 By 8: 30 am a request went out summoning all available tugs to the site of the grounding with the hope that they would be able to free the leviathan before any further damage occurred. An attempt made by Missouri's sailors on the day of the grounding met with failure, as did an initial attempt to pull Missouri back into deep water with sixteen tugboats. Before the tugs could lend any further assistance, the naval brass postponed the attempt, pending the outcome of further assessment. Missouri had traversed the shoal nearly 2,500 feet, and to compound her problem she had run aground during an unusually high tide. To add insult to injury, she had become the butt of a number of bad jokes among the American public, the navy's rival service branches, and the Soviet Union's Atlantic fleet, who were quick to pounce upon the dreadnought's grounding as material for the naval publication Red Fleet.
