The Old War Wagon
Under the shadow of the twin 12” guns, a handful of dignitaries had assembled. The wind extended the stars and strips fully, and whipped up whitecaps on the icy Piscataqua River. Across the river, in Portsmouth’s Prescott Park, a small crowd gathered, awaiting the ceremony. The old battleship’s steam whistle split the air, drawing the attention of the few pedestrians that didn’t know what was going on.
With that, the band on the fantail struck up the navy hymn, and the ceremonies began. “One hundred years ago today, the commission pennant was first unfurled on this historic vessel. As my great great grandfather stood on this deck, there were 46 stars on the American flag, and the world was a vastly different place. Motorcars were few, and streetcars and horses ruled the streets. This mighty ship served well, protecting American lives in times of insurrection in foreign lands, escorting convoys throughout the Great War, and training our new officers in peace. She narrowly escaped the breakers when each nation was allocated a number of obsolescent pre-dreadnoughts for trade protection at the Washington Treaty, and was chosen to receive a rebuild of epic proportions. Returning to service in 1938, she fired the first American shots of World War II, defending herself when attacked without provocation by the Nazi pocket battleship Graf Spee. Though the country was not drawn into the World War that day, the course was clear, and the most thorough repair job possible was done to prepare her.
She served with the neutrality patrol in the Atlantic, and became one of the few battleships to sink a U-boat. With tensions between the United States and Japan rising, she moved to the Pacific as the only fast battleship in Pearl Harbor. The day after her arrival, the Japanese struck. A hardened veteran of battles against U-boats, she was the first to return fire at the treacherous attack, blasting Japanese planes from the sky and escaping undamaged. The littlest battleship was the only battleship to see action at the Coral Sea and Midway, while her bigger, but slower, sisters remained at home. Her guns added to the cloud of destruction defending the mighty Enterprise, adding to the toll of Axis planes to fall to her guns. That day, my grandfather was buried at sea from her decks. But beating the Axis couldn’t wait for any to mourn, it was all ahead flank as she joined the great armada that stormed across the Pacific, where she backed down from nothing. Guadalcanal, the Solomons, and many more—she fought Japanese cruisers and destroyers, sinking one Japanese battleship in the slot with the great guns above me. At the great battle of Leyte Gulf, she was attached to the jeep carriers. When Japanese battleships raced down upon the horribly outgunned Taffy 3 at Samar, she catapulted her floatplanes into the fray, but arrived too late to engage the enemy herself. Many American sailors were grateful for her hospitality as she plucked the crews of the destroyers from the sea in what some call “The United States Navy’s Finest Hour.” She faced kamikazes as the inexorable advance continued, more than once peeling the remnants of an enemy plane from her decks—but her armor, forged 35 years before to fend off shells, held, and she stood with the fleet in Tokyo Bay, the oldest warship present when Japan surrendered. With ships of all types, she took part in Operation Magic Carpet, transporting troops by the thousands home when the war was over—then entered the reserve fleet for a well-earned rest herself.
Recalled to duty when North Korea was invaded, she joined the gun line, and her 12” guns proved highly effective. When the area she was shelling proved to be occupied by a large armored force, she engaged in one of the few tank versus battleship engagement on record, shattering the enemy forces. When the war ended, she slept again—but fitfully, as if she knew it would not be a long nap. Her voyage down the Carquinez Strait when she broke free of her moorings has yet to be explained; some say the ship herself knew she was needed.
Brought back from mothballs, I was with her as she joined the USS New Jersey off Vietnam, routing the enemy whenever and wherever she should find him. Still, despite great success in a war that divided the nation, she was returned to mothballs, a year after her bigger, younger sister. That day, some said her day was done. “Rest well, yet sleep lightly, and hear the call, if sounded, to provide firepower for freedom,” her captain said. And all but a rare few thought the last battleship had completed her last voyage.
And she slept away the years, until that call sounded again. With missiles and Gatlings added to her great guns, she answered the bugles as Ronald Reagan called for warships to defend America once again, serving in the cold war—off the Lebanese coast, in the Caribbean and the Persian Gulf. Through Desert Storm, she aided her bigger sisters in the liberation of Kuwait. So terrible was her firepower that enemy troops surrendered to her drone aircraft when they saw that she lurked out to sea.
Refueling in Yemen alongside the USS Cole, vicious suicide bombers attacked her—and found, as the Japanese and Germans did generations ago, that her stout American steel was not easily damaged. It’s an exaggeration to say that the only repairs needed involved a bucket of paint, but a blast that might have crippled a destroyer left her fully able to return home under her own steam.
Her small size—and correspondingly small crew—saved her again, when Congress narrowly approved her overhaul and retention as the big Iowa’s were mothballed again, then stricken one by one. Today, she carries the biggest guns and thickest armor of any warship in the world. As she lay in New York harbor on September 11, 2001, terrorists struck. Putting aside the horrors, the brave man and women raced to the aid of casualties in the twin towers, and 12 men and women from her crew died there. Those great guns have saved the marines on hostile shores yet again in Iraq.
Though today is her birthday, New Hampshire can not rest; with my daughter—the fourth of my family to serve aboard her-- at the helm, she sails with tomorrow’s tide for the Persian Gulf. I salute her captain and crew—good luck, and God Bless the Old War Wagon, the last of the battleships.”
As other speakers took their turns on the platform, James O’Neill hardly heard them; his thoughts went back to the mighty ship’s exploits in years past—when she was considered obsolete, or second string, or an oversized cruiser, to the day she first made a splash on the pages of history, in the South Atlantic, in 1939…
(The "rebuilding" in the 1930's was not actually a rebuilding, but effectively taking the ship into drydock, jacking her shi[s bell up, and dismantling almost everything below it, building a new ship with token amounts of the old, and the same belt armor thickness. She's NOT a hundred year old ship in practice...)
I may pursue this more, if there's interest. I've got part of her timeline written. I posted on the naval fiction board a while ago, and thought more viewpoints would be nice. Any interest?
(All the Washington Treaty powers will be playing with their pre-dreadnoughts to the limit of the treaty, or beyond.)