THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 1, 1995 TAG: 9509010490
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WILMINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Grizzled Navy gunners elbow-deep in hashmarks will be there. So will lots of brass, and bandsmen from the brave 2nd Marine Division, blaring out fighting music.
About 250 World War II crewmen of the North Carolina will report for a last hurrah on their grand old battleship Saturday.
The 729-foot North Carolina, startling in wartime camouflage paint, will be the centerpiece of an East Coast ceremony that is part of the Defense Department's observance of V-J Day 50 years ago, on Sept. 2, 1945.
The North Carolina hauled her mighty 16-inch rifles all over the Pacific during World War II in a tour of duty that won her 15 battle stars. No other battleship equaled "The Showboat's" combat record that led from the bloody beaches of Guadalcanal and Tarawa across invasion island stepping-stones to the mercifully peaceful Japanese surrender aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
Compared with the North Carolina, the younger Missouri hardly got her nose bloodied in the Pacific war.
Battleships, like dodos and dinosaurs and vintage 16-inch turret-captains, are relics of a world before Hiroshima and it isn't likely that the North Carolina will last another half a century or see another ceremony such as the one planned for Saturday.
More than 7,000 veterans and Navy friends are expected to pack grandstands around the ship - Baker-Baker 55 in World War II Navy parlance - for the V-J Day memorial observance.
The 45,000-ton fighting machine, immaculately preserved and with signal flags aflutter, is permanently moored bow-on in the Cape Fear River at Wilmington as a memorial to more than 10,000 North Carolina sailors, marines and soldiers who died in World War II.
Thousands of visitors annually inspect the huge 16-inch main battery guns that could hurl a 2700-pound high-explosive projectile more than 20 miles with pickle-barrel accuracy. Twenty twin-mount 5"/38 caliber anti-aircraft guns made up a dual-purpose secondary battery and more than 100 forty-millimeter and 20-millimeterautomatic cannons provided close-in protection against Japanese Kamikazis pilots.
The Wilmington ceremony - open to the public - will begin at 2 p.m. and last about an hour. It will be televised as part of a national V-J program that will also cover similar observances aboard the Missouri in Bremerton, Wash.; the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, Va.; the Punchbowl National Cemetery in Honolulu, the Adm. Chester Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas, and at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha.
On the North Carolina, Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. will be a speaker, as will Margaret Truman Daniel, daughter of the wartime president who ordered the historic A-bomb strikes. Former U.S. Sen. Terry Sanford, a World War II paratrooper, and Deputy Defense Secretary John P. White will also participate.
A 9 p.m. waterfront fireworks display and a series of receptions and parties for visiting veterans and dignitaries will conclude the Saturday ceremonies. On Sunday, a religious service will be held aboard North Carolina to commemorate the nation-wide church services that followed the signing of the Japanese surrender. ILLUSTRATION: FILE PHOTO
The 729-foot North Carolina will be the centerpiece of the Defense
Department's observance of V-J Day on Saturday. by CNB