History in Review: Iowa-Class Battleships, Spruance-Class Destroyers, and the SR-71's Unfinished Combat Record and Legacy

In 20th-century naval history, the U.S. Navy built a series of classic ships, but their combat careers and final fates differed. The Iowa class had four completed battleships and 36 16-inch main guns in total, yet in their entire service careers they never engaged an enemy battleship ^[1]. Their largest surface engagement was in February 1944 at Truk, against a light cruiser and a destroyer ^[1]. At Leyte Gulf, Third Fleet took Iowa and New Jersey north to chase decoy carriers, while the older battleships fought the last battleship duel in history at Surigao Strait ^[1].

Meanwhile, the Spruance-class destroyers were originally designed to hunt Soviet submarines. Twenty-four of the ships received 61-cell vertical launch systems in the 1980s and 1990s, and Ticonderoga-class cruisers borrowed their hull ^[2]. During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, U.S. forces fired 288 Tomahawk missiles, 112 of them from Spruance-class destroyers; USS Fife alone fired 60 ^[2]. All ships of the class were retired by 2005; USS Spruance was sunk as a target in 2006, and only USS Paul F. Foster remains afloat as a test ship ^[2].

Another Iowa-class battleship that was never completed was USS Kentucky. The ship cost $55 million, was 72 percent complete, and was later used as a source of 'parts' ^[6]. In 1950, Kentucky was floated unfinished so that USS Missouri could be repaired; in 1954 it was torn loose by Hurricane Hazel, and it was later studied as a $178 million Polaris missile battleship, but it never sailed ^[6]. Its 68-foot bow currently rides on USS Wisconsin at Nauticus in Norfolk ^[6].

In the air, the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft's ceiling was believed to reach 85,000 feet. In 1965, a test pilot flew it above 90,000 feet, felt it wobble, lost an engine, and landed on one engine at Edwards Air Force Base ^[5]. That flight revealed an 800-degree inlet limit and a 1.5-degree pitch margin, data that every SR-71 simulator afterward incorporated ^[5].