The parade ground 16-inch gun once rode aboard the battleship USS New Jersey BB62.

For nearly a decade, a gigantic monument has dominated the parade ground at Naval Support Facility South Potomac.

The behemoth is a 16-inch⁄50-battleship gun that formally rode aboard the USS New Jersey, BB-62, and is now a lasting legacy to the technical achievements and support the men and women of this base have made to the Navy and the nation.

The gun, (officially Ser. No. 278L) was manufactured at the U.S. Naval Gun Factory in Washington and came to Dahlgren during the dark early days of World War II. After proofing here on Aug. 22, 1942 the gun was shipped to USS New Jersey, fitted in the center of her No. 2 Turret, and was first fired on July 23, 1943. Ironically the hull of USS New Jersey was launched on Dec. 7, 1942 (exactly one year after the attack on Pearl Harbor). Sponsor of the ship on her commissioning was Mrs. Charles Edison, the first lady of New Jersey, and the daughter-in-law of the America’s most famous inventor, Thomas Edison.

In World War II the gun fired 179 times in the South Pacific as the United States wrested away the islands that Imperial Japan had occupied. Included were the Marshalls, Marianas, Carolines, Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. A particular highlight of the USS New Jersey’s history is that the battleship once served as flagship for Fleet Adm. William ‘‘Bull” Halsey, one of the most illustrative figures in American history and naval hero of the South Pacific campaign.

After Japan surrendered, due in part because of Dahlgren’s involvement with the development of the world’s first atomic weapon, the USS New Jersey settled into a peacetime routine and was mothballed in 1948. But the Korean War soon prompted her reactivation in 1950 to provide gunfire support during that conflict. It was there where the gun barked out an impressive combat record—824 rounds fired in anger, which in large measure was cause for the Chinese communist government and its North Korean puppet to seek an armistice that lasts until this day.

Following the peace accords at Panmunjom, the gun was removed from the battleship and sent to the Naval Ordnance Plant in Pocatello, Idaho for relining. It was re-proofed at the Arco Proving Ground in Idaho and transferred back to Dahlgren in 1969.

At Dahlgren the gun has fired another 214 rounds in testing and support when the Navy was built back up to support four Iowa-class battleships. The gun was last fired here in 1991.

Interesting characteristics about the gun are that it has a chamber volume of 27,000 cubic inches. It has 96 rifling groves with a twist of one turn every 25 calibers. The rifling grove is .15 of an inch deep. The gun can support a maximum service pressure of 18.5 tons-per-square-inch with typical muzzle energy of 355 mega Joules.

The guns performance can launch a 2,700-pound armor-piercing projectile more than 42,000 yards, or a 2,240-pound projectile 47,000 yards. It can penetrate face-hardened (16-inch thick) armor at (14 nautical miles) 28,000 yards or 32 feet of reinforced concrete—(such power would equate to more than enough energy to drill through any known steel-reinforced concrete or Afghani mountain cave bunker).

The weight of 278L gun (390,000 pounds), together with slide assembly, trunions and yoke required two huge 350-ton cranes to lift and fit it into place. The cranes were rented from W.O. Grubb of Richmond, Va., and worked three days to finalize the monument.

Credit for placing the gun goes to Capt. William Snyder, the former executive office of Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, a U.S. Navy surface warfare officer who experienced naval combat in the first Gulf War, and who realized the historic value of the battleship legacy to Dahlgren and worked hard to get funding to move the gun for all to appreciate.