USS New Jersey

About

On December 7, 1942 — the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor — the battleship New Jersey slides into the water for the first time. Five months later, in May 1943, she is commissioned at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and readied for war. An Iowa-class battleship stretching more than 270 meters, she carries 16-inch main guns into the Pacific. Across World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Cold War-era operations off Lebanon and the Persian Gulf, New Jersey is decommissioned and recommissioned four times, serving the Navy on and off for nearly half a century. She earns 19 battle stars along the way, making her the most decorated battleship in U.S. Navy history. She drops anchor for the last time in February 1991. A decade later, in October 2001, she returns to the water as a museum ship in Camden, New Jersey, moored across the Delaware River from the Philadelphia skyline — open now to visitors who walk her decks.