Chapter 1 - From Drawing Board to Warship September 1940 - January 1944 High above the Philadelphia Navy Yard and the Delaware River, the December sky was laced with tracks of American fighter planes, bombers, and blimps. Their presence was part of the celebration of the christening and launching of the future battleship New Jersey . The event was on 7 December 1942, the first anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. At the head of shipways number two, Mrs. Carolyn Edison, wife of New Jersey''s governor, smashed a bottle of champagne across the nose of the still-unfinished ship. The giant hull, which towered five stories above the building ways, began to slide and then moved ever more quickly. The governor''s wife blew kisses with both hands. Applause from the crowd of twenty thousand mingled with the hooting of the New Jersey ''s whistle.
After it hit the water following a sixty-second journey down the ways, the 887-foot-long hull described a graceful arc and then reached across for an unscheduled bump against the river''s New Jersey shore. Within minutes, a gaggle of tugboats towed it back to the shipyard. Speeches followed from Governor Charles Edison and Under Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal. The design process for the ship began in the late 1930s. On 1 July 1939, with the basic design complete, the Navy awarded the construction contract to the Philadelphia yard. Even as hundreds of shipboard compartments took shape on drafting tables, the name for the planned BB-62 was a subject of interest. Already in 1937, New Jersey citizens, public officials, and war veterans began petitioning the Navy to name a new battleship for their state.
Especially prominent among the latter, as the campaign picked up in 1938, were veterans of the Spanish-American War. The requests on behalf of the state bore fruit shortly after the contract was awarded. On 7 July 1939, Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson died after a period of failing health. For months Assistant Secretary of the Navy Charles Edison had acted in Swanson''s stead. Now he was officially made acting secretary, and in that capacity he approved the name "New Jersey" on 11 July. Son of the famous inventor Thomas Edison, the acting secretary didn''t have his father''s creative genius, but he was a capable businessman and solid administrator. Since he was a lifelong resident of the state, his decision was not surprising.
By 1940, the world was in considerable turmoil. The German war machine was on the march in Europe, and the Japanese had made inroads in East Asia. In the U.S. political arena President Franklin D. Roosevelt was considering an unprecedented third term. To disarm his political opponents, he cited the peril facing the nation and added Republicans to his cabinet as Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy. Charles Edison''s status had changed from acting secretary to Secretary of the Navy in January 1940.
In June he left the new job when Roosevelt asked him to step aside in favor of Frank Knox. To sweeten the departure, Roosevelt offered his support for Edison to become governor of New Jersey. Edison was elected in November, and the president won his third term. The physical manifestation of the battleship New Jersey had begun on 16 September 1940 when Edison welded the first two keel plates together. In the months to come, that keel grew to considerable length, frames were attached, and collections of steel began to take the shape of a ship. Supervising the work were two naval constructors, Lieutenant Commander Francis Forest and Lieutenant Commander Allan L. Dunning. Building a warship of the New Jersey ''s dimensions required assembling components produced in various parts of the country.
Of necessity, they had to come together and go into place in a fairly rigid sequence. At any given time, the size of the work force on the ship''s construction amounted to perhaps six thousand to eight thousand men and women, including those in various shops. One of them was Sam Kuncevich, a young shipfitter''s helper. He remembered 1940-42 as a time when there was a "spirit to get things done, to get ships built." Eventually, work on the New Jersey proceeded around the clock in three shifts. For the day shift, the lunchtime period was a special event. Celebrities were frequently on hand to encourage the yard workers and urge people to buy war bonds. Kuncevich remembered a fight song that included the lyrics "We''re gonna have to slap the dirty little Jap, and Uncle Sam''s the guy who can do it.
" The schedule was especially tight for armor plate. Unlike older generations of battleships, the Iowa class had internal side belt armor. Thus, the heavy armor was installed while the ship was still on the building ways rather than after launching. The Midvale Steel Company of North Philadelphia supplied the New Jersey ''s belt armor. It was routinely shipped to the navy yard by rail cars. For one critical section of lower side belt armor, however, a special shipment was made with a low-bed trailer truck accompanied by police escort. The plate was still so hot from its final treatment that workmen standing on the plate put an asbestos pad on it to keep their shoes from burning.