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| USS NEW JERSEY USS WISCONSIN |
Big “J” and Wisky
BY RICHARD H. WAGNER
(Originally published by the Navy League
of the United States, New York Council in
The Log, Fall 2007).
BY RICHARD H. WAGNER
(Originally published by the Navy League
of the United States, New York Council in
The Log, Fall 2007).
The Iowa-class battleships were the United States Navy's largest and most powerful
battleships. Indeed, with their upgrades in the 1980s, they became perhaps the most
powerful surface combatants ever built. The most decorated of these ships (16 battle
stars), USS NEW JERSEY (BB 62) (“Big J”) now resides only about an hour from New
York in Camden, New Jersey. Her slightly younger sister, USS WISCONSIN (BB 64),
known to her friends as “Wisky,” is somewhat further away in Norfolk, Virginia.
Recently, The Log visited both ships.
The Battlewagons’ Navy Careers
By 1937, the post-World War I disarmament regime was on its last legs. It appeared
likely that Japan was not going to ratify the 1936 London Naval Conference which sought
to continue the regime started in the Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty of 1922,
limiting the number and size of battleships and other capital ships. Under the London
agreement, such a failure by Japan would allow those countries that had signed the treaty
to build battleships up to 45,000 tons rather than the 35,000 ton limit originally
negotiated. Accordingly, the Navy began looking at various designs for such a ship.
There were two competing schools of thought. One advocated a design that would have
provided greater fire power and more armor than on the NORTH CAROLINA and
SOUTH DAKOTA classes that were then in the later stages of development. The other
school argued that the new battleships should be even faster than the 27-knot NORTH
CAROLINAS and SOUTH DAKOTAS. In a war with Japan, it was feared that the
Japanese might use fast aircraft carriers and cruisers to attack the long lines
communication. Furthermore, the fast KONGO class battleships might be detached from
the fleet and used for independent operations. (In fact, this did occur, resulting in the
Naval Battle Of Guadalcanal in November 1942. See The Log, Winter 2005 at p. 9).
President Franklin Roosevelt ended the debate in March 1938 by specifying that the third
class of new battleships should be high speed and have a large endurance.
The design that eventually emerged was of an 880 foot long ship with nine 16 inch 50
caliber guns as the main battery, a speed of 33 knots, a standard displacement of 45,000
tons and a full load displacement of 55,000 tons. During construction, numerous
changes were made including the addition of numerous light anti-aircraft weapons and
additional electronics so that the full load displacement was closer to 57,000 tons.
Furthermore, the top speed of the ships is unknown as none were ever officially tested at
full speed over a measured mile.
In July 1939, contracts were issued for two ships, USS IOWA (BB 61) and USS NEW
JERSEY (BB 62), based on the new design. The next year, two more ships of this design
were ordered, USS MISSOURI (BB 63) and USS WISCONSIN (BB 64). The Navy
concluded that this would be enough fast battleships and said that no more would be
authorized. However, a month later, after the Nazi Blitzkrieg caused the fall of France,
two more ships were hastily ordered, USS ILLINOIS (BB 65) and USS KENTUCKY (BB
66) but neither ship was ever completed.
Construction began on NEW JERSEY on 16 September 1940 at the Philadelphia Navy
Yard. Her construction was given top priority and she was launched on 7 December
1942. Commissioning took place less than six months later on 23 May 1943. However,
she was back in the yard in September 1943 for some modifications. After that in
January 1944, she sailed with her sister IOWA to the Pacific.
NEW JERSEY only participated in one surface action in the Pacific. During a raid on
Truk, IOWA and NEW JERSEY encountered several enemy cruisers and destroyers.
IOWA is credited with sinking the cruiser KATORI and the destroyer MAIKAZE. NEW
JERSEY's fire straddled the Japanese ships but scored no hits. She was credited,
however, with sinking an armed trawler.
During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, NEW JERSEY was Admiral William Halsey's flagship. In
that action, the Japanese planned to lure the American fleet away from the landing beaches
on Leyte Island in the Philippines with a force consisting of several aircraft carriers that
had no pilots or planes. Meanwhile, Japanese surface ships would attack the beaches.
When Halsey took the bait and took the American carriers and modern battleships off after
the useless Japanese carriers, NEW JERSEY of course went with him. As a result, NEW
JERSEY was not present for the battleship action in the Surigao Straits or when the super
battleship YAMATO and several other battleships and cruisers attacked the American
escort carriers and destroyers that had been left to guard the beachhead.
Still, NEW JERSEY showed herself to be a valuable asset in the Pacific earning nine battle
stars. Her speed allowed her to keep up with the fast carriers and her antiaircraft batteries
provided protection for them. She is credited with shooting down 20 enemy aircraft
including five in one day. In addition, her main battery provided valuable gunfire support
for landings and in raids against enemy-held territory including Truk, Saipan, the
Philippines, Okinawa, Formosa, and the Japanese Home Islands. The ship also served at
various times as flagship of the Third and Fifth Fleets. Nonetheless, she was
decommissioned in June 1948 in Bayonne as part of the post-war reduction in the size of
the fleet.
The keel of WISCONSIN was laid down on 25 January 1941 at the Philadelphia Naval
Shipyard and the ship was launched 7 December 1943. Commissioned in April 1944, she
sailed for the Western Pacific in September joining Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet in early
December 1944. In addition to providing anti-aircraft protection, WISCONSIN provided
naval gunfire support for the invasions of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. She also attacked
factories on the Japanese Home Islands.
After the war, WISCONSIN participated in a number of exercises in the Atlantic during
1946 and 1947. She was inactivated in July 1948. In September, IOWA was also
inactivated, leaving MISSOURI as the Navy's only active battleship.
While the prevailing thinking was that battleships would have no part to play in the next
war, the Navy found itself without adequate naval gunfire support when North Korea's
invasion of South Korea in 1950. Accordingly, in November 1950, NEW JERSEY was
reactivated and served in the Korean theater from April to November 1951 and then from
March to November 1953. During this time, the ship attacked and destroyed trains,
bunkers, radar emplacements, roads, troop concentrations, communications facilities,
observation posts, artillery batteries, bridges, tunnels, oil facilities, and provided direct fire
support for United Nations troops. Several times, NEW JERSEY came under fire from
shore batteries but only sustained one fatality. NEW JERSEY also acted as flagship for
the Seventh Fleet.
After the Korean War, NEW JERSEY served with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.
She remained with the fleet until August 1957 when once again the idea that there was no
place in the modern Navy for battleships prevailed.
WISCONSIN was recommissioned in March 1951 and served in Korea from November
1951 to March 1953. On 15 March 1952, a North Korean artillery battery struck the ship
with a 152mm shell, wounding three Sailors. This was the only time in her career that
WISCONSIN was so struck and the ship unleashed the entire main battery quickly
destroying her assailant. An escorting destroyer that witnessed the exchange flashed the
signal: "Temper, temper!"
Following the Korean War, WISCONSIN served as flagship of the Seventh Fleet from
September 1953 to June 1954. Returning to the United States, WISCONSIN suffered
extensive damage to her bow when she collided with the destroyer EATON (DDE 510) in
a heavy fog off of Norfolk in March 1956. To repair this damage, a 120-ton, 68 foot long
section of the bow of KENTUCKY, the incomplete sixth Iowa-class battleship, was
spliced onto WISCONSIN.
As noted above, in 1957, the Navy decided it had no more use for battleships and in
November 1957, during an inactivation overhaul at the New York Naval Shipyard, an
electrical fire broke out on WISCONSIN near the officer's wardroom. Since it was
envisioned that the ship would never be used again, the damage was not repaired. Instead,
the ship was decommissioned on 8 March 1958 and the Navy was without an active
battleship for the first time since 1895.
The Navy again found itself without adequate naval gunfire to support land operations
during the Vietnam War. In addition, expensive aircraft were being lost attacking targets a
battleship could attack at least as well. Accordingly, in 1967, the Navy began to reactivate
NEW JERSEY. She was selected because it was determined that she was in the best
condition of the four IOWAs and because she had had an extensive overhaul prior to her
inactivation in 1957. Even so, parts were taken from IOWA and WISCONSIN in order to
make her ready. In addition, the ship was equipped with new radar, sophisticated
electronic countermeasures and new gunfire-control computers. The obsolete 40mm
antiaircraft batteries were removed. Interestingly, because of concerns that the public
might perceive her as a luxury item for admirals, the ship's flagship areas were not
activated or improved. She was recommissioned on 6 April 1968.
During her deployment off Vietnam, NEW JERSEY fired 5,688 16 inch shells (many times
more than in all of World War II) as well as several thousand shells from her secondary
five inch battery. For eight months, she attacked targets in North Vietnam, the
Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam, and provided direct fire support for
troops in South Vietnam. Proof of her effectiveness, came when North Vietnam
indicated that removing NEW JERSEY from the conflict was a pre-condition to peace
negotiations. Despite this proof of her value, NEW JERSEY was deactivated again on 17
December 1969. One can only speculate how many aircraft were shot down attacking
targets that would have been within the range of NEW JERSEY's guns during the
remaining years of that war.
At NEW JERSEY’s decommissioning, her commanding officer, Captain Robert C.
Peniston, USN, said: "Rest well, yet sleep lightly and hear the call, if again sounded, to
provide firepower for freedom…"
With the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980, the nation embarked on a goal of re-
building the military with a goal for the Navy of a 600-ship fleet. The goal was to counter
the enormous military power that the Soviet Union had built-up during the years of
détente. While new capital ships could be built, a problem was that it would take years to
do so. A solution offered was to reactivate the IOWAs and modernize them with missiles
and contemporary electronics. By so doing, the Navy would have four capital ships
around which to create surface action groups. The Tomahawk cruise missiles that would
be added to these ships could be equipped with conventional or nuclear warheads and thus
the battleships would be capable of projecting power thousands of miles inland and would
become part of the strategic deterrent. The Harpoon anti-ship missiles would make them
powerful modern surface combatants. And, the main battery would be able to provide
naval gunfire support. Moreover, during the debates in Congress over the ships’
reactivation, it was pointed out that because of their extensive armor, these ships would
not be as vulnerable to missile attacks as the modern frigates and destroyers that were
damaged or destroyed during the recent Falklands War.
NEW JERSEY was once again selected to lead the way. Because of her reactivation
during the 1960s, she was in the best condition of the four even though several of the
1960s renovations would have to be re-done. She was re-commissioned on 28 October
1982 in a ceremony attended by President Reagan.
After some training exercises, NEW JERSEY was dispatched to the Mediterranean for
operations off Lebanon. Before her arrival, U.S. destroyers had been under fire from
Syrian shore batteries. However, when NEW JERSEY appeared, the batteries fell silent.
In December 1983, she fired eleven 16 inch shells against Syrian antiaircraft batteries that
had shot down two Navy jets. The firing silenced the batteries but a political controversy
erupted because some of the shells had fallen into sections of Beirut not involved in the
fighting.
During the next seven years, NEW JERSEY participated in a series of exercises with allied
nations, showing the flag around the world. In 1989, in one of her last operations, NEW
JERSEY along with MISSOURI took part in a major fleet exercise with the Japanese
Maritime Defense Force.
In 1990, the Navy once again decided to deactivate NEW JERSEY and she became part of
the Reserve Fleet in February 1991 - - just as her remaining sisters were going into
action.
Meanwhile, WISCONSIN had been towed from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to the
Avondale (Louisiana) Shipyard in August 1986. Her teak decks had been allowed to
deteriorate badly during her 30 years of deactivation. As a result, the decks had to be
renewed. In addition, new air-conditioning was installed throughout the ship and electrical
cabling and lighting fixtures were renewed or replaced. Two thousand tons of steel were
used in repairing the hull and the superstructure. The damage from the fire some 30 years
before was repaired. Her armament was upgraded with missiles and CIWS as it had been
on NEW JERSEY and the other Iowas. On 22 October 1988, WISCONSIN was re-
commissioned.
During a training exercise in the Caribbean, problems with WISCONSIN's forced draft
blowers and main feed pumps were revealed. As a result, she spent most of 1989 at the
Philadelphia Naval Shipyard having the blowers replaced and 12 feed pipes reconditioned.
In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and WISCONSIN was deployed to the Persian Gulf
as part of the international force enforcing U.N. sanctions against Iraq. She made the
8,500-mile trip in just 16 days.
The next year, WISCONSIN was in the Persian Gulf as part of the force assembled for
Operation Desert Storm. When the counteroffensive began in January, WISCONSIN
fired 24 of her 32 Tomahawk missiles against targets in Iraq, some as far as 800 miles
away from the ship. The missiles were accurate in hitting their targets thus
demonstrating that the battleship had a reach its designers never would have dreamt.
WISCONSIN also served as the Tomahawk strike-warfare center during the opening of
Desert Storm.
In February, WISCONSIN along with MISSOURI began to engage targets in Iraq and
Kuwait with their 16-inch guns. Targets included artillery batteries, bunkers and boats
used by the Iraqis to raid the Saudi coast. Of particular significance, WISCONSIN used
her guns to support the Marines' liberation of Kuwait City, breaking up pockets of heavy
resistance and destroying fortifications that were impeding the Marines' advance.
Having demonstrated their effectiveness, the two battleships were decommissioned not
long after they returned home.
All four IOWAs were stricken from the Navy Register in February 1995. However,
Congress was persuaded largely by Marine Corps supporters that the Navy lacked
adequate assets for naval gunfire support and in the National Defense Appropriation Act
for Fiscal Year 1996, directed that the Navy retain in the Reserve Fleet two of the
battleships until such time as the Secretary of the Navy could certify that the Navy had
within the operational fleet "fire support capacity that equals or exceeds the fire support
capability that the IOWA class battleships . . . would, if in active service, be able to
provide for the Marine Corps amphibious assaults and offshore operations."
The Navy, however, never really fell in line with the spirit of the bill. It delayed complying
and did not approach the obligation with a view toward what made the most sense
militarily. Since MISSOURI and WISCONSIN had been the last to leave the active fleet,
one would have thought they would have been the ones put back on the Navy List.
However, since MISSOURI was already in the process of becoming a museum, the Navy
listed NEW JERSEY instead. When interest arose in turning NEW JERSEY into a
museum, the Navy obliged and substituted IOWA, the ship in the worst condition, for
NEW JERSEY. NEW JERSEY was once again struck from the Navy list for the last time
on 4 January 1999,
In January 2006, President George W. Bush signed a bill authorizing the Secretary of the
Navy to strike the remaining battleships from the Naval Register. The law specified that
IOWA would be donated for use as a museum in the State of California and WISCONSIN
would be donated for use as a museum in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
battleships. Indeed, with their upgrades in the 1980s, they became perhaps the most
powerful surface combatants ever built. The most decorated of these ships (16 battle
stars), USS NEW JERSEY (BB 62) (“Big J”) now resides only about an hour from New
York in Camden, New Jersey. Her slightly younger sister, USS WISCONSIN (BB 64),
known to her friends as “Wisky,” is somewhat further away in Norfolk, Virginia.
Recently, The Log visited both ships.
The Battlewagons’ Navy Careers
By 1937, the post-World War I disarmament regime was on its last legs. It appeared
likely that Japan was not going to ratify the 1936 London Naval Conference which sought
to continue the regime started in the Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty of 1922,
limiting the number and size of battleships and other capital ships. Under the London
agreement, such a failure by Japan would allow those countries that had signed the treaty
to build battleships up to 45,000 tons rather than the 35,000 ton limit originally
negotiated. Accordingly, the Navy began looking at various designs for such a ship.
There were two competing schools of thought. One advocated a design that would have
provided greater fire power and more armor than on the NORTH CAROLINA and
SOUTH DAKOTA classes that were then in the later stages of development. The other
school argued that the new battleships should be even faster than the 27-knot NORTH
CAROLINAS and SOUTH DAKOTAS. In a war with Japan, it was feared that the
Japanese might use fast aircraft carriers and cruisers to attack the long lines
communication. Furthermore, the fast KONGO class battleships might be detached from
the fleet and used for independent operations. (In fact, this did occur, resulting in the
Naval Battle Of Guadalcanal in November 1942. See The Log, Winter 2005 at p. 9).
President Franklin Roosevelt ended the debate in March 1938 by specifying that the third
class of new battleships should be high speed and have a large endurance.
The design that eventually emerged was of an 880 foot long ship with nine 16 inch 50
caliber guns as the main battery, a speed of 33 knots, a standard displacement of 45,000
tons and a full load displacement of 55,000 tons. During construction, numerous
changes were made including the addition of numerous light anti-aircraft weapons and
additional electronics so that the full load displacement was closer to 57,000 tons.
Furthermore, the top speed of the ships is unknown as none were ever officially tested at
full speed over a measured mile.
In July 1939, contracts were issued for two ships, USS IOWA (BB 61) and USS NEW
JERSEY (BB 62), based on the new design. The next year, two more ships of this design
were ordered, USS MISSOURI (BB 63) and USS WISCONSIN (BB 64). The Navy
concluded that this would be enough fast battleships and said that no more would be
authorized. However, a month later, after the Nazi Blitzkrieg caused the fall of France,
two more ships were hastily ordered, USS ILLINOIS (BB 65) and USS KENTUCKY (BB
66) but neither ship was ever completed.
Construction began on NEW JERSEY on 16 September 1940 at the Philadelphia Navy
Yard. Her construction was given top priority and she was launched on 7 December
1942. Commissioning took place less than six months later on 23 May 1943. However,
she was back in the yard in September 1943 for some modifications. After that in
January 1944, she sailed with her sister IOWA to the Pacific.
NEW JERSEY only participated in one surface action in the Pacific. During a raid on
Truk, IOWA and NEW JERSEY encountered several enemy cruisers and destroyers.
IOWA is credited with sinking the cruiser KATORI and the destroyer MAIKAZE. NEW
JERSEY's fire straddled the Japanese ships but scored no hits. She was credited,
however, with sinking an armed trawler.
During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, NEW JERSEY was Admiral William Halsey's flagship. In
that action, the Japanese planned to lure the American fleet away from the landing beaches
on Leyte Island in the Philippines with a force consisting of several aircraft carriers that
had no pilots or planes. Meanwhile, Japanese surface ships would attack the beaches.
When Halsey took the bait and took the American carriers and modern battleships off after
the useless Japanese carriers, NEW JERSEY of course went with him. As a result, NEW
JERSEY was not present for the battleship action in the Surigao Straits or when the super
battleship YAMATO and several other battleships and cruisers attacked the American
escort carriers and destroyers that had been left to guard the beachhead.
Still, NEW JERSEY showed herself to be a valuable asset in the Pacific earning nine battle
stars. Her speed allowed her to keep up with the fast carriers and her antiaircraft batteries
provided protection for them. She is credited with shooting down 20 enemy aircraft
including five in one day. In addition, her main battery provided valuable gunfire support
for landings and in raids against enemy-held territory including Truk, Saipan, the
Philippines, Okinawa, Formosa, and the Japanese Home Islands. The ship also served at
various times as flagship of the Third and Fifth Fleets. Nonetheless, she was
decommissioned in June 1948 in Bayonne as part of the post-war reduction in the size of
the fleet.
The keel of WISCONSIN was laid down on 25 January 1941 at the Philadelphia Naval
Shipyard and the ship was launched 7 December 1943. Commissioned in April 1944, she
sailed for the Western Pacific in September joining Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet in early
December 1944. In addition to providing anti-aircraft protection, WISCONSIN provided
naval gunfire support for the invasions of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. She also attacked
factories on the Japanese Home Islands.
After the war, WISCONSIN participated in a number of exercises in the Atlantic during
1946 and 1947. She was inactivated in July 1948. In September, IOWA was also
inactivated, leaving MISSOURI as the Navy's only active battleship.
While the prevailing thinking was that battleships would have no part to play in the next
war, the Navy found itself without adequate naval gunfire support when North Korea's
invasion of South Korea in 1950. Accordingly, in November 1950, NEW JERSEY was
reactivated and served in the Korean theater from April to November 1951 and then from
March to November 1953. During this time, the ship attacked and destroyed trains,
bunkers, radar emplacements, roads, troop concentrations, communications facilities,
observation posts, artillery batteries, bridges, tunnels, oil facilities, and provided direct fire
support for United Nations troops. Several times, NEW JERSEY came under fire from
shore batteries but only sustained one fatality. NEW JERSEY also acted as flagship for
the Seventh Fleet.
After the Korean War, NEW JERSEY served with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.
She remained with the fleet until August 1957 when once again the idea that there was no
place in the modern Navy for battleships prevailed.
WISCONSIN was recommissioned in March 1951 and served in Korea from November
1951 to March 1953. On 15 March 1952, a North Korean artillery battery struck the ship
with a 152mm shell, wounding three Sailors. This was the only time in her career that
WISCONSIN was so struck and the ship unleashed the entire main battery quickly
destroying her assailant. An escorting destroyer that witnessed the exchange flashed the
signal: "Temper, temper!"
Following the Korean War, WISCONSIN served as flagship of the Seventh Fleet from
September 1953 to June 1954. Returning to the United States, WISCONSIN suffered
extensive damage to her bow when she collided with the destroyer EATON (DDE 510) in
a heavy fog off of Norfolk in March 1956. To repair this damage, a 120-ton, 68 foot long
section of the bow of KENTUCKY, the incomplete sixth Iowa-class battleship, was
spliced onto WISCONSIN.
As noted above, in 1957, the Navy decided it had no more use for battleships and in
November 1957, during an inactivation overhaul at the New York Naval Shipyard, an
electrical fire broke out on WISCONSIN near the officer's wardroom. Since it was
envisioned that the ship would never be used again, the damage was not repaired. Instead,
the ship was decommissioned on 8 March 1958 and the Navy was without an active
battleship for the first time since 1895.
The Navy again found itself without adequate naval gunfire to support land operations
during the Vietnam War. In addition, expensive aircraft were being lost attacking targets a
battleship could attack at least as well. Accordingly, in 1967, the Navy began to reactivate
NEW JERSEY. She was selected because it was determined that she was in the best
condition of the four IOWAs and because she had had an extensive overhaul prior to her
inactivation in 1957. Even so, parts were taken from IOWA and WISCONSIN in order to
make her ready. In addition, the ship was equipped with new radar, sophisticated
electronic countermeasures and new gunfire-control computers. The obsolete 40mm
antiaircraft batteries were removed. Interestingly, because of concerns that the public
might perceive her as a luxury item for admirals, the ship's flagship areas were not
activated or improved. She was recommissioned on 6 April 1968.
During her deployment off Vietnam, NEW JERSEY fired 5,688 16 inch shells (many times
more than in all of World War II) as well as several thousand shells from her secondary
five inch battery. For eight months, she attacked targets in North Vietnam, the
Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam, and provided direct fire support for
troops in South Vietnam. Proof of her effectiveness, came when North Vietnam
indicated that removing NEW JERSEY from the conflict was a pre-condition to peace
negotiations. Despite this proof of her value, NEW JERSEY was deactivated again on 17
December 1969. One can only speculate how many aircraft were shot down attacking
targets that would have been within the range of NEW JERSEY's guns during the
remaining years of that war.
At NEW JERSEY’s decommissioning, her commanding officer, Captain Robert C.
Peniston, USN, said: "Rest well, yet sleep lightly and hear the call, if again sounded, to
provide firepower for freedom…"
With the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980, the nation embarked on a goal of re-
building the military with a goal for the Navy of a 600-ship fleet. The goal was to counter
the enormous military power that the Soviet Union had built-up during the years of
détente. While new capital ships could be built, a problem was that it would take years to
do so. A solution offered was to reactivate the IOWAs and modernize them with missiles
and contemporary electronics. By so doing, the Navy would have four capital ships
around which to create surface action groups. The Tomahawk cruise missiles that would
be added to these ships could be equipped with conventional or nuclear warheads and thus
the battleships would be capable of projecting power thousands of miles inland and would
become part of the strategic deterrent. The Harpoon anti-ship missiles would make them
powerful modern surface combatants. And, the main battery would be able to provide
naval gunfire support. Moreover, during the debates in Congress over the ships’
reactivation, it was pointed out that because of their extensive armor, these ships would
not be as vulnerable to missile attacks as the modern frigates and destroyers that were
damaged or destroyed during the recent Falklands War.
NEW JERSEY was once again selected to lead the way. Because of her reactivation
during the 1960s, she was in the best condition of the four even though several of the
1960s renovations would have to be re-done. She was re-commissioned on 28 October
1982 in a ceremony attended by President Reagan.
After some training exercises, NEW JERSEY was dispatched to the Mediterranean for
operations off Lebanon. Before her arrival, U.S. destroyers had been under fire from
Syrian shore batteries. However, when NEW JERSEY appeared, the batteries fell silent.
In December 1983, she fired eleven 16 inch shells against Syrian antiaircraft batteries that
had shot down two Navy jets. The firing silenced the batteries but a political controversy
erupted because some of the shells had fallen into sections of Beirut not involved in the
fighting.
During the next seven years, NEW JERSEY participated in a series of exercises with allied
nations, showing the flag around the world. In 1989, in one of her last operations, NEW
JERSEY along with MISSOURI took part in a major fleet exercise with the Japanese
Maritime Defense Force.
In 1990, the Navy once again decided to deactivate NEW JERSEY and she became part of
the Reserve Fleet in February 1991 - - just as her remaining sisters were going into
action.
Meanwhile, WISCONSIN had been towed from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to the
Avondale (Louisiana) Shipyard in August 1986. Her teak decks had been allowed to
deteriorate badly during her 30 years of deactivation. As a result, the decks had to be
renewed. In addition, new air-conditioning was installed throughout the ship and electrical
cabling and lighting fixtures were renewed or replaced. Two thousand tons of steel were
used in repairing the hull and the superstructure. The damage from the fire some 30 years
before was repaired. Her armament was upgraded with missiles and CIWS as it had been
on NEW JERSEY and the other Iowas. On 22 October 1988, WISCONSIN was re-
commissioned.
During a training exercise in the Caribbean, problems with WISCONSIN's forced draft
blowers and main feed pumps were revealed. As a result, she spent most of 1989 at the
Philadelphia Naval Shipyard having the blowers replaced and 12 feed pipes reconditioned.
In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and WISCONSIN was deployed to the Persian Gulf
as part of the international force enforcing U.N. sanctions against Iraq. She made the
8,500-mile trip in just 16 days.
The next year, WISCONSIN was in the Persian Gulf as part of the force assembled for
Operation Desert Storm. When the counteroffensive began in January, WISCONSIN
fired 24 of her 32 Tomahawk missiles against targets in Iraq, some as far as 800 miles
away from the ship. The missiles were accurate in hitting their targets thus
demonstrating that the battleship had a reach its designers never would have dreamt.
WISCONSIN also served as the Tomahawk strike-warfare center during the opening of
Desert Storm.
In February, WISCONSIN along with MISSOURI began to engage targets in Iraq and
Kuwait with their 16-inch guns. Targets included artillery batteries, bunkers and boats
used by the Iraqis to raid the Saudi coast. Of particular significance, WISCONSIN used
her guns to support the Marines' liberation of Kuwait City, breaking up pockets of heavy
resistance and destroying fortifications that were impeding the Marines' advance.
Having demonstrated their effectiveness, the two battleships were decommissioned not
long after they returned home.
All four IOWAs were stricken from the Navy Register in February 1995. However,
Congress was persuaded largely by Marine Corps supporters that the Navy lacked
adequate assets for naval gunfire support and in the National Defense Appropriation Act
for Fiscal Year 1996, directed that the Navy retain in the Reserve Fleet two of the
battleships until such time as the Secretary of the Navy could certify that the Navy had
within the operational fleet "fire support capacity that equals or exceeds the fire support
capability that the IOWA class battleships . . . would, if in active service, be able to
provide for the Marine Corps amphibious assaults and offshore operations."
The Navy, however, never really fell in line with the spirit of the bill. It delayed complying
and did not approach the obligation with a view toward what made the most sense
militarily. Since MISSOURI and WISCONSIN had been the last to leave the active fleet,
one would have thought they would have been the ones put back on the Navy List.
However, since MISSOURI was already in the process of becoming a museum, the Navy
listed NEW JERSEY instead. When interest arose in turning NEW JERSEY into a
museum, the Navy obliged and substituted IOWA, the ship in the worst condition, for
NEW JERSEY. NEW JERSEY was once again struck from the Navy list for the last time
on 4 January 1999,
In January 2006, President George W. Bush signed a bill authorizing the Secretary of the
Navy to strike the remaining battleships from the Naval Register. The law specified that
IOWA would be donated for use as a museum in the State of California and WISCONSIN
would be donated for use as a museum in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Above: USS NEW JERSEY.
Below: Big J's wheel is protected by steel
walls 17 inches thick.
Below: Big J's wheel is protected by steel
walls 17 inches thick.
NEW JERSEY's Combat Engagement
Center.
Center.
Above: Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
Below: A cruise missile emerges from its
launcher.
Below: A cruise missile emerges from its
launcher.
Above: The Phalanx close-in weapons
system (CIWS) was protection against
aircraft and missiles.
Below: The 16 inch 50 caliber guns of
NEW JERSEY's main battery.
system (CIWS) was protection against
aircraft and missiles.
Below: The 16 inch 50 caliber guns of
NEW JERSEY's main battery.
Above: Inside the 16 inch gun turrets are
very cramped. The photo shows the back
of one of the guns.
Below: The periscope in a 16 inch gun
turret.
very cramped. The photo shows the back
of one of the guns.
Below: The periscope in a 16 inch gun
turret.
NEW JERSEY'S original Kingfisher
float-planes were replaced by a helicopter.
float-planes were replaced by a helicopter.
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