Why America Secretly Disgraced The USS Nevada

Operation Neptune commonly called Overlord or D-Day is one of the boldest amphibious invasions ever conducted but while the story of the soldiers Airmen and paratroopers often take Center Stage the naval component is equally fascinating it was a massive Armada one of the largest assembled in military history with perhaps one vessel standing out the USS Nevada yet somehow despite its miraculous history this ship ended up at the bottom of the sea after being used for target practice today we discover its history and Legacy I'm your host Ryan sokash and you're watching its history please [Music] the USS Nevada was as large as ships came when she was built launched in July of 1914 she was a mighty and one-of-a-kind ship with a displacement of 27 500 tons a modern All or Nothing armor scheme to protect only the most crucial parts of the boat making it light the ship also had 10 14-inch rifles and four turrets and yes I called her one of a kind although she did have a sister ship Oklahoma with the distinction being that the Nevada used the most modern steam turbine engines while the Oklahoma used the traditional triple expansion engines the finite differences aren't necessary for understanding the two ships though as a consequence of the designs compromises were made both could travel at 21 knots but because of the engine difference Nevada could sustain that speed for much longer and have a smoother ride during World War One the two served as crucial neutrality Patrol and later Convoy escort ships but when the United States eventually declared war against the Triple Alliance they and the other active American battleships in the Atlantic joined the grand Fleet they worked to deter the German Navy from running the North Sea blockade where they would face certain destruction against the combined weight of the French British and American navies between the two Wars Nevada and the Oklahoma would sail from the U.S Pacific Coast to New Zealand and Australia a move that alerted the Japanese that ultimately there was no distance American warships couldn't cross around this time the Nevada was again modernized removing her cage Mast and placing tripod Mass with better long-range detection changing the bridge superstructure and adding even more AA guns she moved to the new Pacific Fleet headquarters to Pearl Harbor when things were finished Nevada and Oklahoma would remain at Pearl Harbor rotating through Fleet problems and escalating series of War Games held by the Navy to prepare for the next large-scale War these exercises prepared the fleet for both Pacific and Atlantic War even without enemy fire the results of these war games left a significant impact on the captain's crew and ranking officers of the fleet but if you've heard of the USS Nevada before it wasn't because of those scarcely recorded Fleet problems it was because of what would happen later on the day that would haunt the U.S Navy forever before I go further I should preface this all by saying that our friends Indian Idol in time ghosts have already made an incredible minute by minute five hour long documentary on the events of D-Day it is the most comprehensive documentary and I cannot recommend watching it enough plus I took part in co-hosting some segments on location in France so definitely check that out and now let's get back to the Nevada on the morning of December the 7th Nevada moored along at the front of Battleship row with most ranking officers shore side either to be with their family or simply because the shipboard beds weren't as comfortable well this was true of many ships so much of Nevada's officer Corps was shore side that the officer on duty that morning was the damage control officer Francis Thomas his cool-headed command from the deeply armored Central Station and eventually from the bridge and the conning Tower would be crucial for what would happen next meanwhile the officer on Deck was Joseph talcic Jr his regular duties were ironically enough the anti-aircraft Commander perhaps with some insight into previous Naval exercises involving Air Raids at port or knowledge of the British Invasion at Toronto Italy he was constantly concerned about air attacks on the ship well at anchor usually each Battleship would have only one of its boilers operating to provide primary power while any additional need would be fed to the ship from Fort Island Shore this wouldn't be enough power to get them moving under their own steam but on Nevada and her alone Joseph had given an order before the attack began to light a second boiler this gave the mighty Dreadnought just enough power to get in motion and attempt to flee the attack or haunt the enemy Fleet Nevada leaving her Mooring lines and getting underway to Sea created a massive Morel boost for the sailors and Marines defending the other ships but her Escape would not be so easy seeing the battleship in motion Japanese Pilots immediately made her the primary target shifting their focus from her sister burning in Battleship row while underway she would take hit after hit by Japanese level and dive bombers taking shots to her midship focal and fuel tanks she was nearly hit in her 14-inch magazines like her sister Arizona still fortunately enough they were empty anyway due to be replaced with a more modern longer range shell later that very same day that didn't happen Thomas realized she was about to be sunk and had her eventually grounded at hospital Point only anchored safely by the heroism of Edward Hill who manually set the anchors free at the cost of his own life by Japanese strafing by the end of the attack Nevada had been struck so often that her Hull was too damaged for the Navy to even estimate how many bombs hit her if not for visual recollection her sister Oklahoma was struck by almost a dozen Torpedoes encapsized entirely now the salvaging of Nevada from hospital point is worthy of a video in its own right however for brevity the process required weeks of skilled steel wooden and concrete patching done almost entirely underwater by divers and equipment that could be best described as sub-optimal one patch that the Selvage effort had to make spanned several compartments from the Keel to the main deck and to make it more difficult it had to be wooden since there wasn't enough steel to add insult to injury however once all the patchwork was done it had to be removed because upon second measurement they realized it would have prevented Nevada from entering even the Harbor's deepest dry dock the entire process lasted weeks but eventually she was laid down in the dry dock in late February and patched as quickly as possible from there she was sent off to Puget Sound Navy yard for two months of detailed repairs and well-needed modernization station including adding as many anti-aircraft guns onto the decks as they could possibly fit as a cherry on top the Nevada was also fitted with a significantly improved sk2 anti-air radar Nevada would serve Convoy escort and Shore Patrol duties for most of the war deterring the surface elements of the kriggs Marine from taking to the Sea just as she did in the Great War it was quiet work but all that quiet ended on the morning of June the 6th 1944. from the fog of the English Channel USS Nevada took her station at 2 30 and began her massive preliminary bombardment just after 5 45 under the command of rear Admiral Morton Deo Nevada would continuously pound away at the German bunkers of Utah Beach even correcting her aim when the American forces realized that they'd landed at the wrong beachhead but a more tactical subtle one Nevada's primary task was destroying artillery pieces bunkers and most importantly a 12-foot concrete sea wall installed by German Engineers to repel infantry and tanks after a preliminary bombardment to eliminate enemy elements called in by the Army Airborne already in combat she set to work on Coastal fortifications whenever guns on the shore attempted to deter or Target the super Dreadnought she answered with overwhelming Follies of 14-inch armor-piercing shells one by one the artillery positions were straddled shocked and eventually destroyed eventually any threat to the ship and infantry was dealt with Nevada and her Cruiser escorts targeted the concrete sea wall with help from the fourth infantry division's combat engineers several holes were successfully blasted through and the American Army overran the German and conscript Garrison in brutal Close Quarter fighting in Normandy we were at General quarters for 80 hours non-stop recalls Richard Ramsey then a 20 year old Gunner's mate who went on to explain quote we had the honor of firing the first round at the Germans at the same time there was Seaman J given who loaded the five-inch guns and after each Salvo would hold up one hand which the crew interpreted as a signal to reload and fire but that wasn't exactly the case given had jammed his hand between one of the shells and his propellant charge causing one of his fingers to break severely almost being severed he continued loading and feeding the gun for over two hours before the crew officer realized what the signal really meant and sent him to Medical rapidly replacing him with another loader he had loaded over 30 tons of ammunition with a broken finger and wasn't hurt complaining even once for 80 hours the crew ate on Deck slept in short stints from the firing and supported the 4th 82nd and 101st divisions with precise overwhelming gunfire destroying bunkers field guns and two different Panzer platoons either attacking the beach or the Screaming Eagles she returned to Britain for ammo and did it all over again in the battle for cherborg and those ever valuable first days of the invasion Nevada secured success time and again Nevada's career would take her to new heights not even the most fast battleships could reach she fought in six major campaigns in World War II in fact after her repairs she was part of the fleet tasked with recapturing the Aleutian Islands the Atlantic Convoy Escorts Operation Overlord and the invasion of Southern France she would also go on to join the American Pacific invasions and while she wasn't the only American Battleship participating in Operation Neptune she was the only one at Pearl Harbor on the infamous Sunday morning unfortunately the good times quickly came to an end after capitulation of Japan after the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima the American Military and government members advocated for increased testing and demonstrations of the power of the American nuclear bomb resulting in operation Crossroads in July of 1946 when 95 super plus warships were assembled and lined with other Surplus equipment including trucks tanks and aircraft the former Japanese Flagship nagato a German Heavy Cruiser and the American Battleship Nevada were among the 95 fated ships Nevada the target for the airdrop test Abel was painted in bright orange to be evident from the b-29s bomb site however even by an unadjusted site or just bad luck Nevada was missed entirely and the bomb detonated just overhead a Navy auxiliary despite the bomb being of identical composition as the one that fell in Nagasaki with a yield of 20 kilotons of dynamite most other ships were undamaged with most radiation being mitigated and dispersed within a day and samples were taken from her her and other vessels a second test Baker on July the 25th tested an identical bomb in an underwater mine configuration the damage difference was staggering as a mild tall water column shot into the sky from the site reaching at least half a mile in width however only eight ships sank and eight more were damaged Nevada radioactive heavily damaged and 32 years old refused to die and what was likely unbelievable to many witnesses she defied death even when no one was on board to provide damage control unwilling to leave her there the US Navy towed her back to Hawaii where Iowa's modern Battleship used her one last time for target practice unleashing volley after volley against the old crippled warship even the mighty 16-inch guns of America's last great Battleship class couldn't finish that Dreadnought off Iowa departed for Pearl Harbor as air least Torpedoes finished the ship off and so it was she sank 65 miles off the Hawaiian Coast on the 25th of July she remained hidden for decades old alone and abandoned by her country the old Dreadnought was worked to the Bone written off and used as Target yet she remained defiant even in death found upside down but intact in 2020 by the ocean Infinity program whose mission was to ReDiscover America's lost warships and even here one more almost poetic irony remains for she wasn't entirely alone at the bottom of the ocean I previously left off talking about her sister after her sinking at Pearl Harbor but that wasn't the end of her Saga Oklahoma was known to be Beyond repair from day one of Selvage still after all the other wounded Giants were repaired and sailed away to war Oklahoma could finally be raised patched and taken to the continent at least the Navy assumed they could scrap her for her parts for the remaining Fleet fate intervened while she was being towed away however as the tugs came while they were 500 Miles off Oahu with Oklahoma's weight slowly increasing as the water went through the temporary patches in her Hull the tugs were at serious risk of being dragged under by the Dreadnought both were collecting water on their fan decks so they cut the lines and saved themselves Oklahoma however was lost at sea on May the 17th 1947 joining her sister at the bottom perhaps fate decided that the two ships had suffered enough and deserved to go in peace to the bottom rather than take the indignity of being scrapped and turned into lunch Trace in spirit the two sister ships still sailed together guarding Hawaii from its North and South and that'll do it for today but special thanks to our YouTube channel members for sponsoring this 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Channel: IT'S HISTORY

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Id: lGqQ3Zq7lx8

Length: 16min 7sec (967 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023