Transcription
Have you ever wondered why nobody talks about the battleship that fought at Pearl Harbor, survived D-Day, outlasted two atomic bombs, and was then sunk by its own country?
I do not mean why she fought. If you are watching this, you probably already know about Pearl Harbor. What I want to know is why a ship with one of the most extraordinary survival stories of the entire war is almost completely forgotten today. Because the answer is not what you would expect.
But before I continue, I am genuinely curious where you are watching this from. Does anyone here have a connection to Pearl Harbor, or know someone who served on one of these ships? And honestly, do you think that USS Nevada ever got the recognition she deserved? Drop it in the comments.
The USS Nevada is the only American battleship to have been present at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, and at the Normandy landings on June 6th, 1944. The Nevada fought in both World Wars. The USS Nevada survived a torpedo, six bombs, a kamikaze, artillery fire, and two atomic blasts. No enemy ever managed to sink the Nevada in combat.
Today, the USS Nevada is sitting on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, 65 mi from Pearl Harbor, 15,000 ft down, alone. Her memorial at Pearl Harbor is a small plaque in a quiet residential corner of a military base that most visitors cannot reach without an escort. The Arizona gets 2 million visitors a year. The Nevada gets almost none. Here is how that happened.
The Nevada was commissioned in 1916. The USS Nevada was the oldest battleship at Pearl Harbor on the morning of the attack. Every other battleship on Battleship Row was moored alongside another ship, which meant none of them could maneuver. The Nevada was moored alone at the end of the row. That single fact saved her.
When the first Japanese torpedo hit the Nevada's port side at 8:03 in the morning, the crew did something no other battleship crew managed that day. They got the engines running. Chief Boatswain Edwin Hill led his men onto the dock under fire, cast off the mooring lines, then jumped into the burning water, and swam back to the Nevada as the wreck began to move. Hill made it back aboard. Hill was killed shortly after while attempting to drop the anchors during the second wave of the attack. Hill was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
The Nevada began moving down the channel past the burning Arizona, which had already exploded. Burning oil from the Arizona was spreading across the surface of the water toward the Nevada's bow. Japanese pilots in the second wave of the attack spotted the Nevada moving and understood immediately what it meant. If they could sink the Nevada in the narrow harbor entrance channel, they could trap every surviving American ship inside Pearl Harbor. Every available Japanese bomber turned toward the Nevada. The Nevada took six bombs in the next few minutes. Her bow was driven down toward the water. 57 of her crew were killed, but the Nevada did not sink. The crew beached the Nevada deliberately at Hospital Point to keep the wreck out of the channel. The Nevada refused to go down. That decision, made under fire by the Nevada's crew, kept Pearl Harbor open. American ships could still leave the harbor. It was, according to historians at the time, the only bright spot in an otherwise dismal and depressing morning.
Here is where the story should have ended. The Nevada comes home. The Nevada gets repaired. The Nevada earns her place in history and is remembered forever. That is not what happened.
Two months after Pearl Harbor, the Nevada was refloated. The Navy repaired and fully modernized the Nevada on the West Coast, fitting the wreck with new radar, new guns, and new fire control systems. By late 1942, the USS Nevada was back in service. The ship that had been torpedoed, bombed six times, and beached at Pearl Harbor was fighting again.
In June of 1943, the Nevada helped retake the Aleutian Islands from the Japanese. Then in June of 1944, the USS Nevada crossed the Atlantic and arrived off the coast of Normandy, France, for the largest amphibious invasion in history. On D-Day, June the 6th, 1944, the Nevada's 14-in guns bombarded German tank formations and fortifications along Utah Beach. Allied commanders praised the Nevada for what they called incredibly accurate fire, hitting targets just 600 yd from the front lines. The Nevada was the only American battleship in history to fight at the Pearl Harbor and Normandy.
After Normandy, the USS Nevada went back to the Pacific. The Nevada supported the invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945. The Nevada supported the invasion of Okinawa in April 1945. At Okinawa, a Japanese kamikaze hit the Nevada's starboard side. A few days later, a shore battery opened fire and landed five artillery rounds into the hole before the Nevada silenced it with 71 of her own 14-in shells. Through all of it, the Nevada kept fighting.
By the time the war ended, the Nevada had served in more major operations than almost any other American battleship of the Second World War. Pearl Harbor, the Aleutians, Normandy, Southern France, Iwo Jima, Okinawa. No enemy had ever managed to sink her in combat. And then the United States Navy painted her bright orange.
After the war, the Navy looked at its fleet and decided which ships were too old to keep. The Nevada had been commissioned in 1916. The USS Nevada was 30 years old. In a fleet of newer, faster, more powerful ships, the Nevada had no future. The Navy needed to do something with her.
In July 1946, the United States conducted a series of atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The tests, known as Operation Crossroads, were designed to study the effects of nuclear weapons on warships. The Navy assembled a fleet of target vessels and anchored them in the lagoon. They needed a central aiming point for the first bomb bomb. They chose the Nevada. The Navy painted the Nevada bright international orange so the B-29 pilot dropping the bomb could not possibly miss her. The Nevada was placed at the exact center of the target fleet. Dozens of other ships were anchored in a circle around her.
On July the 1st, 1946, a 23-kiloton atomic bomb was dropped from a B-29 above Bikini Atoll aimed directly at the USS Nevada. The bomb missed. The bomb detonated nearly half a mile off target. Five ships nearby were sunk. The Nevada, the designated aiming point at the center of the blast, was damaged but still afloat. Three weeks later, on July the 25th, a second atomic bomb was detonated underwater directly beneath the target fleet. Nine more ships were sunk. The Nevada was still floating.
The Navy now had a problem. The Nevada had survived Pearl Harbor. The Nevada had survived D-Day. The USS Nevada had survived Iwo Jima, Okinawa, a kamikaze, and two atomic blasts. But the wreck was also now heavily damaged and dangerously radioactive. The radiation had soaked into the metal, into every surface of the ship. Decontaminating a battleship of that size was not something anyone knew how to do. The cost would have been enormous and the result uncertain.
On August 29th, 1946, the USS Nevada was formally decommissioned. After 30 years of service, the Nevada was struck from the naval vessel register. The ship that had fought in two world wars, survived Pearl Harbor, and refused to sink under two atomic bombs was declared surplus.
For nearly 2 years, the Navy tried to work out what to do with the Nevada. The USS Nevada could not be sold. The wreck could not be scrapped easily because of the radiation. The Nevada could not be preserved. Nobody offered to pay for it. Nobody organized a campaign. Nobody held a fundraiser the way other ships had. The Nevada Association and the Pacific Central Navy League eventually scraped together enough money for a small memorial plaque. That was all.
On July the 31st, 1948, the Navy towed the Nevada 65 mi southwest of Pearl Harbor and used the wreck as a target for a naval gunfire exercise. The battleships Iowa and New York opened fire. Aircraft dropped bombs. For 4 days, the Nevada absorbed everything they threw at her. The USS Nevada would not go down. Finally, a single aerial torpedo found its mark. The Nevada sank at 2:15 in the afternoon. She went down in 15,000 ft of water. No ceremony. No memorial service. 65 mi from Pearl Harbor, alone. The United States Navy had finally done what the Japanese never could.
A former crew member later said, "It seemed that we of the Nevada had lost a dear friend. More than that, a family member. Indeed, a surrogate mother." Another veteran, a boatswain's mate who had served on the Nevada through Normandy and Iwo Jima and Okinawa, said simply, "They should not have sunk that ship. In my opinion, it should be tied up next to the Missouri."
Today, there is a small memorial plaque at Hospital Point on Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam, near where the Nevada beached herself during the attack. The plaque sits in a quiet residential part of the base. The Nevada Memorial is not listed on the main Pearl Harbor Memorial website. The Nevada Memorial is not included on any commercial tour. Most people who spend a day at Pearl Harbor never know it exists. 2 million people a year visit the USS Arizona Memorial. The Arizona stayed where she sank. The Arizona has a white marble memorial above the wreck, a flag raised and lowered every day, and the largest annual attendance of any war memorial in the Pacific.
The Nevada came home. The Nevada survived everything. The USS Nevada fought longer and in more theaters than almost any other American battleship of the war. And today, the Nevada is at the bottom of the Pacific, 65 miles out, 15,000 ft down, with a plaque that most people will never see. The ships we remember are the ones that stayed. The Arizona never left. The Missouri is tied to a dock. The Nevada came back, kept fighting, survived everything thrown at her, and was used up and disposed of when there was nothing left to ask of her.
In May 2020, the wreck of the Nevada was located for the first time by a research team using an underwater vehicle. The hull is lying upside down on the seafloor. The main turrets are scattered across a debris field. The number 36 is still partially visible on the stern. That is why the USS Nevada is still forgotten. Not because her story is not remarkable, but because remarkable is not always enough.