Two Missouris in a Family Spat Over Battleship’s Silver Service

A $250,000 silver service that once graced the captain’s table of the battleship Missouri was only on loan to the State of Missouri and must be returned to duty aboard the reactivated warship, a Navy spokesman said today.

Controversy over the silver erupted as the 58,000-ton Missouri steamed into San Francisco Bay, its new home, for recommissioning.

Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft wants the silver service to remain on display in his state mansion and said the issue “ought to transcend legal arguments.”

The Navy scurried into dusty files going back to 1904 and the original battleship Missouri to make its case.

On April 18, 1922, a Navy spokesman said, Missouri Gov. Arthur Mastick Hyde wrote a letter to the Navy “and inquired if after the decommissioning of D11--the original Missouri--that the silver service could be returned to the State of Missouri.”

“By letter of April 21, 1922,” the spokesman said, “the secretary of the Navy responded and informed Hyde that he was authorized to lend for presentation the service to the state on one condition--that it could be recalled by the Navy at any time and that the State of Missouri would prepay the shipping and handling charges.”

The original service was said to include 321 silver goblets, plates and other pieces that the citizens of Missouri donated to the original battlewagon in 1904 at a cost of about $3,000. The service is now estimated to be worth $250,000.