Nevada at Pearl Harbor

Nevada was hit by one torpedo in the first wave, then got underway, which made her a prime target for the dive bombers of the second wave. They inflicted somewhere between five and ten more hits, causing her to be run aground and settle to the bottom. She needed extensive repairs before she could be returned to service.

I suppose it's a sailor's natural instinct to get to sea, but she might have better off staying where she was. The second wave was not targeted at Battleship Row; from what I've been able to gather, only California of the moored battleships took a hit at that point. Nevada might have gotten away with just the one torpedo hit, which was usually just a few months' repair job.

As it turns out, having Nevada back in action sooner wouldn't have made much difference to the war. The older battleships in the Pacific were not in action until 1943, supporting amphibious operations (Nevada was one of the first, at the invasion of Attu).

If Nevada had not needed major damage repairs, she probably also would not have gotten the partial reconstruction that she did, including features like a new secondary armament of twin 5"/38s in superfiring pairs. More likely she would have received incremental improvements like her half-sister Pennsylvania and other WWI-era BBs.

 

Interesting

Do you know what cruisers made it out during the attack? I assume the Phoenix, which is seen underway in a famous picture of the attack.

Maybe the Nevada tried getting out because they didn't know what was coming next. The Japanese fleet might have been closing on the harbor for all they knew, right?

 

Phoenix, her near-sister St Louis, and the old Omaha class Detroit. Also about a dozen destroyers. The heavy cruiser Minneapolis was just offshore; if you've seen the movie In Harms' Way you may recognize this as the group of ships John Wayne takes charge of.

 

what wave hit the Arizona?

 

First. The first wave had the heavy weapons intended to destroy capital ships, carried by B5Ns of the 1st and 2nd Carrier Divisions, 40 with torpedos and 49 with 800kg armor-piercing bombs like the one which destroyed Arizona.

The second wave, D3A dive bombers with 250kg bombs, were intended to hit other ships, but some of them went after Nevada when they saw her underway. They could not penetrate the armored deck over engines and magazines but inflicted enough damage, mostly in the bow, that it was decided to deliberately beach the ship.

Planes from the 5th Division, Shokaku and Zuikaku, were assigned to bomb airfields to suppress American air opposition. They sent their dive bombers in the first wave, before the target area was covered in smoke, and B5Ns bombing from high level in the second.

 

R, always interesting and good to get the specifics..

 

The Nevada was moored just behind the Arizona. If she had stayed there, what damage might she have suffered by the same wave of bombers that destroyed the Arizona? What damage might she have suffered from the fires and burning oil from the Arizona? Certainly her salvage would have been easier, the Nevada was the toughest of all the salvageable OBB's to refloat from where she was beached. IMHO though, the damage to the Nevada would have been greater had she stayed moored to the quays.

 

interesting idea....did more D-bombers/TBs/heavy bombers target her after she deployed?

 

No need to speculate, Nevada was at her mooring throughout the first wave attack and was not hit by bombs, although Tennessee, Maryland, and West Virginia were. Nevada got underway at 0840, just before the second wave arrived.

Burning oil is a better question. Oil from Arizona caused fire damage to Vestal alongside and Tennessee and West Virginia moored forward of her. Photos show smoke blowing towards Ford Island. It doesn't appear that Nevada was in the main path of oil, but she might have had some damage.

bronk7 - the torpedo planes and the level bombers carrying antiship bombs were all in the first wave. The level bombers in the second wave, when Nevada was underway, were targeted against airfields. Dive bombers of the second wave did attack Nevada.

 

Yes, and her war damage report talks a bit about this - they were kept turning at a speed equivalent to five to ten knots day and knight to push away the oil and hoses played water over her stern for that time as well (paragraph 5). Even with this, when she was put into drydock for repairs, "Considerable hull damage was done by the fires on the water from frame 104 to the stern on both sides. All plating above the waterline was warped and buckled, seams opened, and rivets loosened. When the ship obtained temporary repairs approximately 500 ft. of open seams and the points of 700 rivets were welded. Considerable recaulking was necessary. Regular ports in this area had the lenses fused, and gaskets burned out. The welding of one of the blanked ports pulled apart due to distortion of the shell. The main deck was buckled on the port side between frames 127 and 130, and deck planking was charred and burned from frame 136 to the stern."

Nevada's damage report is also interesting. Nevada made steam and headed for the ocean because she was ordered to, for one. Captain Harold Train, Chief of Staff, Battle Force, ordered all ships to sortie via signal flag and radio (paragraph 3 of "Commander Battle Force, Report for Pearl Harbor Attack"). She grounded not because she in danger of sinking, but because she had been bombed and her anchor gear wrecked as she was preparing to anchor - having received and order at 9AM not to leave the harbor (Paragraph 7 of the narrative at the bottom of page 3). She could not anchor at that point and there was a need to get her out of the channel as quickly as possible for the other ships that were leaving, so she beached near YFD-2 and Shaw.

AS the report puts it, " Widespread failures of water-tight integrity turned NEVADA into a salvage job." (paragraph 137).
"Known major sources of flooding were: (a) the lack of any watertight subdivision between the second and main decks from frame 30 to frame 115, which (b) allowed water to enter ventilation intakes in the "bull ring"; (c) the lack of tightness of the second deck itself; and (d) the general spread of water through ventilation systems."

With regard to the second deck,paragraph 139 said, "The second deck of NEVADA is composed of four laminations. It is patently impracticable to make this deck absolutely tight, no matter how much sealing material is forced between the laminations."

Another problem was the interface between the decks and turret barbettes:

"Connections of bulkheads to face-hardened barbettes are not entirely satisfactory from the standpoint of water-tightness under pressure."

It also did not help that her main magazines were flooded unnecessarily, increasing her draft by about 3 1/2 feet.

 

It would seam to me that since Nevada was already going to be in dry dock for a bit having her, a heavily armored moving target, attract the attention of many of the second wave bombers may have been a plus.

 

Wasn't Nevada the only battleship from Pearl Harbor to be at Normandy on D-Day?

 

Yes.

The other two US battleships there were Texas and Arkansas.

I just read an article about Texas during the landings. The sailors were at battlestations 24 x 7 until Friday June 9 without a break, providing fire support. They ate and slept as best they could. The ship was also anchored.

 

at night? what for? did they do fire support at night?? how much? even the AA mounts?

 

The other five Pearl Harbor survivors were at the battle of Surigao Strait in October 1944 and provided gunfire support for numerous Pacific landings from 1943-45.

Nevada and her sister Oklahoma were the first and smallest of twelve "standard type" battleships which formed the battle line of the US Navy at the beginning of the war. They were stationed in the Pacific since Japan was the likely naval opponent. The three New Mexico class ships were moved to the Atlantic in 1941 but returned to the Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Apparently in late 1943 someone decided that another battleship was needed in the Atlantic/Europe, and Nevada was chosen.

Our three older battleships, Arkansas, Texas, and New York were stationed in the Atlantic. They conducted neutrality patrols, escorted troop convoys, and were also used for training. Texas and NY supported the landings in North Africa and Sicily, and as Dave55 mentioned Arkansas and Texas were at Normandy and southern France, with Nevada. After that all four went to the Pacific for Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

 

I just pass on third hand information, I don't explain it
This was in a book of news dispatches sent in from a newspaper reporter. I don't remeber his name or the paper/agency he was with. He went from Normandy to Berlin with various American units. Today he would be called 'embedded'. I only read a few of the dispatches because I didn't care for his style.

 

You could do naval gunfire support at night, as long as the forward observer ashore could identify a target. For that matter even in daytime a bombardment ship is often shooting at targets she can't see herself.

AA weapons were less effective at night, particularly on the older ships, but we've probably all seen photos of huge volumes of tracer fire going up into the sky when air attack threatened. I expect the men just napped at their battle stations when things were quiet.

Getting back to Nevada, her refit included a modern secondary battery of 16 5" guns and, even more important, four Mark 37 directors, with radar, probably the best AA control system of the war. And of course all these ships had large numbers of 20mm and 40mm guns.

 

we had unit called ANGLICO, in the Marines<>I think it was Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company.,and I was in 81mike-mikes, so I know a little about how fire is called in........now that I think about-duh-that's what the Japanese did at the Canal.....but that was more of a big, area target, no??....I guess they could do more H and H fire....and I guess, even with air superiority, they still needed to be ready for AA action...but, to be at stations that long, sounds odd....

 

From what I've read about the goings on at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day, the Nevada getting underway and heading out was about the only bright spot in the activities on the US side of things. No doubt that just seeing her moving out inspired many defenders to fight on harder, knowing that someone finally got in gear after everyone getting the collective bloody nose.