These walls are covered in signatures of former USS New Jersey crew members of this ship. Around 55,000 people served on board over the years and the museum hosts many of them every year when they come back to visit their ship.

Here you will see signatures from some of the ship’s captain’s, officers, and enlisted men. At least one pair of signatures are from a father and son who served on board at different times. Most are the men who served on board but at least one female shipyard worker who helped build the ship has signed the wall. About a third of the workers at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard where the ship was built were women, including many welders. Most signatures include the name, rank or rating, division, and years they were on board. Can you find signatures from all four of the ship’s commissioning periods?

Some signatures are from World War II sailors and marines. The ship’s first commission lasted from 1943 until 1948. These men may have been part of the ship’s crew, or on the staff of some of the many Admirals who commanded fleets from New Jersey’s flag bridge like William Halsey or Raymond Spruance. New Jersey was the flagship of 5th fleet during operation hailstone, the raid on truk lagoon and the only time Iowa-class battleships fired their guns on enemy warships. New Jersey was also the flagship of the 3rd fleet during the battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle ever fought. Later the crew endured relentless kamikaze attacks of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and took part in the occupation of Japan.

Some signatures are from Korean War era commission when New Jersey was active from 1950-1957. Her sailors and marines did two tours of duty off the Korean Peninsula as well as countless training cruises, often including hundreds of Naval Academy midshipmen or naval reservists, some of whom have also returned to sign the wall. The Korean War was also the time when New Jersey hosted Admiral JJ Jocko Clark who commanded 7th fleet. Clark was a pioneer of naval aviation and the navy’s first Native American admiral.

Other signatures are from the year the ship spent off the coast of Vietnam. She fired more rounds in that deployment than she had in World War II and Korea combined. When the ship was decommissioned in 1969, there were no battleships left in the world and it was believed that there never would be again. Captain Penniston, whose signature is on the wall said in his decommissioning speech, “my last order to you --- Battleship NEW JERSEY --- is rest well, yet sleep lightly, and hear the call, if again sounded, to provide 'Firepower for Freedom.”

The Big J wasn’t done yet, many of the signatures are from the ship’s longest commissioned period, from 1982-1991. As part of President Reagan’s 600 ship Navy New Jersey was rearmed with modern electronics and missiles, made the centerpiece of her own battlegroup, and projected American military might all over the world and helped end the Cold War. She operated in hotspots from the Sea of Oshkosh, the coast of South America, the Persian Gulf, and off the coast of Lebanon where she lost a sailor in the Beirut barracks bombing.