Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "From Pearl Harbor to the Normandy Invasion: the USS Nevada's Forgotten History" video.

The Nevada's 14" rifles had a tested range 19.89 miles. Luckily for the troops ashore on D-Day, Nevada had been refitted at the start of 1944 with the most modern fire control radars. She was able to provide danger close gunfire support better than an any other battleship that day. As she moved closer to shore she was able to bring her ten 5" guns to bear as well. So many 5: shells were fired that some sailors from the gun crews from the 5" turrets on the non-beach side of the ship had to be used to toss enough empty brass overboard so sailors could actually walk on the decks. She then stayed offshore shelling other German positions until the end of June before proceeding to New York for a reline of her worn out gun barrels. After her refit and adding even more modern gun direction radars she proceeded to the Pacific and continued her gunfire support role off Iwo Jima, shelling Japanese positions within 100 yards of advancing Marines. After Iwo, she then proceeded ot Okinawa and again shelled Japanese positions. She was struck by a Kamikaze on March 27, 1945 and was hit by five armor piercing shells from a Japanese shore battery on April 5. She was able shrug off the damage to continue on the gunline until April 19 before proceeding to Pearl Harbor for a quick repair and barrel relining again. She was back at Okinawa by early June and was then assigned to shell high value targets in coastal Japan. She was able to destroy everything from steel plants to shipyards in preparation for the invasion of Japan. It's possible Nevada may have been the last battleship to fire her main battery guns in anger for WWII. She was offshore from Japan firing at a Japanese airfield. Word of the surrender came just as full broadside was on its way. As far as I can find out, no other battleship had a gunfire assignment that day. She fought from the very first to the very last day of the war. She survived sinking at Pearl Harbor, being hit by German and Japanese shore batteries, and shot down at least 17 Japanese planes before and after being hit by a Kamikaze. She fired 5,028 14" rounds, 18,297 5" rounds, 23,333 40mm rounds, 13,311 20mm rounds.over the course of the war. She was then used as the ground zero target for the air dropped during the first Bikini atomic bomb test, as second bomb that was exploded underwater about 300 yards from Nevada. Not only did Nevada survive both bombs but, if she wasn't so intensely radioactive, her boilers could have been fired up and she could have proceeded under own power. She was then towed and anchored offshore Pearl harbor until late July when she was towed about 200 miles offshore to be sunk as an ordnance target. On July 31 she was subjected to almost six hours of naval gunfire from 3" to 16" guns and being hit by at least five aerial torpedoes. Only after this battering did the old but reliable Nevada slip below the waves to her final resting place about 1900 feet deep in the Pacific Ocean.
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@TermiteUSA Thanks. I lived in Nevada for a number of years and grew quite fond of the old girl. The Nevada State Museum in Carson City has an excellent exhibit on her.
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@AFO1 No, Nevada was indeed sunk. She was initially beached to prevent her immediate sinking, but the ebb tide displaced the hull enough she slid off the beach and settled on the shallow floor if the harbor. Because the crew had corrected her list by counter flooding before that happened, she appeared to still be upright in the water .If this had happned in deeper water, she would have sunk out of sight. She was allowed to remain in her position until refloated on February 12 to both act as a stationary antiaircraft battery and fool any Japanese reconnaissance flights that Nevada was still in service and not sunk. Remember also that Nevada and her sister Oklahoma had two twin upper turrets. It was these two barrels in her twin #3 turret that were relined and replaced by the twin barrels from Oklahoma , not Arizona . It was much easier to replace the relined barrels and cradle from the same type of turret than it would have been to try to refit them with from one of Arizona's triples.
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@studinthemaking Well, yes, but that was after surviving two atomic bomb explosions at Bikini and a pounding by gunfire from three battleships for six hours two years later when used as a target again.. That's when the torpedo bomber was called in to try to finish her off, which it succeeded in doing. Given the massive damage she had already received, it's hardly surprising it only took one torpedo.
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@studinthemaking Do you mean wg=hen she was a target at Bikini? If so, she was struck by at least five torpedoes during that operation. If you mean Pearl Harbor, it was a combination of that one torpedo and at least six and possibly ten 250 kg and 500 kg bombs.
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