We Got the IOWA

[tbm3fan]

You were on the Hornet? Picture from somebody?

[Gun Grape]

Pictures taken from NavSource

Aircraft Carrier Photo Index: USS HORNET (CV-12)

Aircraft Carrier Photo Index: USS HORNET (CV-12)

[Dreadnought]

Compare that to "earning" 2 battle stars for one 7 month deployment on the gunline in Vietnam. Or one for being parked off the coast of Beirut.

So would this mean that you would take this upon a ship by ship basis of all the ships that served the Vietnam conflict instead of the Navy collectively awarding battlestars upon merit? Or is this just your opinion?


*Keep in mind the New Jersey was given strict orders of what she will and will not do. Her courses, shell expendatures, targets etc. I cannot recall reading or hearing of any other ship during that time period having such limitations put upon her performance from those upper powers land based and thousands of miles away in Washington. And certainly this was pure politics in play. I have seen the Captains log of visitors that came aboard to see him, some more then twice on different occassions and there is no doubt that politics had alot to play in her role during that time period and her fast retirement thereafter.

Again please do relate what exactly you mean by "parked" off Beriut Lebannon. Do you mean as in achored or do you mean sailing a predetermined course?

*I never once infered that New Jersey deserved any battle stars due to the loss of her crewmember. If this is how you percieved it, it was not my intention.

[Gun Grape]

Compare that to "earning" 2 battle stars for one 7 month deployment on the gunline in Vietnam. Or one for being parked off the coast of Beirut.

So would this mean that you would take this upon a ship by ship basis of all the ships that served the Vietnam conflict instead of the Navy collectively awarding battlestars upon merit? Or is this just your opinion?

Not exactly sure what your saying here.
Maybe give 1 for the Vietnam campaign. Not 3 for a 6 month period.

But the "battlestars" for Vietnam were for the 3 ground offenses that took place while NJ was in the AO.

I don't think ANY of the ships should get recognition for that. Its like the Navy giving Battlestars for the battle of the Bulge. Give battlestars to the Turner Joy and Maddox. They actually engaged in Naval warfare.

*Keep in mind the New Jersey was given strict orders of what she will and will not do. Her courses, shell expendatures, targets etc. I cannot recall reading or hearing of any other ship during that time period having such limitations put upon her performance from those upper powers land based and thousands of miles away in Washington. And certainly this was pure politics in play. I have seen the Captains log of visitors that came aboard to see him, some more then twice on different occassions and there is no doubt that politics had alot to play in her role during that time period and her fast retirement thereafter.

I know this is hard for people that think she was something special to grasp. All ships are under orders like that. It wasn't just her. As for dignitaries and brass coming aboard. Its the same thing. When a MEU is out to sea, or off the coast of some possible/current conflict, Dignitaries/Brass come aboard the Big deck ships. More briefing space. Better quarters, Better chow

Again please do relate what exactly you mean by "parked" off Beriut Lebannon. Do you mean as in achored or do you mean sailing a predetermined course?

I mean that she sat off the coast and provided very little gunfire support. And the big stuff she shot was inaccurate. 2 more SpruCans would have been far more useful.

[Dreadnought]

Not exactly sure what your saying here.
Maybe give 1 for the Vietnam campaign. Not 3 for a 6 month period.

But the "battlestars" for Vietnam were for the 3 ground offenses that took place while NJ was in the AO.

I don't think ANY of the ships should get recognition for that. Its like the Navy giving Battlestars for the battle of the Bulge. Give battlestars to the Turner Joy and Maddox. They actually engaged in Naval warfare.



I know this is hard for people that think she was something special to grasp. All ships are under orders like that. It wasn't just her. As for dignitaries and brass coming aboard. Its the same thing. When a MEU is out to sea, or off the coast of some possible/current conflict, Dignitaries/Brass come aboard the Big deck ships. More briefing space. Better quarters, Better chow



I mean that she sat off the coast and provided very little gunfire support. And the big stuff she shot was inaccurate. 2 more SpruCans would have been far more useful.

Not exactly sure what your saying here.
Maybe give 1 for the Vietnam campaign. Not 3 for a 6 month period.

But the "battlestars" for Vietnam were for the 3 ground offenses that took place while NJ was in the AO.

I don't think ANY of the ships should get recognition for that. Its like the Navy giving Battlestars for the battle of the Bulge. Give battlestars to the Turner Joy and Maddox. They actually engaged in Naval warfare.



Vietnam Service Ribbon
with (3) Battle Stars

Vietnam Counter Offensive, Phase V, Sept. to Nov. 1968. Sept.30th, she fired her first shots in a battle engagement in over sixteen years. These were fired at targets in and near the so-called Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Her 16 inch main battery destroyed two gun positions and two supply areas. During her first two months on the firing line she directed nearly 10,000 rounds of ammunition at Communist targets, with over 3,000 of these being the 16 inch shells.

Vietnam Counter Operation, Phase VI, Nov., 1968 to Feb., 1969. NEW JERSEY continued to sail up and down the Vietnamese coast providing her best in bombardments and fire support missions with her 16 inch main and 5 inch secondary batteries.

Tet 1969 Counter Offensive, Feb. to April, 1969. continuing up and down the coast firing her fire support missions, with many directed from the shore by Army and Marine spotters. Feb.18th, in the words of Admiral John J. Hyland on board for a visit, "We have admired your performance out here. You've had a long and hard cruise. Your clients ashore couldn't be more pleased with the way you're supporting them. Your whole performance has drawn the admiration of military and civilian authorities who have been watching what you do out here.

I know this is hard for people that think she was something special to grasp. All ships are under orders like that. It wasn't just her. As for dignitaries and brass coming aboard. Its the same thing. When a MEU is out to sea, or off the coast of some possible/current conflict, Dignitaries/Brass come aboard the Big deck ships. More briefing space. Better quarters, Better chow

Grape, Not one other ship that served Vietnam had her range including the cruisers (all hull designations) on main battery, aircraft carriers not withstanding. Not one other ship
was recommisioned souly for that purpose and you had several different hull designations of cruisers from gun to guided missle and even a nuclear powered one the Long Beach. It seems pretty apparent they had a specific job in mind for the New Jersey given the time and money that was expended on refitting the ship although they had a host of other ships as mentioned before but none like her. New Jersey was used mainly for the main battery support that either couldnt be reached by the others of smaller caliber or too risky to continue loosing aircraft over targets of interest as they had previously.

As far as big deck ships you had as mentioned above for accomadations, carriers & cruisers (a long list of both) and even the latest and greatest nuclear powered cruiser with flag quarters far more updated and modern. I doubt think they were there for the food. If they were then the carriers were the place to be and they were lied too. IMO and from what I have read they were there to monitor shore bombardment and in some cases direct gunfire support missions on several occassions, Some even being directed by the Seventh Air Force commander aboard and others by Army officers on different engagemnts.

In essecence she supported all facets of US Forces.

As far as battle stars, you dont think (according to you above) that none of them deserve battle stars although they supported Army, Air Force and Marine units alike but those two ships?

I think many from all walks of the US armed services that served Vietnam would disagree with you. Especially those that witnessed such gunnery from the Patrol boats all the way up to the Carriers and especially those serving under those guns. I have yet to meet any Vietnam Vet that was on the ground and not happy to have her at sea and at their backs when called upon for support. Even the NV learned to move artilliary and troops out of range of those guns after being pummeled a few good times.

The USN doesnt see it that way when awarding battle stars, they all participated, spent the time and worked hard in the sucesses that were gained on shore and also shared in the ones that were lost on shore.

When she came home her sailors and all sailors were treated no differently then the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps. In other words like shit.

[Dreadnought]

I mean that she sat off the coast and provided very little gunfire support. And the big stuff she shot was inaccurate. 2 more SpruCans would have been far more useful.

*Why yes maybe considering several factors including a few listed below.

Lets re-phrase that word "sit", she never "sat" she steamed like all other ships along the coast.

And as you will read from our own site, cooperation and communication within the Navy were very large factors.

From the WAB channeling thread:

Officer returns to battleship
Monday, April 30, 2001

By CAROL COMEGNO
Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN

A mist swirled close to the wet, warped deck of the battleship USS New Jersey as the sun evaporated a cool morning rain.

On a recent damp day, Robert Lian of of Westampton walked aboard the ship, which was once his home at sea, for the first time in 15 years.

He climbed up one deck on the bow and stepped up into Turret No. 2, which holds three of the ship's nine now silent 16-inch diameter guns. The most powerful U.S. naval guns ever built, they could hurl their shells more than 20 miles.

It was familiar territory for the Lockheed Martin chemical engineer and former Navy lieutenant. He was the officer in charge of that turret from 1981 until after the ship's mission off Lebanon in 1983, when a suicide terrorist bomb explosion killed 241 U.S. Marines and sailors at the Marine barracks at Beirut International Airport.

While stepping up into the turret from a hatch on its underside, Lian's first reaction was, "smells the same," noticing the scent of an oil-based preservative used to coat metals on the ship.

He felt at home standing at his former command station. He wore one of his original ship hats and recounted procedures and commands used to load and fire the guns in his turret.

"It's like I never left. It's pretty scary I remember so much," said Lian, 48.

"I realized the dangers of the job because of the potential for explosions inside the turret, but it was the closest I could come to having a command. It was fun and a challenge to make sure the guns operated safely."

The 59-year-old ship, one of the most highly decorated in the Navy, is now undergoing a $7 million restoration in Camden in preparation for opening as a floating naval museum this fall on the downtown Waterfront.

Inside the turret, Lian detailed his mission off Lebanon, the time the center gun in his turret was replaced and a test firing at sea over the rear of the ship instead of to the side as usual.

"It was President Reagan who reactivated the battleships, but there was always political rivalry between the surface Navy and the air Navy flying planes off aircraft carriers," he said. "I saw this firsthand in discussions in the ward room of our ship where the offices gathered. Secretary of the Navy (John) Lehman (Jr.) was upset over these internal disputes and wrote about them later in a book.

"At first we were not allowed to fire our guns on Lebanon because Adm. Gerry Tuttle, who was in charge of our battle group aboard the carrier Eisenhower, favored air strikes and arbitrarily decided our guns were not accurate enough," Lian recalled. "He believed battleships took military money away from aircraft, so we just sat and sat and sat offshore for weeks, becoming a joke."We finally fired the guns on Lebanon after the Syrians captured a radar operator from an Eisenhower aircraft that went down. The pilot had been killed."

Then, in February 1984, when the rest of the Marines left Lebanon, the battleship fired its massive guns again. " We fired almost blindly because air would not give us any spotting data for targets and we had to rely on Israeli target information that was not all that accurate. Supposedly we hit an ammo dump and took out a Syrian general, but we never got verification. However, the Marines met no resistance as they left," he said.He said the turret crew was lucky to fire the gun once every five minutes.

"The advertised rate of fire in our books was two rounds per minute, but it was hard to sustain that because the powder bags are so heavy and had to be handled all by hand. The projectiles were all from World War II and some of the powder was also," he recalled.

During that Lebanon incident, the ship could only fire an 8-gun volley (from the nine guns of the three main battery turrets). Our center gun was deemed unsafe to fire because of wear," he recalled.

His last duty on the ship was to help supervise removal of the center rifle barrel in 1984 and install one that had been used for test firing at Dalgren, Va.

One firing that stood out in Lian's mind was when the gunnery officer wanted to see the effect of the guns firing to the rear and ahead instead of broadside.

"The blasts from Turret 3 scorched the after deck and pushed in by 6 inches a deck motion picture projection booth that had been used years before to show films to the crew. It also sheered the bolts off the top of the brass line-handling capstan," Lian said, referring to the device used for hoisting heavy objects such as an anchor. "The boatswain wasn't too happy about that but at least his crew didn't have to polish the brass anymore," he said.

Officer returns to battleship

[Dreadnought]

''A Trillion for Defense'' recalls that Lebanon was the scene of a somewhat similar problem in 1984. The battleship New Jersey fired its 16-inch guns at artillery that was shelling the marines at the Beirut airport. Army radar was able to pinpoint the location of the artillery, but could not pass the information to the New Jersey's guns. The result, says Gen. Edward C. Meyer, the former Army Chief of Staff, was misdirected firing by the New Jersey.

''You had what I call 'to whom it may concern' rounds going out into the area,'' General Meyer declares, ''and you had large Lebanese villages that had major casualties, and you started to have a greater disaffection of the civilians in that area.''

Part of the problem, General Meyer and others on the program agree, is the lack of coordinated planning. When the New Jersey was recommissioned, for example, no one insisted that its guns be able to pick up Army radar.

*Add to this that New Jersey had been in service for less then a year and the Navy had been minus any battleship since 1969.

The guns are not inaccurate and as you well know the only thing that cures that is time, good maintenance and practice. They didnt even begin a program for improving accuracy until 1984.

[Dreadnought]

Although I do very much disagree with "ALL of the shells were from WWII". It wouldnt matter which era they are from since they must be inspected and some tested before being deployed to the fleet for use in all cases.

I have seen several "practice" rounds from the Korean era that were not only to weight but in some cases heavier then the AP rounds. If they made these in Korean War era then no doubt they were making newer shells and powder.

[Gun Grape]

The NJ didn't fire at the Druse Arty battery. Don't know where that info came from. The Firing battery ashore did and the Moose did.

The jersey shot at a AA battery. and a Syrian CP. With lots of "Neglect" rounds

And she shot like shit. There was even a CongrInt over it. It was mostly blamed on the blended powder IIRC.

No ship at the time could talk to the Q-36/37 radar. Thats what 0861s , the operators from TAB and the Navy SFCP does. The General was making excuses.

[Dreadnought]

The NJ didn't fire at the Druse Arty battery. Don't know where that info came from. The Firing battery ashore did and the Moose did.

The jersey shot at a AA battery. and a Syrian CP. With lots of "Neglect" rounds

And she shot like shit. There was even a CongrInt over it. It was mostly blamed on the blended powder IIRC.

No ship at the time could talk to the Q-36/37 radar. Thats what 0861s , the operators from TAB and the Navy SFCP does. The General was making excuses.

And the sailor who witnessed some of these arguments in OM?

[Gun Grape]

He was a Turret OIC. Not in the loop.

I was on the ground with the firing battery, or in the LFOC aboard the Guam after we left the airport.

(edit) He is also incorrect that they got targeting info from the Israelis. Targeting info for those missions was provided by assets we had in the mountains.The IDF and us were not on the best of terms in the root.

[Gun Grape]

[B]Not exactly sure what your saying here.
Maybe give 1 for the Vietnam campaign. Not 3 for a 6 month period.

But the "battlestars" for Vietnam were for the 3 ground offenses that took place while NJ was in the AO.

If the Navy issued Battlestars in Vietnam per the guidelines they used in WW2, then the NJ would have been awarded 1 star.

Here is an example ( I tried to pick a short one)

There was one battlestar awarded for the Leyte Operation.

To qualify, your ship had to have participated in one or ALL of the following. To save space I wont post the dates

Leyte Landing

Battle of Surigao Strait

3d Fleet supporting operations Okinawa Attack

Northern Luzon and Formosa attacks

Luzon attacks

Visayas attacks

Ormoc Bay landings

Battle of Samar

Battle of Cape Engano

Once again. Participation in one or all those operations get your ship 1 battlestar in WW2

As far as big deck ships you had as mentioned above for accomadations, carriers & cruisers (a long list of both) and even the latest and greatest nuclear powered cruiser with flag quarters far more updated and modern. I doubt think they were there for the food. If they were then the carriers were the place to be and they were lied too. IMO and from what I have read they were there to monitor shore bombardment and in some cases direct gunfire support missions on several occassions, Some even being directed by the Seventh Air Force commander aboard and others by Army officers on different engagemnts.

The NJ was on the gunline. Different mission and area than the Carriers. There wasn't a choice of I can either go to the carrier or the battleship. 2 separate commands.
Dignitarys on tour of the 6th fleet would visit the carrier (CTF) and then the big deck amphib (LF6F)

As far as battle stars, you dont think (according to you above) that none of them deserve battle stars although they supported Army, Air Force and Marine units alike but those two ships?

As posted above, at most 1 star. TJ and Maddox would be the only ships that would possibly rate 2

I think many from all walks of the US armed services that served Vietnam would disagree with you. Especially those that witnessed such gunnery from the Patrol boats all the way up to the Carriers and especially those serving under those guns. I have yet to meet any Vietnam Vet that was on the ground and not happy to have her at sea and at their backs when called upon for support. Even the NV learned to move artilliary and troops out of range of those guns after being pummeled a few good times.

Don't care what they think. I'm going by WW2 Naval regulations

DANFS: Area Campaign Medals & Battle Stars, World War II

[Dreadnought]

The NJ was on the gunline. Different mission and area than the Carriers. There wasn't a choice of I can either go to the carrier or the battleship. 2 separate commands.
Dignitarys on tour of the 6th fleet would visit the carrier (CTF) and then the big deck amphib (LF6F)

Grape, The New Jersey cruised with the Coral Sea CVA-43 and Okinawa LPH3 and alongside Hancock CV-19 for some time off the coast as well as tincans like Mullinnix, There are pics from several cruise books. And IMO, If Bob Hope and his enterage can leap frog through the fleet and islands on choppers to enertain the troops then the "Brass" would be hard fought to find excuses not to visit the flatops and cruisers for meals, showers or quarters.

From the istances I have shown above they were there for alot more then just saying "hi".


As posted above, at most 1 star. TJ and Maddox would be the only ships that would possibly rate 2

Strongly disagree with you here. What about the carriers that suffered many unfortunate accident while supporting all ground forces, what about PG boats like the Canon and several others that took great damage at very close range from shore forces?

Grape, Your more then entitled to your opinion but I dont forsee the USN changing their policies any time soon nor naval history.

[Gun Grape]

Strongly disagree with you here. What about the carriers that suffered many unfortunate accident while supporting all ground forces, what about PG boats like the Canon and several others that took great damage at very close range from shore forces?

Grape, Your more then entitled to your opinion but I dont forsee the USN changing their policies any time soon nor naval history.

Of course they won't. Our awards system has been inflated since the Korean war. We won't go back to the way the Navy awarded battle stars in WW2.

AS for the accidents, and other examples. Why would we give a "Battlestar" for accidents? If you mean the DC effort on those ships and the individual actions that you mentioned we already have awards for those. On a ship or Unit level we have MUC, NUC and PUC's to cover such as that.

[Dreadnought]

Of course they won't. Our awards system has been inflated since the Korean war. We won't go back to the way the Navy awarded battle stars in WW2.

AS for the accidents, and other examples. Why would we give a "Battlestar" for accidents? If you mean the DC effort on those ships and the individual actions that you mentioned we already have awards for those. On a ship or Unit level we have MUC, NUC and PUC's to cover such as that.

Ok so on the first part we'll just agree to disagree. The world has not ever been the same since the days of WWII. If it were in an overall sense we as civilization would far better off but alas the world continues to change. And certainly not in a way those men would like. Less grey area,(circumstantial) more black and white (right and wrong). Now days they grey area is blotting out the black and white. Hell some of the latest high profile court cases have never determined who was at fault they only fought over circumstances and nobody was to answer for the crime at the root of the hearing.

Those men would have never stood for that.

As far as the Battle Stars, those ships and their operations supported all of your ground forces in country as well as weaken an enemy's ground forces and strongholds. We are not talking DC actions or awards. They fought the very same war as all other forces and ground forces. The conditions were definately different. The Team was very much the same. In doing their jobs as part of US forces, IMO, they deserve as much credit as can be afforded. Death to our ground forces is no different then death onboard USN ships or US air Forces while supporting those forces. The outcome remains the same. However, it is no doubt much more diffacult to police the dead of the ground forces and in many cases aerial forces as many still never came home.