to finance the project. Before the Capt. Could leave the podium crew members came forward with checks, cash and pledges of support. With donations solicited later from crew members not in attendance the Capt. Was able to raise $20,000. , Capt. Witte not liking the thought of cutting a new gun barrel in half decided there had to be a better way. For the next 9 months he explored different transportation possibilities. The alternate plan required hiring a private crane co. at considerable expense to lift the gun barrel from the storage piers onto a transporter car for movement to a water front loading facility at the Dahlgren Base. , In the executed plan the gun barrel was loaded by a Navy gantry crane onto a Navy Landing Craft (LCU) in the Potomac River slip at Dahlgren. After twelve hours underway on the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay the LCU Arrived at Portsmouth, Virginia. The gun barrel was off-loaded by the Portsmouth Marine terminal onto a 130 ton capacity RR flatcar provided by DOD. In order to pass RR safety regulations the gun barrel shipping collars had to be welded to the RR flatcar at considerable expense. CSX transportation company's RR Division pulled the flatcar from Portsmouth, Virginia to Chicago, Illinois. Burlington-Northern RR pulled the flatcar from Chicago to Sioux Falls, S.D. Ellis and Eastern RR pulled the car from the Burlington-Northern Yards to their siding located three city blocks from the memorial. The RR flatcar with gun barrel aboard arrived in Sioux Falls in August 1994, having logged 99 miles by water and 1,686 miles by rail. Wingert house moving company unloaded the RR flatcar and moved the gun barrel to the memorial with normal hydraulic house moving equipment. The Navy Seabee unit from Sioux Falls constructed the mounting foundation and Piers. , Most of the above loading, transportation, and construction was done as a public service without cost to the memorial. . This historical marker is in Sioux Falls in Minnehaha County South Dakota