Key Points and Summary – USS New Jersey (BB-62), the most decorated battleship in U.S. history, stepped back into the same Philadelphia dry dock where she was finished in 1943 for a major 2024 overhaul.
-Over 12 weeks, workers drained the dock, inspected and repaired her hull, replaced roughly 1,300 anodes, fixed leaky seawater inlets, and completely refreshed her paint system to guard against corrosion in the now-freshwater Delaware.
USS New Jersey July 2025. Image Credit: National Security Journal.
-To help offset the $10 million bill and lost ticket sales, the museum sold premium dry-dock tours.
-Back on the Camden waterfront, “Big J” is now set to serve as a floating museum for decades to come.
–National Security Journal writer Stephen Silver toured the USS New Jersey and took extensive photos of the battleship, which we have included in this article.
Battleship USS New Jersey Got Some Big Repairs Last Year
USS New Jersey (BB-62) AKA “The Big J,” AKA “The Black Dragon,” is arguably the greatest battleship of all time (sorry not sorry, Yamato, Musashi, and Bismarck), as she is America’s most decorated battleship, earning 19 battle stars for combat actions—more than any her other three completed Iowa-class sister ships (all of them highly accomplished in their own right, to be sure)—including nine battle stars for service in World War II, four more for the Korean War, three more for the Vietnam War, and her final three for the 1983 Lebanon campaign and the Persian Gulf.
Big J is now docked at Penn’s Landing in Camden, New Jersey, preserved for prosperity as a floating museum. And to make a cool museum tour even cooler, she recently received some significant repair and upgrade work.
2024: USS New Jersey (BB-62) Gets a New Facelift (So to Speak)
This “facelift” commenced on March 27, 2024, and ended on June 14 of that same year.
For that purpose, she was sent downriver from Penn’s Landing. She went downriver to enter drydock at Drydock Number 3 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, which coincidentally is the same drydock where she underwent final assembly in 1943.
As stated by Battleship CEO Marshall Spevak in a March 21, 2024 interview with WHYY reporter Tom MacDonald, “The ship gets ballasted in [the borough of Paulsboro [NJ], which means we are adding about 2,000 tons of water to the ship’s tanks to essentially even the ship out from bow to stern so that when we enter the dry dock in Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on March 27, we’re essentially making sure that the ship and the hull, when it sits down on the blocks at the shipyard, it doesn’t crack the hull in half.”
From there, the following refurbishments and upgrades were applied:
-Roughly 6 million gallons of water in the dock drained so that technicians could make their repairs to the venerable warship
-Paint coating redone (per Mr. McDonald, “and a system that shows if the hull is rusting will be converted from saltwater to freshwater since the portion of the Delaware River where the vessel rests is now freshwater”)
-Repairs to covers for holes that pulled in salt water to cool the massive ship’s engines when it was being propelled under its own power (at least one of the 160 covers had sprung a leak)
Interestingly enough, tours of the ship were made available.
USS New Jersey 16-Inch Guns. Image Credit: National Security Journal.
USS New Jersey National Security Journal Photo by Stephen Silver.
However, they charged the proverbial arm and a leg more than tickets for the standard tour at the permanent Camden berth (more on the latter in a bit); dry dock tours were $225 a ticket, and $1000 purchased the privilege of an exclusive tour with the ship’s curator, Ryan Szimanksi.
Despite those hefty fees, at least 1,200 tickets were sold, which helped (1) defray the costs of the repairs—which totaled $10 million—and (2) the additional revenue lost from the downtime when the battleship was not open as a museum for the duration of the repair project.
“Big J’s” Initial Museum History
After being first commissioned on May 23, 1943, USS New Jersey was recommissioned and decommissioned multiple times before finally being decommissioned for good on February 8, 1991 (thus missing out on her opportunity to join her sister ships as they fired their guns in anger for the last time during the 1991 Persian Gulf War AKA Operation Desert Storm) in Long Beach, California, and later towed to Bremerton, Washington, where she resided until heading home to New Jersey.
From there, she underwent the following:
-February 12, 1995: Officially stricken from the Navy list on February 12, 1995, but was ordered reinstated by an order of Congress as a mobilization asset under Bill 1024 section 1011
-January 4, 1999: Stricken again from the Navy list
-September 12, 1999: Began her final voyage home from Bremerton
-November 11, 1999: Veteran’s Day, appropriately enough: Arrived at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to begin undergoing restoration
-October 2001: Opened to the public as a museum and memorial
USS New Jersey Broadside Battleship. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Additional “Black Dragon” Tour Information
Self-Guided Tours are available every day from 10:00 am to 5:30 pm, with last boarding at 4:00 pm. Admission price is $30 for Adults, $25 for Seniors and Children aged 12 and under, $20 for Veterans.
As for Guided Tours, they last 90 minutes and take place every day, but with a much narrower window of opportunity: starting promptly at 12:00 PM. You should plan to arrive at least 10 minutes before your tour is set to begin. Ticket prices are $40 per adult, $35 for Veterans, Children aged 12 and under, and Seniors. Parking is $15 or $11, depending on proximity to the vessel.
And for a mere $500 or $1000 donation, you can fire a 5-inch gun or the 40mm saluting gun, respectively, nearly any day and time!
This writer has yet to actually tour BB-62 (Bucket List item right there).
However, I’ve seen her from a distance whilst touring the protected cruiser USS Olympia (C-6)—Commodore George Dewey’s famous flagship of the Spanish-American War, aboard which he uttered the immortal words, “You may fire when ready, Gridley”—across the way at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, back in 2023.
That said, I *have* toured New Jersey’s sister ship, USS Iowa (BB-61; the eponymous lead ship of the class), at the Pacific Battleship Center in San Pedro, California, multiple times, and that one never gets old.
I do not doubt that “The Big J” tour is every bit as much fun as that of Iowa’s.
The other two ships of the class, USS Missouri (BB-63) and USS Wisconsin (BB-64), are also available for tour as floating museums, berthed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the Nauticus maritime-themed science center and museum located on the downtown waterfront in Norfolk, Virginia, respectively.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr, Defense Expert
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He is also the author of the newly published book “Five Decades of a Fabulous Firearm: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Beretta 92 Pistol Series.”
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JOEL A GIOVANAZZI
November 27, 2025 at 9:51 pm
What i don’t understand is why they don’t use them in carrier strike groups take off a back turret and use the harrier jump jet from a take off.point from the back with 12 or in the belly for support give all of our old frigits and destroyers a over haul make then nuclear and reuse them.. easier.then building new ships..
James
November 28, 2025 at 2:23 pm
1968 69 almeada calif ran all over new jersy paperboy sold them on the messdecks …true story…..