Reflections on D-Day, thanks to Navy veteran

The other day at Walmart, I met a 93-year-old man wearing a WWII ball cap, waiting for his wife who was in a checkout line. I shook his hand and thanked him for his service. A Walmart manager offered him a chair and he gladly sat down. In our conversation I asked him what branch he was in and he told me that he was in the Navy. I asked what ship, and he said he was on the battleship Nevada.

Knowing that sea duty during WWII was very dangerous, I asked about some of his adventures. He said they sailed to Normandy, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, France and Japan. While we talked, several Walmart managers and employees came up, shook his hand, and thanked him for his service. The old vet graciously took the compliments but said he was just doing his job, and was glad to be home after the war.

When his wife completed her purchase, she joined us. I introduced myself and told her that we were telling war stories. She said while her husband was serving she heard many, and was glad when he came home from the war. I offered to interview him for a story here in The Press, but he declined. She told me that he has dementia, and would probably not remember too much about his service. He seemed OK to me, and we were just a couple of old vets talking about the war. I guess it’s about the experience that you share with fellow vets, no matter age or which war.

So, not being able to interview him about his service, I thought it would be appropriate to present some information about his battleship, the USS Nevada.

Launched in 1914, the USS Nevada (BB-36) was built using “dreadnought” technology featuring triple gun turrets, steam turbines for propulsion, and oil in place of coal for fuel. In WWII, she was based in Bantry Bay, Ireland as a convoy escort. In the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, she was struck by a torpedo, but managed to get underway to exit the harbor. Dive bombers severely damaged the easy target, so she was deliberately beached to avoid blocking the entrance to the harbor. Battleships Arizona, California, West Virginia, and Oklahoma, the sister ship to the Nevada, were sunk in the attack.

In February 1942, she was refloated and sailed to Puget Sound Navy Yard for a major overhaul. In May 1943, she departed to Alaska for fire support for the capture of Attu, a Japanese-held island in the Aleutian Chain. After that engagement, she headed to Norfolk Navy yard for modernization that allowed her to provide convoy escort in the Atlantic and fire support for amphibious assaults in Normandy, southern France, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. The salty old sailor said German submarines were the main threat to them as the Nevada provided convoy escort across the Atlantic.

She made way for the Normandy invasion, and arrived in April 1944. Her guns propelled shells some 20 miles inland to attack German troop concentrations. Some hit just 600 yards in front of Allied front lines, and “hurled salvo after salvo” at shore batteries. She was chosen by Rear Adm. Morton Deyo as his flagship for the operation, and was praised by her “incredibly accurate” fire in support of beleaguered troops. Adm. Deyo was the gunfire task force commander of WWII.

In February 1945, she provided fire support for our Marines at Iwo Jima. That March, she “pounded Japanese airfields, shore defenses, supply dumps, and troop concentrations” in a pre-invasion bombardment of Okinawa. In June, she joined the Navy’s 3rd Fleet and her guns came within striking distance of Japanese home islands in the closing days of the war.

After brief duty in Tokyo Bay, she returned to Pearl Harbor, where the Navy decided the tough old veteran, at 32½ years old, was too old for service, and assigned her to be a target ship in Operation Crossroads, the atomic experiments at Bikini Atoll, in July 1946. Unfit for service after being left radioactive and heavily damaged by the first atomic bomb, “Able,” she was decommissioned on Aug. 29 that year, and sunk by naval gunfire practice off Hawaii on July 31, 1948.

It was my pleasure to meet that humble sailor of the USS Nevada. He is an unsung hero who, along with a few others, secured the blessings of liberty and freedom for us, and our American way of life. I salute you with gratitude. Be well, my friend. God bless you and your family.

Anchors aweigh!

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Jack Evensizer is a resident of Dalton Gardens.