High and dry
Most decorated battleship in Navy history, the USS New Jersey is getting a good going over
Riding a battleship isn’t an everyday experience, so when a family member messaged me in early March about a chance to ride one into dry dock, I thought he was joking. I was already aware of the USS New Jersey — now a museum in its namesake state moored across from Philadelphia — would be going in for her first look below the normal waterline in 30 years since it was last decommissioned in 1990 with the U.S. Navy. I have a interest in history, so I took the chance.
The battleship was to go in dry dock (which looks like a very large open-ended bathtub) at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for preventive maintenance to its hull on March 27, which includes cleaning and repainting it, and to give a good once-over before refloating the ship and returning it to its usual mooring in Camden, N.J. It’s much easier to repair a ship out of the water, after all. It had already left for the first leg of the journey on March 21, towed to another facility to ready it for the dry docking. The cost for the work is estimated at about $10 million.
The Iowa-class vessel, nearly 888 feet long and 57,540 tons at full displacement, is the most decorated battleship in Navy history.
After World War II, it was active in the Korean War, Vietnam War, Lebanon civil war and the first Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm). Its last recommissioning after modernization in 1982 gave it the honor of being the only battleship commissioned by a sitting president — President Ronald Reagan — as part of the 600-ship plan to beef up against the Soviet navy.
Laid down in 1940 and commissioned the first time in 1943, the New Jersey evolved significantly from WWII to its last refit in 1982. Two spotting planes and their catapults on the stern gave way to a Kaman SH-2 Seasprite helicopter and a landing pad to serve the same purpose.
Four twin 5-inch gun mounts were removed to make way for Tomahawk cruise missile launchers and Harpoon anti-ship missile launchers. Anti-aircraft 20 mm and 40 mm guns, though long obsolete and gone by the 1980s, gave way to more complex decoy systems and the Mark 15 Close-In Weapons System, an R2-D2-looking device with a 20 mm Gatling cannon.
Of course, the nine 16-inch guns in three massive boxy turrets stayed, the most prolific and fearsome weapons in the battleship’s arsenal.
TOWING A WARSHIP
The ship had been docked at the Paulsboro, N.J., ship terminal on the Delaware River for the previous week, directly across from the Philadelphia airport.
There was no mistaking where the haze-gray ship was as it loomed above the dock when we approached. We were greeted by some of the museum’s staff on hand to oversee the day’s move, including Ryan Szimanski, the New Jersey’s curator.
Szimanski helps produce numerous videos published on the battleship’s YouTube channel. These delve into numerous topics, from ship preservation and features on the Iowa-class to how the Navy demilitarizes a battleship.
One cool moment was helping Szimanski to raise the signal flags spelling out the ship’s call sign of “BBNJ.” Despite my Eagle Scout status, my knot-tying ability required some help from him.
The previous week the New Jersey was towed from Camden to Paulsboro. There it was loaded with about 500,000 gallons of water in the front tanks of the ship to even the trim, or pitch angle, to make sure the ship settled evenly on the keel blocks in the dry dock.
Three tugboats showed up alongside about 10 a.m. and began to ready the ship for departure, which would require slowly moving the ship out sideways into the river channel.
There was no sense of movement as the ship was finally pulled away at 11 a.m to begin the short 3-mile voyage to the Philadelphia dry dock, which was also being livestreamed by the ship’s staff.
Once the New Jersey was close enough to the dry dock, the tugs began to swing the ship around to position it for going into the dry dock sternfirst. Parking a ship inside a dry dock is no simple process with little to no room for error.
At times the tugboats were churning up the Delaware at full power, because the New Jersey and the dock could suffer serious damage from a collision if the ship didn’t go in straight.
Two tugboats were on the port (left) side, with one at the bow to help push the ship in. It was also a tight squeeze with the Navy’s rollon roll-off vehicle cargo ship MV Charles L. Gilliland on the starboard (right) side. (It should be noted that the Gilliland is named for an Army soldier from Mountain Home who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for actions during the Korean War.)
Dockworkers were on board to help throw mooring lines to others on the dock, which has a series of mooring posts along both sides. Once the ship began to enter the dock, they jumped the lines along the posts to make sure the ship stayed center and didn’t strike either side. At a
certain point a mooring line attached at the stern in the dock pulled the ship in, once the tugboats were no longer able to push it in.
The next step was to retrieve the caisson — a floating gate to the dry dock — and put it in place by sinking. Draining the dock is a step that takes a few days, which unfortunately we were just going to have to miss. But once the water was drained, the sight of one of the largest surviving battleships in the world sitting on the keel blocks is incredible.
The New Jersey is expected to make a return to her Camden mooring in May or June, once the hull repairs and repainting are completed.
WHAT CAN SINK A MUSEUM SHIP?
The two biggest threats to any museum ship is the very thing it floats in — water — and a lack of cash to keep it afloat. Water causes corrosion, corrosion causes holes, and holes cause your historic vessel to suddenly be positioned much lower than you want it to be.
This is the scenario for the USS The Sullivans, a Fletcher-class destroyer moored in Buffalo, N.Y., next to the Galveston-class cruiser USS Little Rock. Harsh winter weather in 2022 worsened leaks and caused a severe list, though it is now righted. It has required a multimilliondollar effort to dry dock and repair the hull.
Some solutions have simply been to take water out of the equation. Submarines USS Batfish in Muskogee, Okla., and USS Drum in Mobile, Ala., are both now moored on land, the latter after sustaining enough damage from resting in water. Fletcher-class destroyer USS Kidd in Baton Rouge is attached to a structure that allows it be high and dry for about half the year.
Sadly, a lack of funding can and will doom a museum ship. This fate befell Balao-class submarine USS Clamagore at Patriots Point in Charleston, S.C., which was scrapped in 2022. The museum that held the sub is also home to a destroyer and aircraft carrier.
Every museum ship deals with a never-ending battle with the elements, but the preservation of such vessels keeps the stories and memories of the people who served on them alive for future generations to come.