The New Jersey weighs 56,000 tons. She is 887 feet long. She runs up to 34 miles an hour. And she puts more punch into the sometimes forgotten fact that U.S. forces shell the North Vietnam southern panhandle as well as bomb it. Her job will be plying the Vietnam coast, providing support fire for Allied ground troops and tormenting Communist coastal gun positions and camps.
History is a crewmember.
She has older memories. She was launched Dec. 7, 1942. The wife of former New Jersey Governor and Navy Secretary Charles Edison slammed home the champagne bottle. The New Jersey was put to sleep in mothballs more than a decade ago, and many predicted the 50 year age of the battleship was over. There are Communist targets far enough inland that no other Navy guns could hit, that no planes could pound so well.