and more stuff online and having said all that, we're actually getting many more requests than ever before and so we had to figure out ways that we can reform this to make it easier, faster, cheaper for people to get the information that they want. fortunately congress on a bipartisan basis has provided the tools through legislation and the reforms we already made and government is more responsive and i'm very proud of all the work we have done to make government more open and responsive and people satisfied with the people with which we're getting responses and requests with hope and an initiative for us to continue on the reform path. i'm going to sign that right now. >> my hope is that people on

this 50th birthday will say, you know, that's good that we got that day-to-day. >> that's good. >> we know this about climate change. that's good. we know that the parm cheese sold by target doesn't have parm in it. so you're 100% grated parmesan well, 100% of it might be grated but it ain't parmesan and we know it now because of the freedom of information act. >> we have a special web page to help you follow the court. go to cspan.org and select supreme court near the right hand top of the page. once there you'll see the calendar for this term. a list of all current justices.

and recent cspan appearances by supreme court justices by cspan.org. each week american history tv american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places. to learn what artifacts reveal about american history. uss wisconsin, one of the largest battleships by the u.s. navy was launched in 1943 and saw service in 1933. and at the nautica center and battleship operations manager took us on a tour of the ships top decks where the captain and admiral once lived and commanded the top ship and i'd like to welcome you to the battleship

wisconsin. this ship came to be here through a long history. it saw service in world war ii and was decommissioned in 1948 and recommissioned in the korean war era, 1951. she saw service until 1958 and then sat in status in philadelphia for almost 28 years. then she was recommissioned in october of 1988 prior to the gulf war for ronald reagan's 600 ship fleet. she saw service in the gulf war. after that she was decommissioned in september of 91 and then for a short time before being brought here in 2000. in 2010 the ship was handed over to the city of norfolk for

custodial care and now is here for all to see. so general statistics include the fact that she is very large and very fast. we are 887 feet and three inches long. 108 feet and 2 inches wide. that was mandated by congress so that we would be able to fit through the panama canal at 110 feet. currently it's being widened and fully loaded and fully loaded means comes in 58,000 times with 2.3 million gallons of fuel as well as the 1900 men that keep the ship moving forward. in the height of world war ii that crew grew to about 2900 men and in the gulf war era that is about 1600. today we're going to take a tour of the command areas.

we call that the command control tour. we'll get started in short we're here for the guided tour. a little bit on the iowa class battleship. the iowas receives its name sake for the class from the first kill that is laid. in 1939 the blueprints were approved from the iowa class battleship, and of course, the bb 61, the uss iowa has her doors open to the public in los angeles or sanpedro, california. second is the uss new jersey who resides in camden new jersey right across the philadelphia river. and third is the uss missouri, bb 63 in hawaii, pearl harbour. we're here on the shores of naught kus in downtown

waterfront. the iowa class battleships, of course, this is the first time that all of the -- of any one class of weapon is open to the public. many other ships, of course, there are so many have been, for whatever reason, moth balled and/or turned into razor blades. this is the captain's cabin. this is where the captain would hold his personal business. he had several functions here, not just as a captain, but as an ambassador for the united states should we visit other countries. in a moment we'll go through his state room, one of three on the ship. and let me unpack that a little bit. the captain is never far away from i have command and so he's -- has a sea cabin on the 04 level. he has another sea cabin close to the flying bridge on the 08 label. here we are on the 01 level, one level above the main deck.

the captain does several functions here, one is captain masked where he's judge, jury and execution ner for personnel that have committed some sort of offense. additionally he has his own gally and own cook. he would use his table behind you, here, so that he could have meals with dignitaries and foreign personnel from other countries, as well as meals with the chiefs from down below or new officers and some of his senior officers as well. he could hold briefings here prior to the gulf war. this was the command ship for the use of tom hawk weapons in the gulf war. so several other generals and admirals came aboardful you'll see his desk where he would conduct his business and outside in the passageway is a table for a marine guard to hold station. for a marine to be on board this

ship is kind of unusual in the sense of most marines rather go ashore. however, on capital vessels. this is a very large ship, capable of holding a detachment by tradition marines would act as guards for the cap pans, we don't have that problem any more, however, they would do security. if the captain left his state room here as cabin and moved about the ship, it would follow him and pull duties as required, that is take messages to and from the message processing center. as well as answer any calls that he might have. from here we're going to move through the captain state room, follow me. we're here in the admirals cabin. this is in a place where the admiral could entertain and have guests, dignitaries and other officers where they could talk

and discuss things of high confidence. behind me here is a pass through window into the admirals gally. it is shared with the captain as well. the admiral would bring his own mess, that person would be highly qualified. once he's selected by the department of able personnel. he would be sent to culinary arts school to learn of cultural restrictions should the ship visit other nations. he also would be vetted for security clearance. yes, there's a fold down panel that closes off that area, but before having high-level discussions, we don't need things to be shared with the crew down below when it goes down for supplies, loose lips sink ships. from here we're going to move to the cec or combat engagement center, recall as we enter that space that it actually use to be the admirals cabin, however during the refit it was determined that we needed the space able to hold the tom hawk missile computers, as well as harpoon computers and

commonplace to be able to fight the ship. and so it became the combat engagement center and no longer the admirals cabin, follow me. as is indicated in the blueprints from the korean war era, we're now in the admirals lobby. this is the lobby because we would be be about to enter the admirals cabin. in the gulf war era there would be a marine guard here checking to make sure you're authorize today go in before we do that, i want to take a look at the bull's eye, here in every space on the ship they have a bull's eye. it is akin to a analog gps. it tells every sailor exactly where they are, however, you have to know how to interpret the address, let's unpact that. the first number tells us where we are on the ship vertically. the second number tells us where we are on the ship lodge

tuesdayally. the third number tells us where we are on the ship laterally, from side to side. the fourth indicator tells us what kind of space it is. the reason we have this bull's eye is so that if there was a problem in this space, we could call damage control and tell them there's a problem and tell them exactly where we are. they would look through their big book of places and say, okay, we know where you are, we're sending help. welcome to the cec, recall this use to be the admirals stay room. and cabin, and was have very large space, however, we needed to convert it over in the gulf war era so we had a place to fight the ship from it. and so we installed computers for the tdl, the box launchers, the guided missls, as well as harpoon missls and other majors of the fight. to my right is the tao tactical action officer. this officer is -- has a close

relationship with the captain. the captain trust him explicitly. the captain could come down and sit in this chair. every officer would have to be certified on each ship that they are assigned to, from here he could communicate with the captain, explain what he thinks should happen, suggest ideas and get approval. the captain, of course, may be on the navigational bridge and would radio back and say, yes, agree, or no, don't do that yet. if it's a defensive action, the tao can take action to defend the ship. there's an incoming missile we don't want to waist time asking if we should stop that missile. to my left here is the table where we authorize the use of the 16-inch guns they, in fact, are aimed and fired down below us and fire control and/or the cic. combat information center. further, behind me are the consoles where we put in the coordinates to guide and fire

the tom hawk cruz missiles. over to my right is an intelligence gathering area, much of the equipment has been removed so because when this ship is decommissioned, they took some of that equipment, which could be used on other ships. it cost savings there. i have left the intelligence area with a clock. further to my right are plotting tables. one is a dead reckoning table which has a light beam that shines up through the table. you would put a tracing table over the top. it is slave to the ship. as we speed up, the light beam speeds up. we turn right, the light beam turns right. its's after action review of the things that we did or the things that we should have done or could have done. further, there's a table for actually plotting how many minutes it might take for a missile to land on target. navigational plotting is done on the navigational bridge. and then completely behind you there is the rpv, remote pilot vehicle, that is a remote

aircraft, kind of like the precursor to today's drones. it has real time video, albeit very primitive, black and white photo where we can spot targets as opposed to sending out aircraft or helicopters. with that i would like to start a light and audio show, it is events that occurred in the gulf war, however, it occurred over the course of several weeks and what we have done is rerecord it down to about six or seven minute loop. it's fairly exciting. stand by while we get ready to start that.

>> solution loaded to missile one. >> the bridge and enemy harbor at 75 miles. exclusive cord nance loaded, request permission to fire. >> ready tommy hawk battling a fire. >> stand by. >> alert from on deck. >> stand clear. >> stand clear. tommy hawk. firing tommy hawk missile. >> that's a little bit about how this ship fights during the gulf war era or modern times. we'll go on to the admirals bridge. we have an admiral on board, we have to have a place by which he could command the fleet.

follow me. >> from here we're going to move out of one more flight of steps on to the navigational bridge. welcome to the navigational bridge. i want to talk a little bit about this with this 17-inch armour. to in front of us here we have this door which is closed during combat. that doorway weighs approximately 5 tons. inside the help, we would find the helpsman with the steering column and lee helms man to his left. others would go into this space during combat when these doors are closed. behind me around to the front is the captain's chair where he would normally maneuver and

guide the ship during regular or noncombat times. he would have assistant officers like an officer of the deck, ood. weapons officer and other look outs assisting him at all times. follow me. >> the captain chair is to my left here, and it's a sacred place. i've heard a sea story about a gentleman while he was on watch as officer of the deck, thought i need a few moments and he sat in the few -- sat in the chair and he thought maybe there's a buzzer in the chair or the captain had his eyes in the back of the head and he said he would never do that again. if the navy is nothing else they're redundant systems, back up systems, we have all types of

communications, including a voice tube here to my left, so that you could clear the tube and then say, captain to the bridge. this voice tube goes all the way back to his c cabin which we talked about earlier. additionally there are encrypted radio telephones and other types of communications, equipment. the captain, of course, would keep his personal binoculars here beside him and watch as the ship maneuvers to his commands. follow me as we step into the captain's sea cabin and then into the navigational area. here we go. so here the captain has a small desk, as well as the voice tube to notify him, his bed is a murphy bed, sofa kind of a deal, he can bring that down. he can crack his eye open and look at gyro compass at any time during the night and see where

we're at. he had his own head with a phone inside and shower. it's not uncommon during combat for wars to captains to just stay in this area for the duration. yes, they would go down for meals or have meals brought up to them. everything you he needs can be here. from here we'll go into the navigational area. here we go. welcome to the navigational area, in here we'll find several artifacts or equipment that is required in order to navigate this ship all over the world. one of which is a time piece, you can't use a sexton and other artifacts unless you have the proper time. that would be used to engage in sexton, such as this. and use it to site evening star or day star, accordingly. additionally you may have the stat meter. it's used to tell you the distance from a known height.

if you can sight on other ship's mass or water tower or lighthouse, they will tell you the distance that you are from that. an additional artifact is an -- it sits atop of a gyro come pass tri on the bridge wing. this allows you to look through the lens and use a prisonism to see it or the compass direction directly below, sound off of that information and then your assistant will write that down. if you sight on two different objects, you can come back in, and find your exact location if you're with inside a land. another cool piece of equipment is a -- it tells us the list of the ship from port to starter, as we roll back and forth. and heavy seas, i understand that during the typhoon, we listed up to 20 degrees. other ships did not fair as well, they were lighter and

succumb to the seas, actually rolled over. there is another type of clinometer here behind you that tells us the pitch of the shift, fore and after the. we have surface radar and ansps 64 allows us to see targets on the ocean or other vessels around us as the green scope goes round and round. we also see on the table some examples of the helmets that would be worn during combat. each one with their own label for the duty position, the person that's wearing that. the most important piece of equipment that's been removed. i'm going to move over here and show you a small shelf. this would actually hold the fuel that runs. we know that because there are instructions here on how many grounds to put per pot of coffee. we don't use diesel, we use coffee to run the navy. during the refit in the 1980s, this ship, our u.s. navy, is

caught in a die conmy of old and new equipment. we have allied nations who don't have the resources to upgrade their assets. so we're trying to step into the future with computers and other high-tech equipment. we also have to be able to communicate with other ships and other nations, as well as our older ships. this box over here is an omega radio receiver, which was system devised many years that had transmitters along the coast of friendly nations, as well as united states. and if you were within range of those radio transmitters, you could pinpoint your position with fairly good accuracy, using those radio try angulations. of course, today's navy, we don't need to do that. that's one of the reasons we have the sexton on board, should all other electronic communications fail, we still have a means to pinpoint our position. here we're going to look out over at the big guns on the 05

level. the 16-inch guns on the iowa class battleships are are the largest weapons put on naval ships in the united states history. 16-inch diameter round, about 5 feet tall, weighs 1,900 pounds for the high capacity round. there's an armour piercing round that weighs 2,700 pounds. these project tiles can be thrown 23 nautical miles. if you multiply that out, it comes to 26.4 statute miles. they're fairly accurate in that a single of all nine guns could land all nine rounds within about a 250 yard spread. however, the kill zone on that is out to 300 yards. it leaves a crater about 20 to 50 feet deep and about 30 to 50 feet in diameter. everything out to 200 yards has been turned to rubble. if i miss, i got you. a good gun crew could launch one

round every 30 seconds per barrel or two rounds every minute. it takes about 55 seconds for a single round to reach the maximum distance. think about that before the first round lands, the second one is on its way. an armour piercing round is designed to penetrate up to 30 feet of hardened concrete, and/or what we dish out. so the armour here of 17 inches, we, in theory, could pierce. that's pretty incredible. there are many variables that go into firing a single round, including our ship speed, our ship's course, the enemy speed and course, as well as the weather. in fact, we have to know if we're firing the maximum distance, how much the target has moved as the earth turns, those are just some of the variables that have to be considered when they fire a round into the enemy area. . on the wisconsin we arrived late because we were commissioned in

1844. we did assist with movement. on oklahoma oak gnaw what and supporting the landings there, as well as -- we fired on some of the factories and targets on mainland japan. during the khariian war era, we fired ton the supply routes that the koreans used along the coast. in fact, trapping a train in a mountain area. again i would like to speak to some of the changes. when they're being fired on the deck, on the main deck. in theory no one should be on the main deck. in world war ii, several gun tubs were mounted on top of it, too, and out in front of it. those guns would be manned, they were 40 millimeter dovers and/or 20 millimeter khans. those weapons were all over the ship and, in fact, we had 20, 40

millimeter guns. so those would be fired and men would be manning those guns all the time, even when the big guns were being fired it's difficult at best to lead in aircraft with a machine gun. and so a number of the weapons were removed. that is the forward gun, those were left the one closer to us. some of those weapons were remov removed. facing after the. here we're going to move to the missile deck after -- follow me. . another form of defense is to my left here, you have tap dispensers with different types,

foil, or fos forrouse that create a heat signature where the ship is not. they're sent out on to the ocean and hopefully will draw the incoming missile towards that. behind me we have the forward missile deck. and on the iowa class battleships, they put eight of these tommy hawk box launchers. the eight boxes have four missiles each for a total of 32. the traditional range for a regular war head is about 600 miles. however, the missiles could be equipped with a nuclear war head which could travel about 1,500 miles with pinpoint accuracy, a real feet in the modern age of 1980s. the area where i'm standing now is a missile platform for the tommy hawk box launchers, but previously in the korean war, there was an additional five-inch 28 mile weapon here.

as well as 40 millimeter gun tubs. we received a hit from a 155 millimeter, russian made gun, fired from one of the islands in korea that landed here in this area, three men were hurt, nobody was killed. however, it was the first time that this ship had ever been hit, the captain is rather upset. he, in fact, brought the ship about, brought all nine barrels to bear and let go a single salva. our es skort that destroyer nearby not aware of what was happening sent a message, temper, temper, we took out that embankment, that gun no longer existed. it was a bad day for that gun, captain. we sail on to complete our mission. this concludes our guided tour to recap we've seen a lot of the wisconsin battleship. we started on the bow and saw the big guns there and then we went through the command and

control tour where we fight and navigate the ship. thank you. >> one of the largest battleships built by the u.s. navy was launched in 1943 and saw service in world war ii through the gulf war.

it's now decommissioned and berthed in norfolk, virginia at the nautica center, we toured below deck to see where the crew lived and work while at sea. >> welcome aboard the battleship wisconsin, we are here in norfolk, virginia. we're going to go below decks and look at main street navy life and how some of the sailors lived here and reacted on this ship during the gulf war. we're also going to be joined by matt palmer, a veteran of the gulf war era. follow me. >> hi. my name is matt pomer. i'm former crew member of the battleship wisconsin. i served the navy for 30 years, battleship wisconsin is my fourth duty station. i was stationed aboard from 1990 to '91. had the honor and privilege of working with the crew members on board this magnificent battleip