CSPAN - America 250 Ryan Szimanski

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Oct. 14, 2025 02:00-02:46 - CSPAN

45:54

America 250 Ryan Szimanski

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john mcardle

cspan 05:16

ryan szimanski

27:14

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cliff young

00:47

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Well, we're ending on a positive note with a call, all right?
unidentified		I think that's important.
cliff young ▲ ● ▼		We often talk about polarization and division, but we also find in our polling over time there are certain things that unite us, right?
		We do hold fundamental values in unison.
		We believe in freedom and fairness as Americans.
		We believe in civility.
		We believe in responsibility.
		So there are the whole core of foundational values that a super majority, that is 95% of Americans actually agree on.
		And sometimes, you know, when things get trying, we have to reflect back a bit and understand there are some things that unite us.
		The last thing I would point out, in those sort of values that unite, we all like our mother, and so, or most of us, there's a couple percent that don't.
		And so I like the fact that the call ended like he did.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Cliff Young is with Ipsos Public Affairs, the polling and societal trends president there.
unidentified		Always appreciate your time and your insights.
cliff young ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		And joining us now to discuss the Navy's 250th, it's Ryan Szymansky.
		He's on board the USS New Jersey, where he serves as Deputy Executive Director of the Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial.
		And Mr. Symansky, on this semi-quincentennial, start by explaining what the American colonists were going up against when they decided 250 years ago to take on the British Navy.
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		It was a wild decision, honestly.
		The United States goes into the Revolution with no naval power at all, not a single armed warship in the colonies that belong to the colonies.
		The Royal Navy, on the other hand, was the largest and most powerful Navy in the world, with just under 1,000 combat ships able to deploy around the world.
		These are all sailing warships, so they don't need fuel.
		They can stay on station for years at a time.
		And the one saving grace for the United States in this war is that the Royal Navy does have global commitments, so they can't concentrate all several hundred of those ships in colonial waters.
		They have to be dispersed around the world.
		And so you can thrive with the sort of hit-and-run attacks that the colonies were able to pull off during that war, both on land and at sea.
unidentified		What were the ships that the Americans were, the colonists were putting in the water in 1775?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Obviously, a far cry from the battleship that you're sitting on today.
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		The colonies didn't have any warships, but they did have some very, very fast merchant vessels that were used to transport perishable goods.
		So things like fruit coming out of the Caribbean.
		Obviously, that's going to spoil very quickly unless you've got a fast sailing ship.
		And the colonies did have, because the North American continent had a lot of lumber, they did have a very thriving shipbuilding industry and some very capable shipbuilders there.
		And so they were building these fast ships.
		And by taking some cannons from wherever you can get them, taking them out of British forts that you might have taken over, taking them from the French who might be willing to sell them to you because they're no friends of the British at this time.
		And you put them on these fast ships and you can then use them essentially to raid British commerce, steal more goods off of British ships.
		They can then sell to fund future U.S. warships.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And what was the contribution by the end of the Revolutionary War of the U.S. Navy?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What were their biggest victories and biggest failures?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's a big question.
		The United States, or what would become the United States Navy, the Continental Navy, was able to keep American supply lines open so that Washington's Army and the civilian population was still able to get goods from Europe and other countries that produce finished products that they weren't able to get in the colonies.
		And at the same time, they were able to raid British shipping to the point that the British Army wasn't able to get all of the supplies that they needed to be able to march out of the cities like New York and Charleston where they were occupying and into the countryside where the colonists were.
		And so they weren't able to project the power to actually defeat the American rebels at that time.
		And that allowed the rebellion to continue to a victory.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's the 250th birthday of the United States Navy, and we're taking your phone calls.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Special lines here for you to call in.
unidentified		A special line for current and former members of the Navy, 202748-8000.
		All other current and former military, 202748-8001.
		And then all other viewers, 202-748-8002.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ryan Symansky is joining us from the Battleship New Jersey outside of Philadelphia.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What should we know about the Battleship New Jersey?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Battleship New Jersey was laid down in 1940.
		The United States has not even entered World War II yet, and we're still in the middle of the Great Depression.
		So from the very day that her keel is laid, this ship starts to serve her country by putting Americans back to work.
		She's launched on December 7th, 1942, which is part of a national celebration where the United States launches on that weekend more ships than were lost at the attack on Pearl Harbor one year earlier.
		She gets into the fight in 1943 and will serve through the end of World War II.
		And then she's brought back again to fight in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Lebanese Civil War, and the later years of the Cold War under the Reagan administration.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		She's an Iowa-class battleship.
unidentified		What does that mean?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		So because it's so expensive to design and build these ships, they build them in batches.
		The Iowa-class was a class of four completed battleships that were all designed to look identical.
		They built them all from the same plans.
		So battleship number 61 was USS Iowa.
		62 is New Jersey, where we are today.
		63 was the battleship Missouri, where the Japanese would sign the instrument of surrender.
		And battleship 64 was Wisconsin, which is very famous for her service during the Gulf War.
unidentified		Battleships named after states.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Why is that?
		When did that tradition start?
		And are there other traditions when it comes to the naming of U.S. Navy ships?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, the Navy has always had naming conventions for its ships.
		Nowadays, the Secretary of the Navy gets to present the names.
		He asks a group of folks in the Navy Department called Naval History and Heritage Command, and he says, hey, I want to name this ship after a person.
		Can you give me a list of famous people?
		Or I want to name it after a very successful former ship.
		Can you give me a name, a list of names of those ships that aren't currently in service?
		And so Naval History and Heritage Command presents him with a list.
		He picks his favorites.
		And typically, the conventions are true for certain types of ships.
		So for battleships, the convention has always been to name them after states.
		There was one, battleship number five, USS Kearsarge, which was named after a famous Civil War-era warship.
		But the other ones were all named after states with smaller ships named after smaller communities.
		So cruisers, which is the next size down, would be named after cities.
		Destroyers, the next size down from that, are named for naval heroes, people essentially.
		Submarines was fun during World War II.
		They were all named after fish.
		Nowadays, those conventions have changed with aircraft carriers often named after political heroes, usually presidents.
		You see destroyers still named after heroes.
		Cruisers tend to be named after battles.
		And the battleship names, since state names, there aren't any battleships anymore to get the state names, those go towards the submarines, which are the new ship, the new premier anti-warship ship of the Navy.
		They can sink other ships better than anyone else.
unidentified		The New Jersey has another moniker.
		It's America's Most Decorated Battleship.
		Explain.
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		So Battleship New Jersey fought in 19 separate campaigns and battles throughout her various career.
		And that is more battles than any other battleship that was ever built anywhere in the world.
		And in fact, it's more battles than any ship currently afloat today.
		So even though she's not in active service, even though she doesn't sail anywhere, she is still the most decorated ship afloat.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		For folks trying to understand the evolution of naval tactics and strategy, why don't we have battleships anymore?
unidentified		Why don't we send the New Jersey into a fight?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		That's a fantastic question.
		New Jersey was a massively expensive ship to build and to operate.
		In the 1980s, they calculated that it cost a million dollars a day to operate a single battleship, and that's not adjusted for inflation.
		That was great during World War II.
		We had an all-draft military.
		We could throw as many bodies at the ship as we needed to man her.
		Nowadays, we have an all-volunteer military, so there are fewer members of the armed forces.
		So you can't put as many people on a single ship.
		Likewise, battleships are designed to carry large guns.
		They can shoot over 20 miles and to have heavy armor to take hits from enemy guns.
		Well, we don't really use guns for surface combat anymore.
		We've got missiles that can shoot hundreds or even thousands of miles.
		And armor doesn't really do as much against missiles.
		So having an armored ship or a gunship doesn't make sense in the modern Navy.
		Plus, you don't want a single large expensive ship carrying all of your missiles.
		If that ship gets taken out, that's all the ammunition that your fleet had to throw back at the enemy.
		So the modern Navy uses something called distributed lethality, where they distribute its missiles to a bunch of smaller, faster ships that are harder to hit.
		And if, God forbid, one does get damaged, now we've lost a quarter of our missiles instead of all of the missiles.
unidentified		Brian Szymansky joining us this morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Where are you specifically on the New Jersey right now?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		This is one of my favorite spaces on the battleship.
		We're in a room called the Combat Engagement Center.
		It was installed in 1982 in the space that had originally been the Admiral's Cabin.
		So this is where Admirals like Halsey and Spruance lived when they served on this battleship in 1982.
		Or excuse me, during World War II.
		In the 1980s, the battleship was old, obsolete, had old radios, things like that.
		So she didn't make a good flagship for admirals to command an entire fleet.
		So they got rid of that entire room and they brought in all of the Star Wars-looking equipment that's in here now.
		So this space now controls all of the modern radars and all of the modern missile systems that were grafted onto this ancient battleship in the 1980s.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And we're taking viewer calls this morning on 250 years of the United States Navy.
unidentified		It's the Navy's birthday today.
unidentified		Special line for current and former members of the Navy, other military members, and all others as well.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We'll put those numbers on your screen as we hear from Sean in California, former military.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Good morning, John.
		How's everyone doing?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Doing well.
unidentified		This is a wonderful day for me.
		This is something that still holds dearly to my heart.
		My father and uncle fought in the Korean War.
		They were on the USSR Klondike.
		And I can remember as a child how an honor it was to see our family members come home that were still with us because sometimes we may have lost family members during that time.
		And I just think that I have a long line of military, actually every branch.
		And I would just say thank you, thank you, thank you to our fallen soldiers.
		I thank my father and my uncle, my father, Frank James Stalker, and my uncle, Donald Buchanan.
		And I would like to thank you very much for being on here this morning.
		It still holds touch to my heart.
		One of my favorite songs is the national anthem.
		My question is to you.
		Where in the future are we seeing our Navy going?
		I would like to see more of our Americans go into the Navy.
		The Navy really wasn't a branch that was really talked a lot about back then, but our boys on that water, they took care of business.
		So where is our Navy, part of the military branch, probably be going in the future?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Sean, thanks for the question.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ryan Symansky, before you answer, I'll show this op-ed from today's Washington Post, Stephen Flynn on the Navy's 250th calling for a celebration with a shipbuilding revival for the United States Navy.
unidentified		Where do you see the Navy going in the future?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		That's a fantastic question, Sean.
		Thanks for coming on and asking, and thank you for your family service.
		So the Navy was the largest, the American Navy was the largest one in the world from about 1943, 1944, up until the early 20 teens when the Chinese Navy surpassed us in size.
		One place where the Navy needs to go in the future is to a larger fighting force so that we can deploy more ships than the Chinese.
		The other thing that the Navy is going to do more of in the future is produce more unmanned craft so that we're not putting as many Americans in risk when we go into combat zone.
		So I could easily see the Navy growing in size over the next couple of decades and a lot of that growth coming from unmanned vessels and aircraft.
unidentified		One place where we have more ships than the Chinese is in the area of aircraft carriers.
unidentified		We have 11 aircraft carriers.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The Chinese have three.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Why do we need eight more aircraft carriers than our next closest naval rival?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's also a great question.
		So we have 11 aircraft carriers, but for every three aircraft carriers that we have, there's only one that can be actively deployed because one will be undergoing training and one will be undergoing maintenance.
		So 11 aircraft carriers really only means three or four that can be deployed somewhere in the world.
		China exclusively deploys its warships in the Pacific Ocean.
		The United States deploys its warships worldwide.
		And so while we do have four deployable aircraft carriers at any time, some of them are in the Indian Ocean, some of them are in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic.
		So the Chinese have more aircraft carriers than we have deployed in the Pacific at any given time.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ryan Szymansky joining us from the USS New Jersey outside of Philadelphia.
		He's in the navigation bridge there.
		We'll show you some more shots from inside the USS New Jersey as we take a call from Alicia out of Ohio.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I am a Navy vet and I am so excited to see on the news this morning that it's the 250th birthday of the Navy.
		And so please tell the Navy, well, tell that Biach that I can't believe she's that old, but also like tell Old Ironsides that I said what's up, he's always loved and never forgotten.
		Ryan Szymansky, Old Ironsides.
		What's that?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Old Ironsides is the nickname of USS Constitution.
		She is the oldest commissioned warship in the U.S. Navy and the only commissioned warship in the U.S. Navy that has sunk an enemy warship.
		Constitution was built in 1797 as one of the first six frigates for the United States Navy.
		So the U.S. had the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War.
		In between the Revolutionary War and the signing of the Constitution and George Washington's presidency, all of the surviving Continental ships are transferred back to civilian use to be used as merchant ships again.
		And so in the 1790s, early 1800s, when American trade starts to get preyed upon by pirates and during the naval combat that's happening in Europe because of the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution, the U.S. Navy has no way of protecting its trade.
		And so President Washington commissions the building of six new frigates.
		Constitution is one of them.
		And because of her service during the War of 1812, where she wins a number of battles against British warships, she has been preserved today, just like Battleship New Jersey, as a museum ship that the public can come out and visit.
		But unlike New Jersey, she is still an active Navy vessel with a Navy crew.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to the 250th of the Navy, what's happening at the New Jersey today?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Today, the battleship has free admission, so visitors in the Camden, Philadelphia area can come on board and visit us for free.
		We also have active Navy ships tied up alongside of us and all around us.
		So if you want to see both an older historic vessel like Battleship New Jersey or a modern frontline state-of-the-art warship, you can come on board and get free tours of either.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Why is the New Jersey in Camden?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		By an act of Congress, when New Jersey was taken out of naval service and they decided that she was historic enough to be turned into a museum ship, they decided that she was going to be placed somewhere in the territorial waters of her home state, the state of New Jersey.
		And so several cities in and around New Jersey submitted applications to the Navy that they were the perfect home site for this vessel.
		And it ended up being the city of Camden that submitted the winning application to get the ship.
		One of the reasons why Camden's application was so successful is because Camden is right across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
		And the battleship was not only built in Philadelphia in the 1940s, but she also spent some of her career here being fixed up and repaired at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
		So she has a big history with this part of the world.
		And we know that at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, there is a dry dock that's big enough to repair this ship.
		So the Navy looked at Camden as being a good long-term steward of its historical asset because we have the ability to repair her here much more easily than other places in New Jersey.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Back to phone calls in that line for current and former Navy.
unidentified		This is Elvin out of Oakland, California on this 250th birthday of the Navy.
		Go ahead.
		Yes, I used to be on the Midway from 85 to 88 out of Yokusuka, Japan.
		And that's a big carrier.
		She was designed like a Montana-class battleship.
		And she's up to a museum in San Diego.
		Now, please go take a look at her.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Thoughts, Ryan Szymansky, on the Midway carrier?
unidentified		When did that serve?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Midway is one of my favorite aircraft carriers.
		She is also saved as a museum ship.
		If you go to San Diego, you can take a tour of her, too.
		By size, she's probably the largest museum ship anywhere in the world.
		Midway was commissioned in October 1945, right as World War II was ending, and she served continuously straight up through the Gulf War and wasn't decommissioned until the late 90s or early 2000s.
		And last year, she celebrated her 20th year as a museum.
		So really fantastic ship to go and visit, because not only do you get to walk around a ship like you do here on Battleship New Jersey, but they also have a number of historic aircraft in the ship's hangar and on the flight deck that you can see.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Everett waiting on that line for former military out of Colorado.
		Everett, good morning.
		You're on with Ryan Somansky.
unidentified		Thanks for taking my call.
		Ryan, thank you very much for doing what you do as far as relaying the history of all the battleships and different type of Navy ships.
		And as a U.S. Army National Guardsman, I luckily wasn't deployed on beaches and everything like an invasion.
		But the bombardment type of reason for the battleships, of course, I am from western Colorado, so I was interested in the battleship Colorado.
		And I've been on Iowa and I've been on the Whiskey, Kentucky.
		And thank you, and I wish the very best to all the servicemen, especially today for the Navy.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ryan Somansky, what do you want to pick up on from that?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I love the battleship Colorado as well.
		I'm from Maryland originally, and so my home state battleship, BB-46, USS Maryland, is a Colorado-class battleship.
		Colorado was BB-45.
		USS Colorado was built in 1920, right after World War I, and she was the most modern ship in the fleet when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
		A much smaller battleship than New Jersey.
		Because she was 20 years older, she still had 16-inch guns.
		She had eight 16-inch guns, and the U.S. Navy used her basically like a siege engine throughout World War II.
		They would take her and the other older, they call them slow battleships, because they weren't as fast as the modern fast battleships like the Iowa-class.
		So the fast battleships go with the aircraft carriers and hunt Japanese carriers.
		The slow battleships serve as siege engines and would make a ring around the Japanese islands that we're trying to capture and just bombard those beaches.
		Our 16-inch guns and Colorado 16-inch guns can fire projectiles that weigh more than one ton.
		And so when they hit the ground and explode, they make a hole that's about 50 feet wide and 30 feet deep.
		So very similar to a swimming pool.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You talked about two very famous admirals.
		I think you named Admiral Halsey and Spruance as serving on board the USS in New Jersey.
		On this 250th birthday of the Navy, if there was a Mount Rushmore for naval admirals, who are the four faces that would be on that Mount Rushmore?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that is a fantastic question.
		I think you would definitely have to have John Paul Jones.
		He's considered by many to be the father of the American Navy.
		So he would probably be the first head on there.
		From World War II, I love Admiral Halsey.
		I love Admiral Spruance, but you'd probably have to pick Admiral Chester Nimitz as the person that you would represent from that war.
		He led the Pacific Fleet throughout and was Halsey and Spruance's boss.
		Stephen Decatur would be one of my picks.
		During the War of 1812, he was probably the most successful of the American Admirals.
		There weren't admirals yet, Commodores of the American Commodores.
		And then George Dewey, who sailed on the cruiser Olympia, which is a museum ship in Philadelphia, he was the admiral that won the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.
		And that was really when the U.S. Navy transitions from being an old colonial wooden navy to a modern, imperial, worldwide transiting steel, steam-powered navy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned John Paul Jones.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		When and why did he say, I have not yet begun to fight?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		John Paul Jones is probably the most famous American captain from the Revolutionary War.
		He served on a number of ships.
		His most famous was Bonham Richard, which was a merchant ship that the French gave to the United States because Ben Franklin asked them for it.
		So he named her, in French, Poor Richard, after Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's almanac.
		And he fought a successful frigate engagement with the British warship HMS Serapis.
		Now, Serapis was a purpose-built warship defending an English convoy in the English Channel.
		And John Paul Jones took the fight from the American coast to the coast of England and fights this battle with Serapis.
		And Bonham Richard, his ship, is literally sinking under him.
		It's not a purpose-built warship at all.
		The old guns that the French gave him, some of them are exploding because they aren't modern enough anymore.
		And so the captain of Serapis sees that Bonham Richard's flag has been shot away and he asks, are you surrendering?
		And John Paul Jones says, no, I have not yet begun to fight.
		And his crew eventually is able to overpower Serapis as Bonham Richard sinks out from under him.
		His crew actually all goes from his ship over to this British ship and takes it over.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		As we show our viewers some of the gun turrets of the USS New Jersey, in your naval history there, fast forward about four score and seven or eight years to another famous quote by a member of the Navy, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What was the story?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Admiral Farragut, who if we could add a fifth head on Mount Rushmore, would definitely be the guy there.
		He's the first American to earn the rank of admiral.
		And he served during the American Civil War.
		And he was tasked with capturing Mobile Bay.
		The problem is Mobile Bay is defended by fixed fortifications and what were then called torpedoes, what we would now call sea mines.
		So they're stationary powder charges in the water.
		You can't see them because they're underwater.
		And when an American ship would sail under them, they would explode, sinking the ship.
		So conventional wisdom held that sailing ships could not defeat fixed fortifications.
		Sailing ships are dependent on the wind, and because the wind is moving them, their guns are less accurate than the fixed fortifications of land.
		And plus, those mines are going to destroy any ships that sail under them.
		Farragut's ships might have been wooden and they might have carried sails for the most part, but they had steam engines.
		So he was able to sail straight into Mobile Bay, Alabama, past the Confederate fortifications, through the minefield, and get behind the Confederate fortifications, and then they weren't doing any good because their guns were fixed.
		They were only pointing to seaward.
		So by being really that first person who was bold enough to say, hey, conventional wisdom says that ships can't beat forts, but I'm going to take my whole fleet through there.
		And he does lose ships to those mines.
		USS Tecumseh, an ironclad monitor, is sunk.
		He still sails straight through that, defeats the Confederate ironclad, defeats the fortifications, and captures the city, which essentially shuts down Confederate river-borne commerce and cuts off the Eastern Confederacy from the West, Texas, and those sorts of states where a lot of the goods needed for Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia were coming from.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Just about 15 minutes left with Ryan Somansky this morning on the 250th birthday of the United States Navy.
		This is Samuel on that line for former military out of South Pasadena, California.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Good morning.
		Yes, I wanted to talk to you about this.
		I was on the Jersey in 1983 when we left San Diego for Lebanon.
		And that's when they bombed the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983.
		We got there.
		We had loaded.
		We were 20 miles off the coast.
		And we shot those 16-inch guns.
		We put a lot of holes out there, about 30-foot circle, about 20 to 30-foot deep.
		And I went with a crew of eight other sailors.
		And we were there just to go and get the bodies, rescue the bodies and everything from the Marine, the barracks there.
		But there were also 12 Navy SEALs on that ship, too.
		And they took their zodiacs out there because a little bit outside of Beirut, there was a little place there where a lot of people, innocent people were there where the Navy SHILS came in and they secured the area, killing the enemy and bringing out the innocent.
		I remember taking that ship from San Diego to Lebanon.
		We went through the Panama Canal, 972 feet long, USS New Jersey, BB-62, battle bombardment, and 105 feet wide.
		And we were scraping going through that Panama Canal because that Panama Canal wasn't that wide, but that ship barely made it through there.
		I love USS New Jersey.
		How does it feel seeing the New Jersey today in some of these shots on the 250th birthday?
		Man, I got tears in my eyes because I was so happy to hear the name, the USS New Jersey, USS Missouri, BB-63.
		And it was great.
		That's a great ship.
		I just wish that ship was talking San Diego so I can see it.
		But I'm in California now.
		I go down to the harbor now, and I see the USS Iowa, and I look at other ships down there and everything.
		Happy birthday, the 250-year anniversary of the United States Navy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Samuel, thanks for the call from California.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ryan Szymansky, what do you want?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Samuel, thank you so much for serving.
		Glad to find another Battleship New Jersey crew member.
		We've got some of your shipmates on board today giving tours of the ships.
		If you remember Commander Mike Holmes, I think he was a lieutenant when he served on board with you in 1983 and 1984.
		The Lebanese Civil War was actually the last time that Battleship New Jersey fired her guns in anger.
		She stays in commission for almost a decade after that, but that was the last war that she actually fired her guns in.
		And it was all to support the Marines ashore.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Out of Texas on that line for former Navy, this is Andrew.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hello, I was on the Battleship New Jersey during the Korean War.
		Me and my younger brother did the Korean War on New Jersey.
		We just had a reunion down in Cananton here a couple of months ago, and I was the only sailor there that served during the Korean War, and there was only one man there that served on it during World War II.
		Andrew, what are you feeling today seeing the New Jersey on this birthday of the Navy?
		Well, I was feeling I wish I was back to 18 years old so I could go back and do it all over again.
		I'm 98 years old now, a retired Navy chief, master diver, and I enjoyed my cruises on the New Jersey and a lot of other ships.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Andrew, thanks for the memories.
		Thanks for your service.
		Ryan Szymansky, he mentions the Korean War.
		It's the 250th birthday of the Navy, but we are 75 years since the Inshan landings of the Korean War.
		What was the Navy's role there and what was the importance of those landings?
unidentified		Again, if you're homing tickets for the new 10 o'clock tour.
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		The Navy had a number of jobs during the Korean War.
		They conducted amphibious operations just like World War II, such as the landings at Incheon.
		They evacuated American troops when they were being overrun by the Chinese, like during the Battle of the Chosein Reservoir.
		And they provided a lot of the supplies coming overland from or coming over the sea from either the United States or Japan, who is our allies, to help keep the troops ashore supplied.
		Probably the most offensive, combat-oriented thing that the Navy does during the war is provide gunfire support.
		Because Korea is a peninsula, there's a lot of shore area where the U.S. Navy can operate alongside of, and a ship like Battleship New Jersey, whose guns can fire over 20 miles inland, can basically hit every major city and rail line on the peninsula.
		So, between the battleships covering the stuff close into shore and the aircraft coming off of the aircraft carriers, they can bombard and interdict stuff happening further inland.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The role of the Navy today, come back to that question, in an era in which B-2 bombers can fly 37 hours and have a mission where they can attack a target halfway around the world and fly back and be refueled along the way.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What is the significance, the importance of the Navy today in this era of drones and long-flight aircraft bombers?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that is a fantastic question.
		Aircraft are very capable strike assets.
		They can fly just about anywhere in the world.
		Ships can only go about two-thirds of the surface of the earth.
		But aircraft can cover it all.
		But they can't control territory at the end of the day.
		They fly over, they do their thing very, very quickly, and then they leave.
		So to be able to control territory, whether you're defending your allies, such as the U.S. Navy does during the Houthi drone attacks very recently, or liberating continents like the U.S. Navy does transporting troops ashore during World War II.
		You need to be able to get troops on the shore.
		And that usually means the Army and the Marine Corps and not strictly the Navy.
		But how are those troops going to get there?
		Planes can carry some paratroopers, but most of our military is not parachute-trained, and it's way too many guys to be able to deploy from aircraft.
		So it takes large troop ships to be able to get those guys overseas where they need to go.
		And those troop ships have got to be protected by combatant vessels, warships like the Battleship New Jersey, so that they're not picked off by enemy aircraft.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		As we continue our tour of the New Jersey, we're going to show the captain's quarters on the battleship.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Talk us through some of what a captain's life is like if you're in command of the New Jersey.
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		I've gotten the chance to speak to two of the battleship's 19 commanding officers, and they've both said a lot of the same things.
		It's very lonely at the top.
		You have sole responsibility for the ship.
		The buck stops there.
		If something happens to the ship, that's the person who gets all of the blame for it.
		But if something good happens, they're not the person who gets all the credit for it because the credit rightly goes to the full ship's crew.
		So it is a very, very tough job for someone like that to be in command.
		And battleships are very remote places to command from.
		You're out in the middle of the ocean.
		You may or may not be operating with other ships.
		So oftentimes, there is nobody else to, no admirals or anyone else to help you with your command decisions.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Just a few minutes left with Ryan Szymansky aboard the battleship New Jersey for C-SPAN viewers.
		We're going to be heading to a press conference a little after 10 a.m.
		That's what we're expecting with the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.
		So that's what you'll see if you stick around here.
		But we hope you keep calling in in that time.
unidentified		And we have Laura out of Spokane, former military.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning.
		It's good to see you.
		I am very glad to be a part of this.
		But the reason why I called is that my great-great-great-grandfather was Captain Jabez West of the Black Prince.
		And that was one of the first privateer ships commissioned by Benjamin Franklin.
		And there's very little to do with it except that they had to, they were very successful and they did add on a Black Princess.
		But can you tell me more regarding my grandfather's adventures as a privateer for the country, trying to be country?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ryan Szymansky, something you can pick up on?
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, absolutely.
		The U.S. Navy during the really the first half of its 250-year existence was a really, really small force.
		The United States wasn't a particularly rich country, and we weren't using the money that the government raised to put into the military in any big way.
		Certainly nothing like the military spending that we have today.
		So the military was supplemented by militias and privateers.
		So the Army, you just call up a bunch of citizen militia to come out and serve alongside the actual active duty Army.
		For the Navy, since there were so few ships, they would call on privateers.
		And so Congress would issue what are called letters of marque and reprisal, which basically, I'm going to use the term pirate here, but I don't mean it in the negative swashbuckling way.
		It basically authorizes civilians to be state-sponsored pirates and go out and raid enemy ships.
		So let's say during the Revolution, we're fighting Great Britain, and so the United States hands out literally hundreds of letters of marque to private merchant captains so they can take their ships and take British ships, take British merchant ships.
		And so Black Prince was one of hundreds and hundreds of these that swarmed the oceans, and some of them ended up being full-sized, almost equivalent to actual military ships, and some of them were very small and fast, like we think of more when we think of pirate ships.
		But honestly, ships like that do just as much or more for the early United States through the War of 1812, the quasi-war with France, the Revolutionary War, than the actual small Navy that we had.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Some more shots of the USS New Jersey for you on this overcast day.
		It's the 250th birthday of the United States Navy.
		This is David, former Navy out of Texas.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		Appreciate you taking my call.
		I retired from the Navy in 1983, served on four different aircraft carriers.
		And in 68-69, we stood off the New Jersey and watched her shell Vietnam.
		And it was extremely impressive.
		Even though we were a quarter to a half a mile away, the sound would just reverberate through the ship.
		And it just lit up the sky.
		It was quite impressive.
		And that boat was about the same size as the Intrepid.
		And three of the four carriers that I served on still had the old wooden decks.
		So it was quite an interesting time to be in the Navy.
		And thank you for recognizing our military today.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		David, thanks for the call.
		Thanks for your memories.
		Ryan Symansky, the Navy during the Vietnam era.
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		That was a time when Battleship New Jersey was the only battleship anywhere in the world in active duty.
		She only spends a couple of months, less than a year, off the coast of Vietnam before she's taken out of service.
		And they say the reason for that was the Vietnamese would not come to the Paris peace talks unless the U.S. took New Jersey off the gun line because she had been so effective during her deployment over there.
		Much of the bombardment, much of the support of troops ashore was being handled by the aircraft carriers.
		And the aircraft carriers are rightly the dominant naval weapon nowadays.
		However, Vietnam had the most sophisticated anti-aircraft protection of any country in the world at that time.
		And so we were losing aircraft left, right, and center being shot down, which resulted in pilots being lost or captured.
		And so the Navy got the bright idea, hey, this didn't happen to us nearly as much in Korea in World War II.
		Let's bring back a battleship because the battleship shells can't be shot down.
		Anti-aircraft protection doesn't save you from a battleship bombarding you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		For much more on the USS New Jersey and the history of the Navy, take a visit out to the Battleship New Jersey.
		It's docked off Camden, just across from Philadelphia.
		Ryan Symansky is the Deputy Executive Director of Curatorial and Educational Affairs there.
unidentified		And we appreciate your time on this 250th birthday of the Navy.
ryan szimanski ▲ ● ▼		Thank you so much for having me.
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