Ex-Iowa sailors salute the ship as it makes its final port call When the big guns of the battleship Iowa pounded Japanese troops during World War II, John Wolfinbarger could feel it in the boiler room deep below decks. It was 1944, and Wolfinbarger was 19. He was a Colorado boy who suddenly was in the sweltering Pacific, his ship shuddering with each blast. Every couple of days, he'd have to crawl into a hot boiler and scrape burnt fuel oil from its pipes. It was grimy, cramped, tedious work - and he treasures the memory of it, just like a legion of other former Iowa sailors who will salute the ship Saturday as it's towed two miles to its permanent home as a waterfront museum in San Pedro. Wolfinbarger, 88, will be among the hundreds of Iowa veterans on hand. PHOTOS: Battleship Iowa Sailors often get misty over old ships, and those who served on the biggest U.S. battleship ever built are no different. The nearly 70-year-old Iowa played a crucial role in their lives, and its story can be told in the everyday experiences of unsung men like Wolfinbarger. "I don't want to say I enjoyed it - war is never joyous - but it was an honor," he said. Wolfinbarger first hauled his sea bag aboard the Iowa in the Marshall Islands. His immediate impression was that of any other swabbie surveying a great, gray vessel 15 stories high and almost as long as three football fields. "I thought, 'Oh, my achin' back!'" he said. Wolfinbarger, who later went to work in coal mines and sawmills, slept outside on the teakwood deck instead of in the hot, crowded quarters below. For nearly two years, he rolled out a blanket under one of the ship's famous 16-inch cannons that could hurl 2,700-pound shells more than 24 miles. When the Iowa was attacking the Japanese stronghold of Saipan, Wolfinbarger was stationed high in a crow's nest. It was the only battle he witnessed, and he hated it. Even worse was the aftermath, with broken bodies bobbing near the beach, families who hurled themselves off cliffs rather than endure what they thought would be American torture. "It was horrible," Wolfinbarger said. He spent the rest of his tour down in the boiler room. Four years after being present for the 1945 Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay, the Iowa was decommissioned by a Navy trying to cut costs. It returned to duty in 1952 and soon was dubbed "the gray ghost of the Korean coast." Richard Blair remembers it well. He had a number of jobs in his 45 months on the Iowa, including handling phones for its commanding officer during battles in the Korean War. "I spent my 19th birthday in Wonsan Harbor and we were firing day and night, day and night," said Blair, a retired banker and medical office manager. That day - Aug. 19 - I spent about 12 hours on the bridge with the captain, and we blew up everything we possibly could. The Iowa picked up downed fliers and came to the aid of ships that were hit. Blair, 78, of Lancaster, was helping to transfer wounded sailors from a stricken destroyer "when, suddenly, these bundles started coming over - bundles wrapped in rope with a tab that said something like 'Johnny Jones, 18.'" "They were just bundles," he said. That got to me. Combat lasted eight months. The rest of the time there were plenty of spit-and-polish chores but also a world of new experiences at ports in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and elsewhere. Blair was on the USS Iowa swim team that won an Atlantic Fleet title. He remembers "The Ed Sullivan Show" broadcasting from the Iowa, with ventriloquist and acrobats. As a chaplain's assistant, he organized Christmas parties for orphans in Norfolk, Va.