March
30, 1994
Rosemary
Parrillo, Mrs. Caskey and the USS New Jersey
Being
an old Navy man and associated with a veterans' group, I have
had contact with Mrs. Caskey for a while now, she with the Battleship
Association, and I with the Sampson WW-2 Navy Veterans Inc. I
told her her efforts to have the Battleship USS New Jersey brought
to the Camden waterfront as a tourist attraction was commendable.
I took it upon myself to see if I could get
some information to help her. After writing a few letters this
is what I have found.
Joseph Azzolina, Captain USN (Ret.), and an
assemblyman representing Monmouth and Middlesex Counties, is
chairman of the USS New Jersey Battleship Commission. He has
informed me the ship is now in mothballs at Bremerton, Wash.
When the Navy releases the ship, it will be acquired and placed
in Liberty State Park near the Statue of Liberty.
If we add up the score, we will find that
North Jersey has the Submarine USS Ling, the Meadowlands Sports
Complex, the Kennedy Arts Center, the Statue of Liberty and the
Vietnam Memorial. South Jersey has an Aquarium people are losing
interest in because nothing else is there.
If the Camden, Gloucester, Salem and Burlington
County Boards of Freeholders got together with their assemblymen
and state senators, maybe we could get the USS New Jersey for
the Camden waterfront. If they don't, South Jersey loses again.
JACOB RILLING
Marlton
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