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Sailors on the battleship USS New Jersey muffle their ears in March 1969 as a 16-inch gun fires away during the ship’s last line period off the coast of South Vietnam. The month before, Marines south of the demilitarized zone had called her for naval gunfire support.
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Lest We Forget - ‘Firepower for Freedom’

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
August 2015
Proceedings
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In the early morning of 22 February 1969, a radio call from a Marine outpost just south of the so-called “demilitarized zone” in Vietnam calmly but urgently requested assistance. Steaming in the dark waters of the South China Sea was a giant of a ship, the USS New Jersey (BB-62). She was the Navy’s only battleship, resurrected from the mothball fleet less than a year before. Together with a Coast Guard cutter, the behemoth answered the plea for assistance by opening up with her portside 5-inch guns and then followed with salvoes from her main 16-inch battery. Radarman Third Class Bob Fulks could hear the staccato bursts of machine-gun fire on the radio as he coordinated with spotter Lance Corporal Roger Clouse to rain death and destruction onto a large number of enemy troops who were closing in on the embattled Marines.

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