Battleship Wisconsin: Wis + Ky = “Wisky”

Battleship Wisconsin: Wis + Ky = “Wisky”. . A distinctively bulbous bow, coupled with the lengthy slender hull below the waterline, enhanced the capacity of a 212,000 horsepower propulsion plant to push the 45,000 ton battleship Wisconsin through the water for speeds exceeding 33 knots. Swift sailing and difficult to stop, Wisconsin was involved in a serious collision with an escorting destroyer USS Eaton (DDE-510) on a foggy Sunday afternoon off Hampton Roads on 6 May 1956. Following the mishap, the heavily damaged Eaton and Wisconsin returned to Norfolk for repairs., The mangled Wisconsin bow was replaced after workers at Newport News Shipyard and Dry Dock Company removed the bow from the unfinished Iowa Class battleship Kentucky (BB-66) within a stunning forty-eight hours. Over the next sixteen days, Norfolk Naval Shipyard workers fitted a 120 ton section of the Kentucky bow to the Wisconsin hull. Above the anchor wells, the bull-nose is original to Wisconsin while a sixty-eight foot section from bulbous bow back aft is from Kentucky., Crew members of battleship Wisconsin lovingly referred to their ship as the “Wisky” since the ship was commissioned in the spring 1944. The nickname was used by sailors in World War II, the Korean War, throughout the Cold War, and during the Persian Gulf War. After Wisconsin was fitted with the Kentucky bow, however, one sea-tale suggests that the nickname refers to the “WIS” in Wisconsin and “KY” in Kentucky, resulting in “WisKy.”