"Mighty Mo," the former USS Missouri, will be towed two miles from Pier Foxtrot-5 at Ford Island to Drydock No. 4 as early as October for more than $12 million worth of repairs.

For the Pearl Harbor shipyard, it will hark back to historic days following the Dec. 7, 1941, attacks when it played a pivotal role in World War II, readying damaged battleships to confront Japan's navy.

In this case, the battleship is as historic as the drydocking: The Missouri was the last U.S. battleship built and the site of Japan's unconditional surrender ending World War II.

After Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor's shipyard refloated 15 of the 18 major ships damaged during the attack. Shipyard workers where the war began this time will make repairs to the battleship where the war ended.

"Our shipyard workers resurrected the U.S. Pacific Fleet from the bottom of Pearl Harbor following the attack of Dec. 7, 1941, and they played a crucial role in winning World War II," said Navy Capt. Gregory R. Thomas, the commander of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. "So we take great pride that our shipyard is helping to preserve one of the greatest symbols of victory in that war — the battleship Missouri."

BAE Systems Ship Repair has the contract to overhaul the 887-foot battleship, officials said.

DATE UNCERTAIN

The exact date of the Mighty Mo's transit to the shipyard — originally scheduled for September — is dependent on completion of repairs to the cruiser USS Port Royal, which ran aground off Honolulu airport on Feb. 5.

Since Feb. 19, the 9,600-ton Port Royal has been in Drydock 4. The Navy previously said repairs were expected to cost $25 million to $40 million. The ship was expected to leave drydock in August.

The Port Royal now is scheduled to undock in September. "This supports a docking for Missouri in early October," the Navy said.

The decommissioned battleship was greeted by thousands of onlookers when it was towed past Waikiki in June 1998. Nearly 30,000 people waited on Magic Island for the sight.

The ship's caretakers, the nonprofit USS Missouri Memorial Association, brought the battlewagon from the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Wash., after Hawai'i and the Missouri's current berth near the sunken battleship USS Arizona were selected out of four competing proposals.

On Jan. 29, 1999, the Battleship Missouri Memorial opened to the public.

"It has always been part of our long-term plan to drydock the battleship, which was last drydocked in 1992," said Michael Carr, president and chief operating officer of the memorial association.

Carr added that "there's a lot of rust — but that's to be expected, given the age, and it's been 17 years since the last time the ship was drydocked. We're in a high-humidity, salty environment."

The ship will be sandblasted and repainted "from top to bottom," Carr said. Scaffolding for sandblasting and painting barriers will start to go up on the superstructure of the ship in July. The ship will be in drydock for about three months.

Carr said there are places on the outer hull, above the waterline, that are so corroded "that you can stick your arm right through."

There was never any worry of a sinking because an inner armored hull has steel that's more than a foot thick in places.

Marine inspectors found a number of other smaller holes in the outer hull that were plugged temporarily.

"There's a lot of pitting and some areas that need to be addressed," Carr said. "So we will be replacing whole sections of the hull where it's rusted all the way through."

Federal law allows the Navy to lease underutilized facilities such as Drydock 4 when it is not servicing Navy vessels. As a result, the shipyard can enter public-private partnerships with organizations such as BAE Systems Hawai'i for work on vessels such as the cruise ship Pride of America — which received $7 million worth of work in the spring — and the Missouri.

Carr said the Missouri will be paying the Navy $14,000 a day to rent the drydock.

ONE-DAY TOW

The just over two-mile journey under tow to the yard is expected to take the better part of a day.

"We will completely fill up Drydock No. 4 with not too much space on either side, from what I understand," Carr said.

Congress has allocated $10 million for the Missouri repairs in the 2009 defense appropriations bill, and the state of Hawai'i approved some Missouri funding in 2008, Carr said.

"Between the grants and the reserves, we have the money for all of this," he said.

Additionally, with the drydocking in mind, Congress approved a two-year rent moratorium worth about $400,000 on the rent paid by the Missouri to the Navy for the berth at Pier Foxtrot-5 at Ford Island.

Carr said the Missouri is pursuing other projects, including spending about $1 million for sensors to monitor some 600 tanks on the battleship — one of which slowly took on seawater in 2007 and caused the Missouri to list one degree to starboard.

A small crew also continues with the laborious task of replacing 53,000 square feet of rotting teak decking. A shipment of about 7,000 to 8,000 board feet of "incredibly beautiful wood" recently came in from China, Carr said.

'WE'RE DOING WELL'

The Missouri, meanwhile, continues to do well in terms of visitors, Carr said.

The memorial receives about 400,000 visitors annually. The economic downturn is having an impact, but for the first 25 days of June, visitor totals were ahead of last year, Carr said.

"We're doing well here, and I'm very proud of how well we're doing," said Carr, who took over as president of the Battleship Missouri Memorial on June 20, 2008. "It's a testament to our good planning, our effective marketing and promotions, and the really hard work and dedication of this wonderful staff."

During the nearly three months the Missouri will be in drydock, its 120 full- and part-time employees will remain employed if they want to stay on, Carr said. Some retired military folks who work as tour guides are opting to take the time off, he said.

The Missouri will reopen as quickly as possible after the drydocking. Carr said the repainting should keep the battlewagon shipshape for at least another 10 to 15 years.

"People will come and stand here and look at the ship and say, 'Well, what the heck did you do?' " Carr said. "It will look exactly the same. But if you get up close, you won't see any of the rust."