![]() ![]() Then a thunderclap - more a boom than a bang. ![]() Out leap enormous orange balls of flame and mustard-colored smoke. Suddenly, a Klaxon sounds the warning - ''Aoo-ga! Aoo-ga!'' The guns are about to fire. ''Mickey Mouse ears'' are the order of the day, although old sea dogs are prone to stuff wads of cotton into their ears. Fogarty runs the risk of ruptured eardrums. Even on the bridge, 35 yards from the closest gun, Capt. The decks have been cleared because the blast of a 16-inch gun is enough to blow a man's head off if he is too near the muzzle. She is making 15 knots, signal flags cracking in the breeze. The time is later this year and the 39-year-old battlewagon is out here to test-fire her heavy-caliber guns. The 57,500-ton battleship New Jersey - which blasted 20 Japanese warplanes out of the sky and scarred the beaches of Okinawa and Iwo Jima a generation ago - is rumbling along the Navy's firing range a few miles off the California coast.
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