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Welcome
Aboard!
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This
Month in the History of Big J...
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September 2, 1945 - VJ Day - Instruments of Surrender were signed by Japan aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
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September 3, 1968 - Departed Long Beach enroute to her first tour of duty providing gunfire support along the Vietnamese coast.
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September 7, 1955 - USS New Jersey departed Norfolk for her first tour of duty with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Ports of call included Gibraltar, Valencia, Cannes, Istanbul, Suda Bay, and Barcelona.
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September 12, 1999 - USS New Jersey departed Bremerton, WA under tow on her way home to New Jersey to be opened as a museum.
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September 16, 1940 - USS New Jersey’s keel laid at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Second ship of the Iowa class.
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September 16, 1953 - Port call visit to Pusan, South Korea where President Rhee came aboard to present the Korean Presidential Unit Citation to the Seventh fleet.
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September 17, 1945 - After brief stops with Admiral Spruance at Manila and Okinawa, USS New Jersey arrives in Tokyo Bay. There she served as flagship for successive commanders of Naval Forces in Japanese waters until relieved on January 28, 1946 by USS Iowa.
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September 23, 1951 - Took aboard wounded sailors from the South Korean Frigate Apnok (PF-62), which had been damaged by gunfire.
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September 25, 1983 - USS New Jersey arrived off the coast of Lebanon to provide support for U.S. Marines, part of multi-national peace keeping forces in Beirut. Within 24-hours of her arrival on station, a cease fire was announced.
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September 30, 1968 - USS New Jersey fired her first shots in battle in over 16 years, engaging targets near the DMZ in Vietnam.
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Big
J's Volunteers were awarded the 2003
Governor’s Award for “Mobilization of Volunteers."
To date over
500,000
volunteer hours have been logged for tours, renovation and maintenance
work. Bravo Zulu to the crew, keep up the good work!
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Personalize
a Brick and Help Support the Battleship - Give
a truly unique gift to a family member, friend or
even yourself - and help the Battleship! Purchase
a personalized brick to be placed on the Battleship's
Memorial Pier! Personalized bricks are available for a
donation of $100. You can also order a replica brick for
your home or office for $50. To order a
personalized brick, call (866) 877-6262 ext. 127, or visit
battleshipnewjersey.org.
For an Order Form
you can print and return click Here.
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Buy
a bottle of Wine and Support the Battleship - Battleship
Red and White Wines are getting rave reviews! Grown, produced and
bottled at Auburn Road Vineyards, they compliment any meal. Plus a
portion of each bottle sold goes directly to the ongoing maintenance and
preservation of the Battleship! Battleship Wine can be purchased
at Joe Canal's on Route 45 in West Deptford, NJ, Canal's in Mt. Ephraim,
NJ and Hops and Grapes in Glassboro, NJ, or you can purchase Battleship
Wine
online at auburnroadvineyards.com.
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USS
New Jersey Veterans 23rd Annual Reunion - The USS New
Jersey Veterans Organization, Inc. will hold
their 23rd Annual Reunion at the Holiday Inn Select in Nashville, TN,
September 29th through October 3rd.
For reservation information call (615) 883-9770 and be sure to mention
the reunion. For details on this event click Here
to visit the Veterans Organization website.
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The
USS New Jersey is open for tours,
for
information
about visiting click Here.
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To see photos taken at the ships
Grand Opening
Celebration on October 15, 2001
click Here.
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Interested
in Volunteering onboard?
For Information
on joining the Crew click Here.
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To
see photos from my most recent
Volunteer Day onboard click Here.
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For information on upcoming events
onboard the USS New Jersey click Here.
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To
see photos taken at the
new Smithsonian
Air & Space
Museum Annex click Here.
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To
see photos taken during my visit onboard the
Heavy Cruiser USS Des
Moines (CA-134) during
a
parts raid
before she was scrapped click Here.
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The
Jerseyman, a Quarterly online
periodical written
and edited
by
Master Chief Tom Helvig, USN (Ret.),
is available
on this site. To read
the current or
past issues of
The Jerseyman click Here.
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*
* Current
Status and General Information about the Ship * *
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Welcome to the
Online Home Port of the Battleship New Jersey. The USS New Jersey completed her Final Voyage
home from Bremerton, WA to the former Philadelphia Naval
Ship Yard, arriving appropriately enough, on Veteran's Day 1999.
The Navy's decision of where to permanently berth the Battleship was announced on January
20, 2000, and the winner was... Camden!!!
On July 27, 2000 she was
moved to the South Jersey Port Corporation's Beckett Street Terminal, where she
remained for about 2 weeks. While there she was opened to the public
for Deck Tours on August 9th & 10th, and drew an estimated 11,000
visitors. She was moved again on August 15, 2000 to
another dock, the Broadway Terminal, where she underwent a
year long, $7.3 Million restoration. Finally, on September 23, 2001
she was moved to her new permanent home on the Camden waterfront. She was officially opened to the public for tours on October 15, 2001.
This site contains lots of information about the USS New Jersey, the Navy's most
decorated Battleship, including the Ships History, Battle Record, and Iowa Class
Statistics. It also contains information about how you can
help with her ongoing restoration and operation and also fund the construction of a permanent
onshore museum. If you are a New Jersey Resident there are several easy ways you can
help and there are also other ways everyone can help. I myself belong to the the Home
Port Alliance, they are the organization that currently has control
of the ship and have opened her as a Museum
on the Delaware River. Another organization that worked a long time
to bring Big J home is the Battleship New Jersey Historical Society.
These two
organizations worked hard to bring the Navy's most decorated
warship home to the state she was named for, and I'm proud to be a small part of their
efforts.
If you're interested in reviewing Photos
and entries from a Daily Journal kept during the ships final trip home, click on the Final
Voyage button. The Photo Gallery contains
photos taken during the ships 4 different active duty periods and an
extensive collection of pictures chronicling her final voyage home to New
Jersey. It also contains hundreds of photos taken by me over the
past 9+ years showing the ships complete restoration, grand opening to the
public and ongoing operations. If you want to see a picture of a
certain area of the ship, chances are you'll find it in the Photo Gallery,
and if not, send me an e-mail
and describe the area, and I'll take some for you the next time I'm
onboard.
Feel free to send me any Comments or Suggestions
you may have about this site, I value your input. If you're interested in visiting
websites for other Battleships, other Warships or Naval related sites be sure to check out
the extensive Related Links list I compiled while researching for
this site. The list contains links to sites for well over 400 warships and
many other Navy related sites.
I encourage you to get involved and help this great cause if you can. You can join the Home Port Alliance for as little as
$40.00 per year or you can help in numerous other
ways. For more information about how you can help, click on the You Can Help button. Even purchasing items from
the Home Port Alliance's Ships Store helps the cause, and the Hats, Shirts and other
items there are very nice. Buy an official USS New Jersey Hat, a T-Shirt or a Golf
Shirt and wear it with pride knowing a portion of its purchase price went to
help restore and maintain the Battleship. I thank you in advance for any help you can provide to
this effort. Don't forget to stop by and sign the Ships
Log before you leave. There are hundreds of entries in the
Ships Log, many are from former crewmen looking for old shipmates. Check out the
Log Entries and see if you can hook up with an old buddy.
If you too are trying to get in touch with old shipmates, click on the Crew
Info button for some helpful hints to get you started on your way.
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