page_title: Nevada-class battleship
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Nevada-class battleship / Service history / World War II
caption_attribution_description: USS Nevada (BB-36) bombarding Iwo Jima, 19 February 1945. A North Carolina class battleship (probably USS Washington, BB-56) is in the left distance. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.
context_page_description: The Nevada class comprised two dreadnought battleships—Nevada and Oklahoma—built for the United States Navy in the 1910s. They were significant developments in battleship design, being the first in the world to adopt "all or nothing" armor, a major step forward in armor protection because it emphasized protection optimized for long-range engagements before the Battle of Jutland demonstrated the need for such a layout. They also introduced three-gun turrets and oil-fired water-tube boilers to the US fleet. The two Nevadas were the progenitors of the standard-type battleship, a group that included the next four classes of broadly similar battleships that were intended to be tactically homogeneous.
  Nevada and Oklahoma deployed to Ireland in 1918 to escort convoys during World War I but saw no action. After the war, they were transferred to the Pacific Fleet, where they spent most of the 1920s and 1930s. During this period, they conducted extensive training operations and made several long-distance cruises, including to Australia and New Zealand in 1925 and Oklahoma's voyage to Europe in 1936.
context_section_description: On the morning of 7 December 1941, the Japanese aircraft carriers of the 1st Air Fleet launched a surprise attack on the American fleet in Pearl Harbor. Oklahoma was struck by three torpedoes early in the attack and quickly began to capsize before receiving six more torpedo hits. As she rolled over, her superstructure prevented her from fully inverting and she came to rest on her port side. Her crew suffered heavy casualties in the sinking, with 20 officers and 395 enlisted men killed. Nevada was hit by a single torpedo in her bow early in the attack, but she nevertheless got underway, the only battleship to do so during the attack. She was hit by between six to ten bombs as she moved through the harbor and fears that she might sink in the channel out of Pearl Harbor, thus blocking the port, led her commander to decide to beach the vessel. She suffered relatively minor casualties, with 50 killed and 109 wounded. Nevada was refloated in February 1942 and was immediately dry-docked for repairs and modernization, while Oklahoma was too seriously damaged to be returned to service; she was righted in 1943 and partially dismantled in 1944 before being sold for scrap in 1946. While being towed from Pearl Harbor to San Francisco on 17 May 1947, she slipped her towing line and sank.
  After returning to service in 1943, Nevada was primarily used to support amphibious operations. She took part in the Aleutian Islands campaign in April and May, before returning to the United States for further modifications in preparation for her role as a bombardment vessel for the Normandy landings. She steamed to Britain in April 1944 to join the assault fleet, which conducted the landing on 6 June; Nevada remained off the beaches for the next eleven days to bombard German positions as the Allied soldiers fought inland, withdrawing only once to replenish ammunition. She and several other vessels from the bombardment force were sent to shell other ports in occupied France, including Cherbourg before being reassigned to the force tasked with supporting Operation Dragoon, the landing in southern France conducted on 15 August. During the landings, she shelled the damaged French fast battleship Strasbourg, which was at that time under German control, scoring hits that inflicted further damage on the vessel.
  Nevada then returned to the United States to have her badly-worn barrels relined before returning to the Pacific Fleet. She arrived in the advance base at Ulithi in January 1945 and began preparations for the next major operation, the landing at Iwo Jima the following month. She joined several other battleships for an intensive bombardment of the island for three days before the Marines went ashore on 19 February. The ship operated off the island providing fire support through 7 March, when she departed to prepare for the invasion of Okinawa. The initial bombardment began on 24 March and continued until the landing on 1 April, and Nevada remained off the island until 14 April when she was withdrawn for an overhaul. The ship returned for patrols in the East China Sea in July, though she saw no further action before the end of the war on 15 August.
  Worn out after nearly thirty years of service by late 1945, she was slated for disposal in nuclear weapons tests in November 1945. She was allocated to the fleet of target ships to be used for Operation Crossroads in January 1946 and she arrived in Bikini Atoll in May. The target fleet included several other battleships, including the captured Japanese vessel Nagato. Nevada was used as the aiming point for the first test, an air-dropped bomb on 1 July, because the Navy deemed her to be the most resilient of the battleships. The bomb missed the target and inflicted minimal damage. Another test, an underwater blast, was conducted on 24 July, which also failed to sink the ship. She was taken to Pearl Harbor to be examined and was ultimately sunk off Hawaii in conventional weapon tests in 1948.
caption: Nevada bombarding Iwo Jima in February 1945
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