CAPT Richard "Dick" McKenna: From Saigon's Fall to Battleship New Jersey's Return

What does it take to bring a battleship back from the dead and then send her into combat? On this episode of WETSU, Battleship New Jersey CEO Marshall Spevak sits down with Captain Dick McKenna, USN (Ret.), the ship's plank owner executive officer.A 1963 Naval Academy graduate, McKenna served aboard destroyer escorts, an LST, and a frigate before finding himself XO of USS Kirk during the fall of Saigon in April 1975, where his ship helped rescue tens of thousands of South Vietnamese refugees in the days before the city fell. Just seven years later he reported aboard Battleship New Jersey as her prospective executive officer, tasked with helping assemble and train a crew of roughly 1,500 sailors for a ship the Navy had not operated in over a decade. He remained her XO through recommissioning, President Reagan's commissioning ceremony, and her 1983 deployment to Beirut, including the day her 16 inch guns fired in combat for the first time since Vietnam.McKenna takes listeners inside the barges where the crew first came together, the moment the Marine barracks bombing shook the ship at anchor, and what it felt like on board when the order to fire finally came. Only on WETSU: a Battleship New Jersey Podcast. Send us Fan MailJoin the WETSU community or Follow us on Instagram.