Story about the New Jersey found on the web

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

I have nothing to do with it and can not say anything about its truth.

 

I was in a bar with my best friend. We were dressed in civilian clothes. This was good because of bunch of Marines were in the bar and the Navy and Marines didn't always get along.

After a while a bunch of Sailors came into the bar. We could see by the patch on their uniforms that they were off the New Jersey. The Sailors walked up to the bar and I saw one of the Marines start to walk over to them. I thought, “Oh hell a fight is going to start.” But to my surprise, when he got to them, he told the bartender that as long as they were in that bar all of their drinks were on the Marines. Needless to say, the sailors and myself were very surprised.

The Gunny said, “My men and I were trying to take a hill that Charlie had dug tunnels into. We had called in air support but they had nothing on hand that could drive Charlie out of his tunnels. The New Jersey had been monitoring the channel, and they ask if we could use a bombardment. We gave them the grid coordinates, and then they told us to pull back down off the hill. It was just a few minutes and hell rained down on that hill.”

He said that in all his years in the Corps he had never seen or felt that power. He said that they hit the hill for about 15 minutes. When the smoke and dust had died down, the top 20 feet of the hill was GONE!!! He said, “That saved a lot of his men’s lives that day so their drinks were on the Marines.”

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

The Navy has always been fun to pick on, but I saw a lot of things in 'Nma that were beyond what most folks think of when they think of Navy.  Like two Cat tractors with their blades up and three 3/4 ton trucks full of crazy swabbies coming over a hill to help peel Charley off my convoy.  They were building a road a half mile away and heard the shooting.  Said the JG in charge, "We're supposed to be a combat outfit, but we hadn't herd a shot in four months and thought we should at least see what was going on."

 

I have to say, they were a welcome sight and I'll put those Seabees right up there with Corpsmen on my wall of esteem.  D-7 Cats with machine guns and a few truck loads of sailors with M-14s are a great way to start the day.

[Trailrider #896]

Seems to me I heard a story about some grunts either in Korea or 'Nam who talked a bunch of enemy into surrendering by threatening to call in naval gunfire.  He did NOT have any comm, but the gooners saw a Navy destroyer off shore and wanted no part of those 5-inch 38's!  There is nothing quite like a 16-inch naval rifle throwing an HE round! OTOH, if those main batteries on the New Jersey wouldn't reach far enough, by the time of Desert Storm, they could throw Tomahawks!