USS New Jersey (BB-62)
USS New Jersey is an and the second ship of the United States Navy to be named after the U.S. state of New Jersey. She was often referred to fondly as "Big J". New Jersey earned more battle stars for combat actions than the other three completed Iowa-class battleships, and was the only US battleship used to provide gunfire support during the Vietnam War.
During World War II, New Jersey shelled targets on Guam and Okinawa, and screened aircraft carriers conducting raids in the Marshall Islands. During the Korean War, she was involved in raids along the North Korean coast, after which she was decommissioned into the United States Navy reserve fleets, better known as the "mothball fleet". She was briefly reactivated in 1968 and sent to Vietnam to support US troops before returning to the mothball fleet in 1969. Reactivated once more in the 1980s as part of the 600-ship Navy program, New Jersey was modernized to carry missiles and recommissioned for service. In 1983, she participated in US operations during the Lebanese Civil War.
New Jersey was decommissioned for the last time in 1991 after having served a total of 21 years in the active fleet. During her career she earned a Navy Unit Commendation for service in Vietnam, and 19 battle and campaign stars for combat operations during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Lebanese Civil War, and service in the Persian Gulf. After a brief retention in the mothball fleet, she was donated to the Home Port Alliance in Camden, New Jersey, and has served as a museum ship there since 15 October 2001.
Construction
New Jersey was one of the "fast battleship" designs planned in 1938 by the Preliminary Design Branch at the Bureau of Construction and Repair. She was launched on 7 December 1942 and commissioned on 23 May 1943. She was the second of the Iowa class to be commissioned by the U.S. Navy. She was christened at her launching by Carolyn Edison, wife of Governor Charles Edison of New Jersey, himself a former Secretary of the Navy; and commissioned at Philadelphia 23 May 1943, Captain Carl F. Holden in command.New Jersey main battery consisted of nine 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 guns in three three-gun turrets, which could fire armor-piercing shells some 23 miles. Her secondary battery consisted of twenty 5"/38 caliber guns mounted in twin-gun dual purpose turrets, which could hit targets up to 9 miles away. With the advent of air power and the need to gain and maintain air superiority came a need to protect the growing fleet of allied aircraft carriers, so New Jersey was fitted with an array of Oerlikon 20 mm and Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns. When reactivated in 1968, New Jersey had her 20 mm and 40 mm AA guns removed and was tailored for use as a heavy bombardment ship. When reactivated in 1982, New Jersey had four twin 5"/38 caliber DP mounts removed. She was outfitted with four Phalanx Close-In Weapon System mounts for protection against missiles and aircraft, and eight Armored Box Launchers and four Quad Cell Launchers designed to fire Tomahawk missiles and Harpoon missiles, respectively.
The main deck was 53,000 square feet of teak. Unlike the other Iowa-class battleships, New Jersey was named by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to repay a political debt, to then-New Jersey Governor Charles Edison. During his time in the Navy department, Edison pushed to build the Iowas, and to build one at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, which secured votes for Roosevelt in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the 1940 presidential election.
World War II (1943–1945)
Shakedown and service with the 5th Fleet, Admiral Spruance
New Jersey completed fitting out and trained her initial crew in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. On 7 January 1944 she passed through the Panama Canal war-bound for Funafuti, Ellice Islands. She reported there 22 January for duty with the United States Fifth Fleet, and three days later rendezvoused with Task Group 58.2 for the assault on the Marshall Islands. New Jersey screened the aircraft carriers from Japanese attack as planes from Task Group 58.2 flew strikes against Kwajalein and Eniwetok 29 January – 2 February, softening up the latter for its invasion and supporting the troops who landed on 31 January.New Jersey began her career as a flagship 4 February in Majuro Lagoon when Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, commanding the 5th Fleet, broke his flag from her main. Her first action as a flagship was in Operation Hailstone, a two-day surface and air strike by her task force against the major Japanese fleet base on Truk in the Carolines. This attack was coordinated with the assault on Kwajalein, and effectively interdicted the Japanese naval retaliation to the conquest of the Marshalls. On 17 and 18 February, the task force accounted for two Japanese light cruisers, four destroyers, three auxiliary cruisers, two submarine tenders, two submarine chasers, an armed trawler, a plane ferry, and 23 other auxiliaries, not including small craft. New Jersey destroyed a trawler and, with other ships, sank the destroyer. New Jersey also fired on an enemy aircraft that attacked her formation. The task force returned to the Marshalls 19 February.
Between 17 March and 10 April, New Jersey first sailed with Rear Admiral Marc A. Mitscher's flagship for an air and surface bombardment of Mille, then rejoined Task Group 58.2 for a strike against shipping in the Palaus, and bombarded Woleai. Upon his return to Majuro, Admiral Spruance transferred his flag to. New Jersey next war cruise, 13 April – 4 May 1944, began and ended at Majuro. She screened the carrier striking force which gave air support to the invasion of Aitape, Tanahmerah Bay and Humboldt Bay, New Guinea, 22 April, then shelled shipping and shore installations at Truk 29–30 April. New Jersey and her formation shot down two enemy torpedo bombers at Truk. Her 16-inch salvos pounded Ponape on 1 May, destroying fuel tanks, badly damaging the airfield, and demolishing a headquarters building.
After rehearsing in the Marshalls for the invasion of the Marianas, New Jersey put to sea 6 June in the screening and bombardment group of Admiral Mitscher's Task Force. On the second day of preinvasion air strikes, 12 June, New Jersey shot down an enemy torpedo bomber, and during the next two days her heavy guns battered Saipan and Tinian, in advance of the Marine landings on 15 June. The Japanese response to the Marianas operation was an order to its main surface fleet to destroy the American invasion force. Shadowing American submarines tracked the Japanese fleet into the Philippine Sea as Admiral Spruance joined his task force with Admiral Mitscher's to meet the enemy. New Jersey took station in the protective screen around the carriers on 19 June 1944 as American and Japanese pilots dueled in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. That day and the next would cripple Japanese naval aviation; in what would become known as the "Marianas Turkey Shoot", the Japanese lost some 400 planes for less than two dozen American aircraft in return. This loss of trained pilots and aircraft was equaled in disaster by the sinking of the Japanese aircraft carriers and by the submarines and, respectively, and the loss of to aircraft launched from the light aircraft carrier. In addition to these losses, Allied forces succeeded in damaging two Japanese carriers and a battleship. The anti-aircraft fire of New Jersey and the other screening ships proved virtually impenetrable; two American ships were slightly damaged during the battle. Only 17 American planes were lost in combat.
Service with the 3rd Fleet, Admiral Halsey
New Jersey final contribution to the conquest of the Marianas was in strikes on Guam and the Palaus from which she sailed for Pearl Harbor, arriving 9 August. Here she broke the flag of Admiral William F. Halsey Jr., 24 August, becoming flagship of the United States Third Fleet. On 30 August New Jersey set sail from Pearl Harbor, and for the next eight months was based at Ulithi to lend support to Allied forces operating in the Philippines. In this span of the Pacific War, fast carrier task forces ranged the waters off the Philippines, Okinawa, and Formosa, making repeated strikes at airfields, shipping, shore bases, and invasion beaches.In September the targets were in the Visayas and the southern Philippines, then Manila and Cavite, Panay, Negros, Leyte, and Cebu. Early in October raids to destroy enemy air power based on Okinawa and Formosa were begun in preparation for the Leyte landings of 20 October 1944. This invasion brought on the last great sortie of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Its plan for the Battle of Leyte Gulf included a feint by a northern force of planeless heavy attack carriers to draw away the battleships, cruisers and fast carriers with which Admiral Halsey was protecting the landings. This was to allow the Japanese Center Force to enter the gulf through the San Bernardino Strait. At the opening of the battle, planes from the carriers guarded by New Jersey struck hard at both the Japanese Southern and Center Forces, sinking a battleship on 23 October. The next day, Halsey shaped his course north after the decoy force had been spotted. Planes from his carriers sank four of the Japanese carriers, as well as a destroyer and a cruiser, while New Jersey steamed south at flank speed to meet the newly developed threat of the Center force. It had been turned back in defeat by the time she arrived.
New Jersey rejoined her fast carriers near San Bernardino 27 October 1944 for strikes on central and southern Luzon. Two days later, the force came under kamikaze attack. New Jersey shot down a plane whose pilot maneuvered it into the port gun galleries of, while machine gun fire from Intrepid wounded three of New Jersey's men. During a similar action on 25 November, three Japanese planes were shot down by the combined fire of the force, part of one flaming onto the flight deck of. Intrepid was again attacked; she shot down one would-be kamikaze aircraft, but was hit by another despite hits scored on the attacker by New Jersey gunners. New Jersey shot down a plane diving on and hit another plane which smashed into Cabot port bow.
On 18 December 1944, the ships of Task Force 38 encountered Typhoon Cobra during their attempt to refuel at sea. At the time the ships were operating about east of Luzon in the Philippine Sea. The carriers had just completed three days of heavy raids against Japanese airfields, suppressing enemy aircraft during the American amphibious operations against Mindoro in the Philippines. The task force rendezvoused with Captain Jasper T. Acuff and his fueling group on 17 December with the intention of refueling all ships in the task force and replacing lost aircraft.
Although the sea had been growing rougher all day, the nearby cyclonic disturbance gave relatively little warning of its approach. Each of the carriers in the Third Fleet had a weatherman aboard, and as the fleet flagship New Jersey had a highly experienced weatherman: Commander G. F. Kosco, a graduate of the aerology course at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who had also studied hurricanes in the West Indies; despite this, none of these individuals or staffs were able to give Third Fleet due warning of the impending typhoon. On 18 December, the typhoon overtook the Task Force while many of the ships were attempting to refuel. Many of the ships were caught near the center of the storm and buffeted by extreme seas and hurricane-force winds. Three destroyers—, and —capsized and sank with nearly all hands, while a cruiser, five aircraft carriers, and three destroyers suffered serious damage. Approximately 790 officers and men were lost or killed, with another 80 injured. Fires occurred in three carriers when planes broke loose in their hangars, and some 146 planes on various ships were lost or damaged beyond economical repair by fires, impact damage, or by being swept overboard. New Jersey survived the storm largely unscathed. She returned to Ulithi on Christmas Eve to be met by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz.