Bow to Stern: Walking the Battleship's Main Deck

[Music] hi i'm ryan samanski curator for battleship new jersey museum and memorial uh for some reason a common video request we've gotten recently is to do a quote-unquote main deck tour so we're just going to start here at the very bow and walk all the way to the stern down the starboard side of the ship and we'll point out some features and talk about a few things along the way otherwise this is going to be a little bit shaky cam as as we walk from point to point uh but you guys requested this for some reason so first off we are up here at the extreme bow of the ship on iowa and wisconsin this is a raised platform where the 20 millimeters used to be on missouri and new jersey this platform was deleted and this windscreen was installed in its place no idea why the atlantic fleet boats got won and the pacific fleet boats got another this happened around 1951 or 1952 and for some reason it just ended up that way so our first feature here is the ship's jack staff that flies the naval jack when we're in port to show we're a military vessel it is all hinged so when we are at sea it can fold down and there's actually a slot for it and these uh bracings right here on the port side of the bow lock them down out of the way you'll see these two chains coming out of the middle these are from our 100 year storm mooring plan we are tied up to the pier and to bollards using regular rope but we also have changed bow and stern like this to hold us in place here on the river to keep us in place if something happens in those mooring lines part continuing back we've got this capstan here on the starboard side this and another one like it just a little bit further aft are the only remnants of our mind sweeping paravane equipment this was uh part of a concept to use battleships as mine sweepers during world war ii we would have carried pair of veins they would have tied to a they call it chin mounted it's a little hook at the very bottom of the bow of the ship on new jersey it was cut off in the 80s on the other three iowas it was retained thinking that they might have to sweep mines in the persian gulf however the captions on the main deck were retained and their motors were sometimes run to use them with some of the equipment they were moving around the deck they're significantly smaller than the capstans and wildcats back here for the mooring lines continuing back there we've got the anchor chains and where the the two holes are for the anchors coming out that's the bull nose we're probably going to do a separate video here in the near future where we talk about all the farm animals up here at the bow of the ship but these two anchor chains on the sides are our original anchors and chains the two in the middle are the thousand year or hundred year storm mooring system as it's been called here is the other capstan associated with our paravan coming up here you can see that we've got our discone cage antenna which was a vietnam edition on this ship the other iowa's had it added in the 1980s and you'll see on the forward face of us we have one of our ship's bells some of the iowas have it mounted on the aft face some of them on the forward face don't ask me why many of the spaces up here for more watertight integrity are only accessed by vertical ladders and hatches like this at least as built in mothballs the navy cut through all those watertight bulkheads to run dehumidification equipment while keeping this level sealed up uh but when in service the only way to access most of those uh spaces such as the sand locker uh the boson's lockers and other things like that the paint locker was through hatches like these on the deck each hatch has an associated pipe stand like this where you could install a jdavit over it so that you could crane stuff from down below up to here you'll notice there are also some fire plugs up here anywhere on the ship there's a fire you got to be able to fight it in the 80s they were also able to use those fire plugs as part of a wash down system for nuclear biological or chemical warfare uh there's some great pictures of wisconsin with her fire hoses rigged with the fire plugs and basically tied at various places as a uh uh real diy wash down system whereas more modern ships will have that plumbing already installed there's some great pictures of aircraft carriers with their whole flight decks awash they look like a golf course with all the sprinklers going continuing aft we've got our wildcats and capstans ones for raising the anchor chains if we're moored in a in deep water ones for the mooring lines if we're tied off to the pier like we are nowadays the controls for these also make an appearance nearby and they're all going down to equipment one deck below us in the windlass room that you can see on the tour route in the 80s iowa class battleships had positions for 50 caliber machine guns four on each side of the main deck it seems like they probably only carried four of these mounts and they would be brought out and installed wherever needed these provide good protection against small boats on the deck below us here is one of the ship's original 40 millimeter gun tubs most of the iowa's had these cut off at deck level and then ticked over flush we're the only one that has it cut off at the level of the wood allowing you to see where these bow mounted 40 millimeter guns used to be pipes painted brown like this carry sanitary fluids so for pumping our sewage handling tanks overboard we've got one of these on each side forward and one of these on each side aft nowadays we pump everything from forward to aft and overboard from aft so we do not use the forward ones you'll also notice the ships break water here the iowa class battleships have a very steep rise to the bow and very little buoyancy up here which means the bowel tends to dive real deep in heavy waves all the water would then run aft this way so the breakwater is to push that off into the scuppers instead of leaving it right here uh if it keeps coming straight down you're hitting the gun turrets of which the forward face has these big holes in it for the barrel and uh where the crew are going to be working we also have a number of uh these mushroom air vents around the ship these are steam-powered fans that are doing four-strap ventilation and sucking exterior air down into the birthing spaces below us the ship's original 1980s era quarter deck display boards were found on board and so we uh continued to maintain and display these on the quarter deck when visitors come on board today so this one is an original and has the names of the final officers assigned on board so that you can tell if they are on board or ashore for liberty right now we've got everybody moved to ashore some of these features up here have been added by the museum such as the flag display others like these shells are the original quarter deck display items continuing on [Music] our vents come in two basic types the mushroom vents which flare out at the top which are sucking air in and the stool type vents which are sucking air from inside the ship out as part of the ventilation system this is the quarter deck shack normally would not have this awning this was something the museum added but the original quarter deck area is back there and we continue to use it today [Music] overhead here in the 01 level you can see the life raft bags there would have been over 80 of these uh 25-man life rafts inflatable stored on racks like this mostly on the o1 level though a little bit higher on the superstructure for some they're mounted on the outside of what had been another 40 millimeter gun tub some of the iowas still have this entire gun tub projecting out some of them like wisconsin have had it cut off hold on heading aft we've got one of the original 20 millimeter gun tubs overhead this one was retained on all the iowas [Applause] this one was retained on all the iowas because uh it's where they mounted the saluting guns later on in the ship's careers and at the extreme end of the ship's careers some of the iowa's even got a 25 millimeter mark 38 chain gun mounted up there for small suicide boats in the persian gulf one of the main differences between iowa class battleships and the preceding two classes of fast battleships are the upper handling rooms standing out from the superstructure on their own so as we go down the deck you'll see this one and then a second upper handling room just where it uh projects out on the south dakotas and north carolina's they're built more into the superstructure honestly i'm not sure why they wasted the lost interior volume by not playing over from here to the other superstructure and having another office space inside in here like the other ships but it does make for in most places the deck more room and if something here detonates it does cause you uh it does keep it separate separate from the rest of the superstructure as we head back aft we come back to where the uh some of the ships boats are mounted this space always had ships boats usually 26 foot surf boats like the one up above and this was the boat that could be ready-manned and put into the water in an emergency if needed in the 80s when they added the new boat booms and the double stacked boats here they also added this break water because even with the forward breakwater water coming down the decks here would continue to run and really damage this area so the breakwater was added the different iowa's got different ones based on which shipyard they were refit in i prefer the long beach style perfect personally with this curve the pascagoula one is more flat iowa class battleships would carry about six boats in the 80s two liberty boats two officers boats usually a captain and admirals and then two 26 foot motor surf boats here we have the other upper handling room for five inch gun sticking out on the deck and then aft of it we've got the shore power connection there's another identical one on the opposite side depending on which way you're tied up to the pier [Music] continuing further aft you can see the refueling boom added in the 80s and the winch for it this was for refueling other vessels from this ship the shed here the teak shop is a temporary addition that the museum made so that we've got a carpentry shop while we're redecking the ship as soon as this five year five million dollar project is over this shed goes away but here as we get back to the fan tail you can see a lot of the re-decked area the ship has two gangways and typically always would when she was tied up to the pier the after gangway was for the enlisted sailors the forward gangway was for the officers nowadays we use it so that guests come on forward and exit aft continuing towards the fan tail spaces back here were set aside for parking either the ship's boats or helicopters that may have been embarked the idea was we could have a helicopter on the landing pad and then up to two other helicopters and even two boats back here and they could all fit on one side of the ship so the turret could turn and fire on the other side and if it had to fire on this side you could move that stuff using a mule one of the yellow pieces of deck gear that's motorized to tow it all to the other side or you got 1600 sailors on board you can have one of them towed around continuing aft we have the tents which cover the helicopter pads when the ship was in service this could have been covered with an awning so basically all we've done that's new and different is added sides to enclose it in inclement weather the sides here are more for parking areas so we can have a larger deck park and then the actual flight deck is back here so here is the helicopter landing pad with your all your lines painted for them to line up on as they come back and land so coming back here on the extreme fan tail we've got some of the largest cargo loading hatches on the ship uh back here in all the dead space they did use for some cargo area and we have the former 40 millimeter gun tubs that were added back here these tubs were retained even after the guns were removed one of them was used to house the refueling container for the ship's drones they use the specific type of gasoline so that was stored up here in this on a special cart and there's a lever you can pull to release that cart into the water the gasoline is lighter than water oil floats on water so it would float so if there's a fire back here you can drop it off the side and then circle back around and pick it up later on if you needed to so you'll see some refueling equipment back here with this one and then we've got our after flagstaff which is also hinged so it can be lowered if you're going to do something like fire the guns directly at stern you can take that down you're only using the american flag back here if the ship is in port not if she's at c if it's at c you shift colors to the mast also you'll see the other two chains for our 100 year storm mooring system again this is the system that keeps the ship in place if something happens to our mooring lines and they start to part or somebody messes with them and unties them or whatnot the ship is not going to move out into the shipping channel in the middle of delaware or go back and crash into one of the bridges that's around us so that is uh a walk 887 foot seven inches down the full length of battleship new jersey pointing out a couple of the interesting features you can see on the main deck because you guys requested it for some reason what are some other things you want to see in future videos let us know in the comment section down below battleship new jersey receives operating support from the new jersey department of state also from a number of other businesses and private individuals like yourselves we really appreciate your support there's a link in the description if you'd like to continue to donate to give us the free time to go around and do this stuff you can also support us by liking sharing subscribing so more people find out about the museum and their channel thanks for watching

Channel: Battleship New Jersey

Views: 80,046

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Id: NKimuGp2LSs

Length: 19min 22sec (1162 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 03 2022