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United States Battleships: From Dreadnoughts to the Last Battlewagons

In '72 I was in a Huey flying south of Can Tho. We passed over some HUGE craters & I asked if they were from a B-52 strike. I was told "Nope, from the New Jersey".
A few years ago I got to tour the New Jersey. Very impressive. I can't imagine how scary it would've been to be working in the engine room or lower decks during an attack. You wouldn't know what was going on, & would've had little chance to escape if the ship was sinking. Hats off to all those brave seamen of WWII!
 
I love those old battleships. Hard to understand how we went from heavily armored warships to thin aluminum ones🙄
 
Some of the battleship keels/partial hulls were repurposed as the first US aircraft carriers when the number of battleships each country possessed was restricted after WW1, beginning with the Lexington I believe (CV-2). A follow-up article on these would be interesting.
 
Really enjoyed the article. My dad served on a destroyer (DD-535) with a fast carrier force during WWII. He shared several interesting stories, one of which was coming topside at sun up and seeing the silhouette of the new Iowa class battle wagons what had rendezvoused with the task force during the night. Not knowing at that moment they were US ships, he thought they were Japanese and thought…”we’re done for.” Dread turned to relief when realizing they were friendly and that turned to awe when they were unleashed. God bless the US Navy and God bless America. Miss you dad.
 
My father was on the USS IOWA
First Class Ship Fitter…..
I asked him once what he did.
He told me, (simply put) I would run around the ship welding plates over the holes that were being shot into it.
 
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