After being towed down the Delaware River twice — and moving for the first time in decades — the massive Battleship New Jersey arrived at a dry dock in Philadelphia Wednesday for a two-month-long maintenance project.
It took about two hours for the 887-foot long battleship, known as “Big J,” to slowly make the one-mile trip from the Paulsboro Marine Terminal to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for dry docking.
The museum ship is recognized as the most decorated battleship in U.S. Navy history. The journey to the dry dock kicked off last week with a lively sendoff at its home pier along the Camden waterfront. It first went to Paulsboro for several days of preliminary repair work before continuing on to Philadelphia for the remainder of the project.
After more than two decades of sitting at the dock in Camden as a museum, the two trips on the Delaware River over the last week were historic moments for the Battleship New Jersey. They were potentially the last opportunity for veterans who served on the decorated ship to witness it come alive again.