From Pearl Harbor to the Normandy Invasion: the USS Nevada's Forgotten History

d-day the Allied assault on Hitler's fortress Europe recurred 75 years ago this year the landings commenced On June 6th 1944 more than 150,000 Allied troops would be involved in the largest amphibious invasion in history landing at the points of northern France that were codenamed Utah Omaha gold Juno and sword of the nearly 7,000 naval vessels that supported this massive landing there was one that had already been sunk by the Axis powers three and a half years earlier the d-day contributions of the USS Nevada the only battleship to have been both at the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Normandy landings deserves to be remembered the landing area called Utah Beach was the point that was farthest west of the landings at d-day the goal was to cut off the Cotentin Peninsula in the hopes of capturing the port of Cherbourg which allied planners considered critical for supplying the European beachhead the attack on Utah Beach was led by some 21,000 men of the u.s. 4th Infantry Division supported by tanks of the 17th tank battalion Utah Beach and contrary to some apocryphal stories there is no special meaning to the name was defended by troops of the 709th static Infantry Division the division was made up largely of non-german conscripts and it was assigned to occupation duties and so was not as well-equipped or trained as most troops of the German army their combat effectiveness was further reduced as it's more veteran units have been transferred to the Eastern Front and the troops facing the 4th Infantry Division largely lacked combat experience they were not trained in mobile warfare they a little mechanized support still they were trained in static defense they knew their sector well in the area had been heavily fortified in an attempt to limit any landing the Germans had flooded the farmland behind the beach restricting the available travel even if the Allies could isolate that Cotentin Peninsula the port of Cherbourg had significant defenses including heavy guns Utah Beach included a formidable seawall that had to be breached for the tanks of the 70th tank battalion to be able to move inland the soldiers assaulting Utah Beach were fortunate during the pre battle aerial bombardment the area had low cloud cover instead of abandoning the mission the bomber group decided to attack from a lower altitude placing their planes at greater risk the decision meant that their bombing was more accurate and effective than it had been and other landing points for loss of only four bombers what's more the soldiers of the fourth Infantry Division had a significant naval bombardment group for support centered on the battleship USS Nevada Nevada had been the most modern paddle ship in the world when it was launched in July 1914 the first of the American standard type battleships that Nevada incorporated a number of important innovations it would be a part of all u.s. battleships that followed including an oil-fired steam power plant rather than coal boilers geared turbines and all-or-nothing armor which provided maximum armor over critical places like engines and magazines and none over less important places it's a lot better armor over critical points for less weight Nevada also was the first American battleship to mount three guns in a turret allowing it to about ten to massive 14-inch guns in four turrets two battleships of the class were built Nevada and Oklahoma both had been on battleship row on December 7 1941 Nevada had not been moored next to another battleship it was so so was the only u.s. battleship to get it away during the Japanese attack she was struck by one torpedo for aerial bombs taking on water she grounded near Fort Island to vent her sinking in deeper water thus Nevada was sunk in the first few minutes of America's violent entry into World War two along with the battleships Arizona California West Virginia and her sister ship Oklahoma Arizona whose magazine had exploded in Oklahoma struck by as many as eight torpedoes were too damaged for Salvage but the other three battleship sunk that day were raised and returned to service using massive cranes by mid February Nevada was refloated and repaired enough to sail to Puget Sound for repairs and modernization she was at sea again in October of 1942 participated in the Battle of Attu in Alaska in May of 1943 and after more modernization and convoy duty in the Atlantic was one of six battleships used to support the d-day landings along with the battleship Texas in Arkansas and the British battleships were spiked to ram Belize and Rodney Nevada the only battleship to be both at Pearl Harbor and at Normandy and the only battleship assigned to support the landings in Utah Beach had something to prove to the axis that had sunk earth three and a half years before the attack on Utah included proximately 14,000 paratroops of the u.s. 82nd 101st Airborne Division's the job was to take critical crossroads repent reinforcement or share Berg some of the heaviest fighting took place behind the landing points at places like st. Mary Gliese with the lightly armed paratroops who had suffered significant casualties and were dispersed in the landings desperately needed reinforcements the big guns of Nevada able to fire more than 15 miles would be critical in breaking up enemy formations and preventing them moving reinforcements behind the lines the invasion was massive Nevada crewman Ralf Potts told the Reno Gazette Journal in 2004 that you couldn't see the sky there's so many airplanes falling overhead Eugene kids Stewart first class and one of the support vessels was quoted in the Nevada State Journal of Reno Nevada in October of 44 one of the greatest convoys a naval history was to engage in the battle under the aerial protection of fortresses Spitfires p30 sevens and dive bombers which made a virtual floor in the sky fenced in by 24 miles of destroyers cruisers battleships supply in hospital ships Ellis T's PT boats and landing boats of all descriptions petty officer Franklin Sturgis on a Nevada Grand Cru said there was an immense thing to see something one could never forget the naval bombardment began at 4:45 a.m. 45 minutes before each hour according to some reports that Nevada was among the first of the Allied Armada to come under fire a close call that straddled the ship planting shells on either side Nevada's captain pal RIA said we got it on that particular spot damn fast but then came two vadas turned kid recalled I saw the battleship Nevada was the first to fire with any results on the shore knocking out two batteries in a quarter of an hour petty officer Sturgis quoted in the Berkshire Kelly Eagle of Pittsburg Massachusetts he explained our job was to drench the beast with gunfire before troops landed and to knock out enemy strongpoints afterwards one of the first priorities was to knock holes in the Utah beaches seawall otherwise the tanks of the 70th armored battalion would be stuck on the beach Nevada's 14-inch guns lobbing 500-pound shells filled with TNT quickly knocked four huge holes in the wall but the Germans had nearly 70 different gun emplacements in the fortified area the shells were coming close crewman pots recalled we were getting shelled so close that we had to be like soldiers on foxhole I was on the port side had to go over to the starboard side to keep him getting splashed because the shells were getting too close the firing was heavy pots recalled the guns got so hot that they got splashed with water they sizzled the first troops and tanks to the beach were drawn farther south by the tide than they expected hitting the beach some 2,000 yards from their assigned landing zones the mistake turned out to be fortunate as the tided dragged away many of the dangerous beach obstacles among the troops was the most senior Allied officer to land on the beach on d-day brigadier general Theodore Roosevelt jr. the son of the former president and an assistant division commander of the 4th Infantry Division he quickly appraised the situation and determined that the accidental landing spot was superior to the original plans and ordered further landings they're saying he decided to start the war from right here but the beach was protected by two Germans strong points composed of heavy guns under massive concrete casemates near the french hamlet of adun d'Ivoire vey the casemates were manned by soldiers of the 1st battalion of the Grenadier regiment 1919 and mattered the dreaded German 88 8 point 8 centimeter guns as well as numerous other pieces the strong points had to be neutralized and were protected thousands of troops on their way troops of the 3rd battalion of the 22nd Infantry Regiment accompanied by Sherman tanks at the first Platoon of company a of the seventh or 46th tank battalion attacked the bunkers but the 75 millimeter guns of the tanks had no effect on the heavy concrete the assault was driven back losing a tank to the 88 and so they called in the mighty 14-inch guns of Nevada after pounding the two massive casemates and forcing the Germans to retreat riah ordered Nevada to move in another 1,100 yards this was not just not only allowed for 14-inch guns to better support the paratroopers desperately holding positions inland but allowed the Nevada to bring her batteries a 5-inch in twin forty millimeter guns into range pounding the pillboxes and machine guns and other secondary fortifications along the beach seaman first class J given of Lee's Summit Missouri was a loader and one of the 5-inch guns his crew officer noticed that after each round given held up his right hand the officer assumed that the signal meant okay continued feeding the gun in fact in the fast loading Gibbons had been cut at dibbens hand had been caught between two shells his finger was broken nearly severed in the first two hours and ten minutes of firing given loaded twenty six thousand seven hundred thirty pounds more than 30 tons of 5-inch shells with the broken finger until someone figured out what his signal meant and he was replaced despite the injury he never let the fire falter another crewman loaded over eight hundred shells weighing 70 pounds each over a period of four hours without relief Sturgis recalled I work hard passing ammunition we slept on the deck and 8k rations that was how the entire crew fought the battle war correspondent aboard Nevada said of them these were men who slept only an hour or two during all this time sat for 15 minutes at a time sitting upright in radio rooms set for half an hour at a time sprawled over one another on the gun mounts Nevada at times the only artillery available inland was renowned for the accuracy of its fire its missions were critical to the lightly armed airborne troops trying to hold causeways and cross roads now being assaulted by German Armour a firing mission on June 8th was called to attack a formation of 90 tanks and 20 lorries and then bombard the road that they had used to get there in 20 minutes they were told by the spotter fire very effective all tanks and lorries destroyed or damaged none got away ship was able to fire with such accuracy because of the close coordination between Navy and Army as the dando morning news of Danville Pennsylvania explained in July of 1944 each army battalion was assigned a fire control party consisting of one naval and one army officer and twelve army enlisted men who were technician skilled in radio communications the Navy men were given RV army training and the army men were given Navy training to the extent that all the men in the unit understood both the problems of the ground and sea forces in the operation an army spotter near st. Mary's 1st lieutenant Joseph hull was contacted by a patrol paratroopers trapped by a concentration of dying enemy tanks hulls head I contacted the Nevada and the second salvo hit the first two tanks in line that was some shooting so I called for rapid fire and in the short while the Nevada head scored direct hits on seven of the tanks the two remaining tanks were destroyed by exploding ammunition from the others army fire control officer First Lieutenant William V French said the Nevada shooting was the prettiest sight of the war as far as the paratroopers were concerned those guns cleared out that road like a bulldozer the vatta's fighter was so accurate that times it was firing 15 miles to hit targets less than five hundred yards from allied troops when Spahn are called in the location of 155-millimeter battery in less than an hour the plane spotting reported guns shelter headquarters all completely destroyed they've had a continue to attack troop concentrations making up counter attacks and disrupting German attempts to reinforce Cherbourg other the time a spotter called in a battery of four German guns Nevada straddled the guns at just two shots completely silencing the battery in less than twenty minutes the Nevada had done so from astounding seventeen and a half miles away from the start of the bombardment the crew of the Nevada was at General Quarters the crew was at battle stations firing their guns for 80 hours straight the Boston Globe described the more than 1214 inch shells fired in the first six days of the invasion as approximately one and a half million of your war bonds that couldn't be better spent the day via Morning News of Danville Pennsylvania opined that the Slugger of the ships which made the assaults on the shore positions in France was the Nevada the battleship has become legend among the thousands of doughboys in France and in perhaps the most direct complement regarding the Navy's role at d-day Lieutenant Colonel Joe Rutter or the second Raider battalion said tell the Navy we love them the assault on Utah Beach was costly the paratroopers have suffered some 2,500 casualties and another 700 men died at sea but the fourth Infantry Division landed 21,000 men on the beach in Utah for a cost of only 197 casualties a stunning fact for which the heavy and accurate fire of the USS Nevada deserves some credit her heavy guns would be needed again just a few days later for the assault on Cherbourg and then later in August and the second d-day the attachments of the France called operation Dragoon before she was sent to the Pacific and participated in the bombardment in the Battle of Okinawa after the war more than thirty two-years-old the Navy decided that Nevada was simply too old to retain but she proved difficult to sink she survived not one but two atomic blasts one of which she was literally painted orange because she was supposed to be the target of the bomb and then she did not sink she was hauled to Hawaii used for target practice by the USS Iowa failed the sinker finally she was sunk by an aerial torpedo stubborn to the last I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets a forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 396,336

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, us navy, military history, us history, world war ii, wwii, uss nevada

Id: 6Nvq9n_QUZY

Length: 13min 57sec (837 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019