The wreck of the USS Nevada, deliberately sunk by the US Navy in 1948, has been located in water nearly three miles deep, 65 nautical miles southwest of the Hawaiian island of Oahu.
The old battlewagon has been called the ship “too tough to die” following a career which began in 1914. The Nevada served in World War I and then was the only battleship to get underway during the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Hit by one torpedo and at least six bombs during the attack, she was grounded by her crew, but refloated and rebuilt. Her guns supported five major amphibious landings at Attu, Normandy, Southern France, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
After World War II, USS Nevada was used as a target for the first nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in July 1946, where it survived a 23-kiloton aerial detonation, as well as a second underwater detonation. Damaged and radioactive – but still afloat – the Navy formally decommissioned Nevada in August. Two years later, the Navy towed the Nevada out to sea near Hawaii for use as target practice. Five days of gunfire from other ships and bombing from planes was unsuccessful in sinking the tough, old ship, which was finally sent to the bottom by an aerial torpedo strike.
The exact position of the sunken ship was lost, which meant that the cultural resources management firm SEARCH Inc. and the marine robotics company Ocean Infinity had to deploy an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to survey a 100-square-mile area of the seafloor in order to find the lost wreck.
The search for the lost battleship was jointly coordinated between SEARCH’s operations center and one of Ocean Infinity’s vessels, Pacific Constructor. Pacific Constructor set sail for a range of commercial tasks in the Pacific in early 2020, ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the global health crisis, the ship has remained at sea.
Dr. James Delgado, SEARCH’s Senior Vice President and lead maritime archaeologist on the mission, said:
“Nevada is an iconic ship that speaks to American resilience and stubbornness. Rising from its watery grave after being sunk at Pearl Harbor, it survived torpedoes, bombs, shells and two atomic blasts. The physical reality of the ship, resting in the darkness of the great museum of the sea, reminds us not only of past events, but of those who took up the challenge of defending the United States in two global wars. This is why we do ocean exploration to seek out these powerful connections to the past.”
Tough old bird but the commander of that tank at the end must have been even more impressive.