Ken Kersch talks about the USS New Jersey as if it were a warm old friend rather than a cold steel military weapon. “I love this boat,” said Kersch, who spent four years in the US Navy (1966-70).
“It's the best ship I ever served on. She was a part of my life for two years. She's a part of me now.”
Kersch was a machinist on the USS New Jersey from 1967 to 1969, while the battleship supported ground operations during the Vietnam War.
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Now, on Thursday, he will once again ride aboard Big J. He is scheduled to leave his berth in Camden, New Jersey, at 12:10 p.m. for the first time since his arrival in 2000.
The intrepid battleship is now the centerpiece of the Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial.
The battleship USS New Jersey fires a salvo during its deployment off Beirut, Lebanon, January 9, 1984. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
She is being towed six miles down the Delaware River for drydock maintenance at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
New Jersey is expected to return to Camden in two months.
Kersch, a machinist during active duty, will fire the USS New Jersey's guns as it departs its home port and again in response to a salute from Fort Mifflin in Philadelphia.
“It's a historic homecoming.”
“It's a historic homecoming,” Marshall Spevak, executive director of The Homeport Alliance, the nonprofit that operates the ship, told Fox News Digital.
He said visitors will have the rare opportunity to walk beneath the battleship while it is suspended in Philadelphia's dry dock.
Ken Kersch, left, and his grandson, Dakota Shaerrin, aboard the USS New Jersey, circa 2010. Kersch, a U.S. Navy veteran, served on the battleship during the Vietnam War and has worked for the Battleship New Jersey Museum in Camden, New Jersey, since 2001. . (Courtesy of Ken Kersch)
The USS New Jersey was built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and launched on December 7, 1942, exactly one year to the day Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor catapulted the United States into World War II.
“She supported all the amphibious campaigns of the Pacific War from 1943 onward,” Spevak said.
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He continued an unprecedented career of service, active for 21 years spanning six decades.
The USS New Jersey fought in the Korean War, was placed in reserve, and then re-entered service in Vietnam.
President Ronald Reagan speaks during the commissioning ceremony for the USS New Jersey at Long Beach Naval Shipyard in California, December 28, 1982. It was the battleship's fourth commissioning. (Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images)
She was already the last active battleship in the world in the late 1960s, when large-caliber warplanes were considered a vestige of obsolete naval warfare.
However, the USS New Jersey was modernized and reactivated again in 1981, as part of President Ronald Reagan's commitment to create a “600-ship Navy.”
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The battleship was sent to the eastern Mediterranean during the Lebanese Civil War in 1984, firing hundreds of shells at Syrian military positions.
He remained on active duty until 1990 and came home to Camden in 2000. The Battleship New Jersey Museum opened in October 2001.
The USS New Jersey is launched in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 7, 1942, one year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The 45,000-ton Iowa-class ship was the largest battleship in the United States Navy. (Getty Images)
“It's the most decorated ship in history, it's the longest battleship in history and it's also the fastest battleship in history,” said Kersh, who has worked for the Battleship New Jersey Museum since its inception.
He was aboard the ship in 1968 when it was traveling at 35.2 knots, just over 40 miles per hour.
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But it's not impressive capabilities, courage or combat record that endeared Petty Officer 2nd Class Kersch to the USS New Jersey.
They were his captain and his crew.
The Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial, in Camden, New Jersey. (Courtesy of the New Jersey Battleship Memorial and Museum)
“When I came to New Jersey, the team was young but experienced,” he said. “We all worked together. There was harmony in the way we worked. It was a family atmosphere.”
He remains dutifully devoted to Captain J. Edward Snyder, who was a 44-year-old World War II veteran when he sailed on the USS New Jersey to Vietnam in 1968.
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“He was a sailor's captain. He took care of the crew. He really took care of the men. He made everything on that ship better.”
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