Preserved today as a museum in its namesake state, the battleship USS
New Jersey
(BB-62) saw combat during WWII and the Korean War and was the only battleship of any nation to see service during the Vietnam War. Following service in Vietnam,
was again retired to the reserve fleet; there it languished from 1969 to 1982, when the Reagan administration reactivated and modernized the
and its three
Iowa
-class sisters—
,
Missouri
, and
Wisconsin
—and returned the massive ships to service.
was again decommissioned and returned to the reserve fleet in 1991. In a move that remains controversial even now, in 1999 the
was declared surplus by the Navy. The custody of the ship was then transferred to the Home Port Alliance organization in Camden, New Jersey, which currently maintains the battleship as a memorial and museum. This book, through more than 225 photos, documents the battleship from construction, through combat during each of its wars, to its preservation today. Part of the Legends of Warfare series.