USS New Mexico (BB-40): The Queen's Story In The Words Of Her Men

USS New Mexico (BB 40 s) career touched upon the events of three centuries, (19th, 20th and 21st). Her design, prepared approximately ninety-eight years after Nelson s victory at Trafalgar, incorporated the lessons of the line of battle. She was designed as a battleship, a ship intended to serve in the van as did HMS Victory. USS New Mexico s armament, when she was commissioned during the final months of the First World War, included four three inch guns, weapons which could serve as anti-craft weapons, a defense against a threat which didn t exist when she was designed. In 1919 USS New Mexico escorted Woodrow Wilson back from the Versailles Peace Conference where was set in motion a process which culminated in the Second World War. In 1941, USS New Mexico came into her own as a man-of-war. She was an older ship manned by a crew largely composed of young men, all volunteers, who hailed from every region of the country. She went into harms way providing gunfire support for the landings at most every major action in the Central Pacific and North Pacific. She sustained her most grievous injuries late during the war when struck by kamikazes, a suicide weapon which presaged the terrorist attacks and guided missiles of the current century. USS New Mexico (BB 40) and her crew was the equal of every challenge they met. Many of these were unimagined when she was designed, launched then commissioned. Her history is a tribute to her builders and the men who crewed her. In this book, which includes 40 interviews and photographs, the history of USS New Mexico is told by her crewmen. They describe shipboard routine and their reasons for enlisting as well as recounting their combat experiences.