Every June, fleets of salty sailors and flocks of pliable prostitutes arrived in the Rose City. Wasn’t exactly the highlight of my year. Not a fan of sailors. And the idea of nuclear weapons downtown had some Portlanders alarmed.
Original title: Ship-Shape USS New Jersey Cruise Stirs Mixed Emotions. From June 20, 1990.
It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber. – bumper sticker.
It was more than just another sentimental journey for 65-year-old Dale Fairfax, it was trip on a time machine up the waters of his youth. For a few hours, the retired Portlander was back where he began his manhood.
“It’s like coming home,” he told me as we cruised up the Columbia on the USS New Jersey (BB-62). He seemed grateful for the opportunity to share his story. I know I was grateful to hear it.
“I was on the commissioning crew,” Dale said, explaining this was the crew that prepared the battleship for service. “Came aboard March, no, April, right in there, 1943.” And that’s where he stayed until they set anchor in the mouth of Tokyo Bay in September, 1945. He did a lot of growing up in those twenty-nine (29) months. The last entry in the log reads: “Thanks be to God for victory and a chance of peace again.”
He shows me a souvenir, a “yearbook” of that time. Right there on page 78, front row, third over from the left. That’s him. Looking a little like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, flat-bellied and fearless. He was an “oil king,” one of the original dirty dozen men who were responsible for fueling the vessel.
“We were involved in more than 200 fueling operations,” Dale said, reading from the page dedicated to his team’s efforts. “We logged over 140,000 miles at sea.” And they saw more than a little action. Nine (9) battles in the Asiatic-Pacific and two (2) more liberating the Philippines. “We were the flagship for Admiral Bull Halsey,” Dale adds proudly.
There were many stories being told like that, as old salts shared an afternoon with Pendleton Round-Up princesses, state legislators, Pearl Harbor survivors, grandfathers with grandsons. Nearly 1,000 people took advantage of the Rose Festival Naval River Cruise program to ride aboard the barrel end of our democratic system.
The Cruise is an annual event. Announced in December, all available slots are usually filled by March. It costs only $45 for a sumptuous buffet breakfast at the Jantzen Beach Red Lion, a bus trip to Longview, and a five-and-a-half-hour ride on the world’s deadliest floating weapon.
Everybody got their money’s worth. The New Jersey, all 888 feet of it, is the largest Naval vessel ever to visit the Rose City. Just a little shorter than three football fields, just a bit longer than four city blocks, the dreadnought is every inch impressive.
In some places the armor is almost two-and-a-half-feet thick. Each of the two anchors goes fifteen (15) tons, with EACH link in the chain weighing 110 pounds. The engines put out 212,000 horsepower which can push the ship over thirty-three (33) knots.
Home to some 1,533 sailors and Marines, there are two stores, three galleys, two barbershops, two weight rooms, a three-chair dental office, two operatings rooms, a radio station, a television station, a church and a band room. “There’s a lot of talent on board,” one young officer told me. “We have jazz, brass and rock bands. A choir. We even have a rap band.”
BB-62, however, is not meant to carry people – it’s meant to carry weapons. Thirteen men work inside each of the main gun turrets about the size of a middle-class bathroom. The nine 16-inch guns can hurl shells the size of Volkswagens twenty-three (23) miles. Add twelve (12) five-inch guns, a quartet of Gatling guns capable of firing 3,000 rounds per minute and a few dozen missles. Some of which might be carrying nuclear weapons. You get the picture. A Killing Machine.
Part of the fun was waiting for GREENPEACE. After those anti-nuclear scalawags dangled off the Astoria Bridge, everybody aboard anticipated another splashy protest. A Coast Guard helicopter circled overhead, various law enforcement boats surrounded us and bridges above were closed to traffic. Just let those peaceniks try something. Just let them try.
Most of my fellow cruisers spoke disparagingly of GREENPEACE. But, I liked the attitude of the fleet commander who said, “They’re Americans just like the the rest of us and we have no problem with them.”
My sentiments exactly. Just like flag burners. I asked one dowager about the protesters. She was appalled, apologetic and generally ashamed. “They make Oregon look bad,” she assured me. “It makes no sense.”
“It makes no sense,” I countered, “as the loggers in Albany boycotting Burger King because of Paul Newman’s salad dressing.” The Rose Festival is no place for nuclear weapons. They are not something to be proud of.
I asked Dale Fairfax about the protesters. “I can’t stand that type of thing,” the vet said firmly. “I have no use for them.” And the nuclear weapons?
“I don’t think they’d come into a city port like ours with those warheads,” said the man who’s doubtlessly still willing to suit up in defense of his country. It’s his ship, I just went along for the ride. He can have the last word.
“It would be inconceivable to me.”