In late April 2020, a collaborative effort between the American archaeology company SEARCH.inc and the maritime robotics company Ocean Infinity off the Hawaiian islands located the wreck of the venerable battleship USS Nevada.
Unlike so many other shipwrecks, Nevada was sunk as part of a four-day SINKEX by the US Navy in July 1948, after the ship had survived two nuclear detonations as part of the 1946 Operation Crossroads tests. It was an ignoble end for a ship that had been in commission for just over 30 years, served in both world wars, returned to service after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and then went on to fight in the Pacific, Northern European, and Meddeteranian theaters of the war.
Nevada's keel was laid in early November 1912, was launched in July 1914, and was commissioned into the US Navy on March 11th, 1916. During World War One, she remained on the eastern side of the Atlantic, since the Nevada class were the first fully oil-fired battleships in the US Navy, and fuel oil was in short supply on the British isles.
In August 1918, Nevada departed the United States for Bantry Bay, Ireland with her sister ship USS Oklahoma (BB-37). The battleships located there were in place to intercept possible German surface raiders before they could reach the convoy routes across the Atlantic. The ships of the Bantry Bay Squadron never saw action against the enemy in WWI, though they did suffer from the outbreak of Spanish Influenza in 1918, and after the war ended they escorted the SS George Washington (carrying President Wilson) into Brest harbor.
The 1920s were taken up with a range of training exercises and similar tasks in both the Atlantic and Pacific as part of the annual Fleet Problems. These large scale exercises were where the navy tested its strategic plans for wars against both European and Asian threats.
In 1929, Nevada went into Norfolk Navy Yard for an extensive reconstruction. During this, her deck armor was strengthened, her hull was bulged, her lattice masts were replaced with tripods, the submerged torpedo tubes were removed, and more anti-aircraft guns were added.
The 1930s continued the pattern of the 1920s, with more Fleet Problems in preparation for an ever more likely war with Japan.
On December 7th, 1941 Nevada was located at the end of Battleship Row, directly behind her near-sister ship Arizona. In the surprise attack, Nevada was the only battleship to get underway and was struck by between six to ten bombs and a torpedo.
Ultimately she was deliberately grounded and settled to the bottom due to detail failings of watertight integrity. But the shallow depth and her otherwise good condition allowed for a rapid salvage effort, and Nevada was in drydock on February 18th, 1942 for temporary repairs.
During the rest of 1942, Nevada was rebuilt again at Puget Sound Navy Yard, with new radar, more anti-aircraft guns, and a totally rebuilt superstructure. She left the yard in December 1942, and less than six months later Nevada was firing her main battery in anger for the first time.
The Japanese had invaded and occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska in early June 1942, and to prevent the Japanese from using them as bases for air raids against the rest of Alaska or the West Coast, Operand Landcrab was enacted to retake the islands. Nevada was part of the bombardment force for the invasion of Attu, opening fire against the dug-in Japanese on May 11th, 1943.
Despite the bombardment and close air support, the battle for Attu was slow and bloody, with many casualties due to exposure. Effective Japanese resistance ended on May 29th, when a banzai charge broke through the American line and the rear echelon troops were forced to fight for their lives against the Japanese. Less than 30 of the 2,900 Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner, the rest were killed in the fighting or committed suicide. 549 Americans were killed in the fighting as well.
After Attu, Nevada was transferred to the Atlantic where she sailed as an escort for convoys, until April 1944 when she departed Maine to join the bombardment group for Operation Overlord. At 0536 on June 6th, Nevada opened fire at German fortifications north of Utah Beach.
Over the 6th and 7th of June, Nevada fired 926 14'' shells and 3,491 5'' shells against German targets in occupied France, destroying fortifications, breaking up German formations, and destroying and damaging hundreds of vehicles.
Through the rest of June, Nevada bombarded targets in support of the invasion of northern Europe. On June 25th, she bombarded Cherbourg while evading and silencing German counterbattery fire. Despite more than 20 bracketing salvos from German guns, including at least one shell that was within 100 yards of her, Nevada suffered no casualties and only slight damage from shrapnel. She was given the nickname "Old Imperishable" for her accurate shooting and ability to evade damage.
On July 4th, Nevada went into the Mediterranean Sea to support Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France. It was during this operation that Nevada made the only hits on an enemy battleship of her career, hitting the French battleship Strasbourg on August 19th. She destroyed and suppressed several German gun batteries in that engagement despite the loss of her spotter plane, and in another engagement on the 24th, she knocked out four German batteries and damaged several others.
With her time in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean finished, Nevada returned to the United States for an overhaul and for relining of her badly worn guns. Her next combat destination was the Pacific, at an island called Iwo Jima.
During the bombardment of Iwo Jima, Nevada was the flagship of Rear Admiral Bertram Rodgers, an experienced and decorated officer who had commanded part of Operation Dragoon, and commanded the US forces during the inconclusive Battle of the Komandorski Islands in March 1943. In that battle, he was able to drive away a much superior Japanese force through skillful ship handling.
During the battle, Nevada opened the bombardment on February 16th, closed to within 3,000 yards of the island for close support of combat swimmers, executed direct fire on fortified positions with her 14'' guns, fired star shells to illuminate the battle at night, and was again straddled by enemy shells with no hits scored. She retired from Iwo Jima on March 7th for the next phase of the campaign against Japan.
Starting on March 24th Nevada bombarded the island of Okinawa to soften up Japanese defenses before the main landing. On the 27th, a D3A 'Val' dive bomber kamikazed into Nevada, killing 11 sailors and wounding 49 others, along with causing slight damage to Turret III, three 20mm guns, and her spotting aircraft.
Despite the damage from the suicide plane and five hits from a shore battery on April 5th, Nevada remained off Okinawa and supported the marines until April 15th when she sailed for Pearl Harbor for refit and repair.
During the rest of the war, Nevada continued the odd bombardment of Japanese targets and prepared for the anticipated invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. But the war ended, and after a handful of abbreviated assignments, Nevada was allocated for the Crossroads tests in 1946.
She was designated as the target ship for the Able shot on July 1st, 1946, and was painted bright orange to make her stand out amid the other ships. However, the bomb missed by more than 700 yards, causing significant damage to the superstructure and hitting the ship with enough radiation to have killed the entire crew in a matter of days. She remained afloat for Baker on the 25th of July, which contaminated her extensively.
As a result of the radiation, she was allocated as a target ship, alongside several other highly radioactive ships from the tests. On July 26th, 1948 she was towed to a position 65 nautical miles (120 kilometers) southwest of Pearl Harbor for the SINKEX.
Drawing of the pre-Crossroads modifications to Nevada, approved March 13th, 1946.
During World War Two, Nevada shot down eight aircraft (five Japanese, three German), fired 5,028 14'' shells, 18,297 5'' shells, 23,311 40mm shells, and 11,333 20mm shells. Her crew was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor (for actions at Pearl Harbor), 15 Navy Crosses, 2 Silver Stars, 10 Bronze Stars, 240 Purple Hearts, 1 Air Medal, and 3 Navy and Marine medals.
Details of the weapons tests against Nevada are not available, but at least the battleship Iowa, three heavy cruisers, and several destroyers made up the surface component. Aircraft fired rockets and dropped ASM-N-2 Bat bombs, and the finishing blow was from at least one air-dropped torpedo that struck on the port side.
On July 31st, 1948 Nevada rolled to port, capsized, then sank by the stern. Admiral DeWitt C. Ramsey, another veteran of WWI and WWII and current commander of the Pacific Fleet, said it best: "She was a grand old ship."
The US National Archives has archival video which includes some footage of Nevada being hit by torpedoes. This is linked directly below and starts at 2:08 and runs through the final plunge at 4:25.
National Archives Video of the SINKEX
The Wreck:
(Information current as of 05/15/2020)
Very little has been released about the wreck as of yet, a handful of photographs and less than five minutes of video. But what has been shown is enough to confirm the identity of the ship, and also shows some of the more unusual cargo she carried from Crossroads until the day she sank.
While the author does have a copy of Nevada's General Plans after her 1942 reconstruction, they are of her modifications pre-Crossroads and are of of poor quality. So a 1941 copy of the plans of Nevada's sister ship, USS Oklahoma, will have to suffice.
According to the National Geographic article about the discovery of the wreck, Nevada is resting at a depth of 15,400 feet (4,690 meters), upside down with the bow and stern missing, along with a debris field that extends roughly 2000 feet from the hull. However, the statement about the condition of the hull is confusing, as the stern is most of what has actually been documented and released to the public. It is possible that it detached, but without any clarifying photographs or sonar images, it is still rather unclear what the actual condition of the hull is.
This is the starboard side of the stern, showing the hull number [35] and the frame number [140]. The latter number was part of the paint scheme from Crossroads, allowing easy notations of where damage was aboard the ship.
Just visible on the left side of the frame is a sponson that was added in Nevada's reconstruction that carried a 20mm Oerlikon cannon. This sponson can be seen in the photo below on the right side of the frame.
Stern of USS Nevada (BB-36) off Norfolk Navy Yard, November 8th, 1944.
The drawing below shows the location of frame 140 relative to the rest of the ship, in this area on the second deck (the deck just below the weather deck), was a crew head just towards the bow, the lamp room right on the frame, and a storage area for training equipment just astern.
As built, the Nevada class had a 5''/51 gun located in a casemate right astern. It was prone to shipping water, so it was swiftly removed and the casemate plated over, leaving the distinctive notch in the stern.
This is a view of slightly farther astern, showing a portion of detached deck resting atop the sponson, a large amount of debris that at least partly comprised of the aircraft crane and catapult.
This image confirms that this is the starboard side, as the hash marks on the left side of the frame can be seen in photographs of Nevada just after Crossroads.
Photo taken July 8th, 1946.
It appears that Nevada slid stern-first into the seafloor, as the piled-up silt and mud falls away quickly from the stern as can be seen in the first photo of the wreck.
It is unclear where this is located, if it's attached to the hull or if it's in the debris field, but this is the remains of a 40mm gun position and it's attached director foundation. Based on the configuration of this one, it appears to be the one in the photograph below (cropped from a larger image). Originally positioned amidships on the starboard side between two of the 5'' mounts.
At one point, there would have been a Mark 37 Gun Fire Control System mounted atop this assembly to direct the fire of the 5''/38 mounts. Two of these, the forward and rear ones, remained aboard the ship for Crossroads. The rear director can be seen in the photo of Nevada's stern post-Crossroads (below) and was smashed during the four-day long SINKEX that sent Nevada to the bottom of the Pacific.
In addition, the Mark 51 gun director for the 40mm Bofors was also in place for the test and SINKEX (photo below cropped from above photo).
This was a gyroscopic sight that computed the required lead of a moving target so that accurate fire could be delivered. It was usable with the 40mm Bofors, the later 3''/50 AA gun, and the 5''/38, though it was designed for the Bofors and other guns required careful skill to compensate for the different ballistics.
The 40mm that is on the wreck is also of interest, as it is a Mark 1 open base ring mount (a twin mounting), instead of the Mark 2 mounts that are visible in wartime photos of Nevada (which were quad mounts). It seems that in addition to the removal of four of the 5''/38 mounts, the quad Bofors were replaced with twins.
Another significant part of the ship that has been shown is the foremast, now detached from the hull and laying on the seabed.
It appears this is most of the foremast above the bridge, including the searchlight platform that can be seen below, on the same level as the Mk 37 director.
The searchlights were extensively damaged in Crossroads, and seem to have been removed before the SINKEX in 1948. The cropped photo below shows how the pressures of the detonations totally destroyed the portside light.
Adding to the confusion about the wreck is this image of the hatch to one of the handling rooms for the 5'' battery. However, since this is the only image of this part of the ship, the sign over it is illegible, and the ROV seems to be vertical, at least this part of the ship is resting upright.
Last of all is something that many have found to be confusing, an overturned tracked vehicle.
This is a leftover of Operation Crossroads, which was a comprehensive test of all manner of equipment from ships, to food, to uniforms, to land vehicles. Exact documentation of what ships carried what is not available, but this particular tank can be identified as an M26 Pershing.
The six road wheels, the shape and position of the exhaust, and the hitch all confirm that this is an M26 medium tank. Additionally, in the documentary short film Operation Crossroads: Able and Baker Day Tests, it appears that this very tank is shown lashed to the deck of Nevada. The steel cables that held the tank in place can be seen laying across the underside of the tank.
There were several other vehicles of various kinds aboard Nevada, though pre-test photos and videos are often low resolution and don't show them clearly, and post-test photos and videos make it difficult to identify additional equipment amid the debris in addition to the issues with pre-test documentation.
But there are a few things that can be identified, such as the aforementioned Pershing. Vehicles aboard Nevada included an M36 'Jackson' tank destroyer, an M8 'Greyhound', a DUKW amphibious transport, a Jeep, some type of half-track (M3, M5, or M9), some type of towed artillery piece, and two Vought OS2U Kingfisher floatplanes.
The below photo shows the DUKU directly below Turret III, the M36 can be seen just to the left of the DUKW, and the roof of a smashed truck can be seen rising over the DUKW.
A clearer view of the damage can be seen below, with the M36 on the left side, the destroyed truck just to the left of Turret IV, the DUKW in the left foreground, and the M26 on the far right.
Even though the Able shot missed Nevada by just over 700 yards and did not cause lasting contamination to the ship, the acute burst of radiation from the bomb would have killed the crew in less than a week due to acute radiation sickness. The second shot of Operation Crossroads, Baker, was a submerged detonation and showered the ship in highly radioactive water. This precluded her from being scrapped and consigned Nevada to the target list for 1948.
As more photos and videos are released, this post will be expanded upon.
Sources:
On locating Nevada, the condition of the wreck, along with photos and video of the same:
https://oceaninfinity.com/2020/05/uss-nevada-located-by-search-and-ocean-infinity/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/05/uss-nevada-shipwreck-discovered-pacific/
https://youtu.be/cMfFxiwJJSE
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/uss-nevada-located-by-search-and-ocean-infinity-301056455.html
Shipboard Equipment, History, and Other Photographs:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/36a.htm - Historic photographs of Nevada
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/n/nevada-ii.html - Ship History
US Battleships: An Illustrated Design History, Friedman, Norman - Ship Design and History
https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=*:*&f.ancestorNaIds=53484621&sort=naIdSort%20asc - Record Group 19, Technical Drawings
https://maritime.org/doc/guncat/index.htm#toc - Armament Identification
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_4cm-56_mk12.php - 40mm Bofors Information
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-049.php - Mark 51 Director
Operation Crossroads and Related:
https://www.allworldwars.com/Operation-Crossroads.html
https://bikiniatoll.com/Ships.html
http://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/m26pershing.html
https://youtu.be/ADD8_2KO5Bk - Operation Crossroads: Able and Baker Day Tests
Thanks for clearing up where the tank came from, that confused me as well from the new broadcasts.
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