Sitting Duck?

"I 've had a strange feeling that I'm back on the set filming Hellcats of the Navy. " Thus quipped Ronald Reagan last week at a scene reminiscent both of old-time Hollywood and of World War II: the recommissioning at California's Long Beach Naval Ship yard of the battleship New Jersey, launched in 1942 and now demothballed for a third time.

The venerable battlewagon is still awesome. Her 16-in. guns can hurl shells that weigh 2,700 Ibs. each (the weight of a Chevrolet) as far as 23 miles. She has been fitted with Toma hawk and Harpoon missiles, some with nuclear...

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