Battleship Row – IOTW Report

Battleship Row

USS Nevada

The USS Nevada was moored behind Arizona on December 7, 1941, and was the only battleship to get underway that morning. Though she was run aground off Hospital Point to avoid blocking the channel, the effort to escape boosted morale among service members that day.

After many missions in the Pacific, Nevada was sent to Europe. On June 6, 1944, she served as the flagship for the D-Day invasion. The USS Nevada was the only ship present at both Pearl Harbor and Normandy. See the others HERE nps.gov

15 Comments on Battleship Row

  1. It’s an often overlooked fact that the best thing that happened to the US Navy’s battleships is that all but two of them were salvaged in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor after the attack on December 7th. If they had sailed out to meet the Japanese Navy in combat, most of these battle wagons would have gone to the bottom of a very deep ocean or sea in the vast Pacific. The battles off Guadalcanal proved that the Japs were much better at night fighting and coordinating surface vessels in combat. Pearl Harbor forced the US Navy to fight the war in the Pacific with aircraft carriers, and the result was the Japanese were forced on the defense and never won another battle involving carriers.

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  2. Hey Mayor Pete:

    Where can you find pleasure
    Search the world for treasure
    Learn science technology
    Where can you begin to make your dreams all come true
    On the land or on the sea
    Where can you learn to fly
    Play in sports and skin dive
    Study oceanography
    Sign up for the big band
    Or sit in the grandstand
    When your team and others meet
    In the navy
    Yes, you can sail the seven seas
    In the navy
    Yes, you can put your mind at ease
    In the navy
    Come on now, people, make a stand
    In the navy, in the navy
    Can’t you see we need a hand
    In the navy
    Come on, protect the mother land
    In the navy
    Come on and join your fellow man
    In the navy
    Come on people, and make a stand
    In the navy, in the navy, in the navy (in the navy)
    They want you, they want you
    They want you as a new recruit
    If you like adventure
    Don’t you wait to enter
    The recruiting office fast
    Don’t you hesitate
    There is no need to wait
    They’re signing up new seamen fast
    Maybe you are too young
    To join up today
    Bout don’t you worry ’bout a thing
    For I’m sure there will be
    Always a good navy
    Protecting the land and sea
    In the navy
    Yes, you can sail the seven seas
    In the navy
    Yes, you can put your mind at ease
    In the navy
    Come on be bold and make a stand
    In the navy, in the navy
    Can’t you see we need a hand
    In the navy
    Come on, protect the motherland
    In the navy
    Come on and join your fellow man
    In the navy
    Come on be bold and make a stand
    In the navy, in the navy, in the navy (in the navy)
    They want you, they want you
    They want you as a new recruit
    Who me?
    They want you, they want you
    They want you as a new recruit
    But, but, but, I’m afraid of water.
    Hey, hey look
    Man, I get seasick even watchin’ it on the TV!
    They want you, they want you in the navy
    Oh my goodness.
    What am I gonna do in a submarine?
    They want you, they want you in the navy
    In the navy
    Yes, you can sail the seven seas
    In the navy
    Yes, you can put your mind at ease
    In the navy
    Come on be bold and make a stand
    In the navy, in the navy
    Can’t you see we need a hand
    In the navy
    Come protect the motherland
    In the navy
    Come on and join your fellow man
    In the navy
    Come on be bold and make a stand

    2
  3. BB-36 was the first US battleship to use oil instead of coal for fuel, and the first to use all-or-nothing-amour, which perhaps made her so difficult to sink. The Fore River Shipyard in Mass. (At the time owned by Bethlehem Steel) built her well with a touch of good luck & tenacity included.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_or_nothing_(armor) .

    On the back side of Ford Island rest the USS Utah. When I was stationed at PH there was no memorial pier by the ship as there is today. But sailing on my own Hobiecat 16 or with friends on their boats I sailed past the Utah many times. Only the side and part of the deck visible. In 2014 divers filmed the submerged part.

    https://www.dvidshub.net/video/369019/underwater-images-uss-utah-memorial .

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  4. USS New Jersey, Iowa Class, launched one year to the date of 12/7/41 in 1942. While not at Pearl harbor this ship certainly made up for them!

    “New Jersey’s final contribution to the conquest of the Marianas was in strikes on Guam and the Palaus from which she sailed for Pearl Harbor, arriving 9 August. Here she broke the flag of Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr.,[12] 24 August, becoming flagship of the United States Third Fleet. On 30 August New Jersey set sail from Pearl Harbor, and for the next eight months was based at Ulithi to lend support to Allied forces operating in the Philippines. In this span of the Pacific War, fast carrier task forces ranged the waters off the Philippines, Okinawa, and Formosa, making repeated strikes at airfields, shipping, shore bases, and invasion beaches.[8]

    Currently moored in Camden, NJ for anyone in the area…

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_New_Jersey_(BB-62)

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  5. Dad spent the first 2 years of the war in Atlantic fighting Marxists. Which is why I was not born in Cal As my ancestors. Last 3 years he fought Japs on BB57, Such Dakota. so my sister was born in Frisco.

    I had 4 uncles in the war, all fought the Japs! I’v said it before here, and 10 years ago on Rusty’s blog – it has been gone so long I forgot the name, Star Wars related – the NYTimes called my kin Xenophobic, white nationalists for fighting the Japs. I did not believe the stories my kin told me; but in ’59 I read the NYTimes “news” about the war on microfilm. They said Americans were bad folk! Japs were victims!

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  6. The only battleship that was in Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack on Dec. 7th that was also in Tokyo Bay on 2 Sept. 1945, when the documents of surrender were signed, was USS W.Virginia BB-48.

    However, the light cruiser USS Detroit CL-8 also shared the same honor. She was moored next to another light cruiser, the USS Raleigh CL-&, and the battleship USS Utah BB-31, when the Japanese attach started. But was able to get underway, and commence anti-aircraft fire downing several Japanese attack planes. Only one crew member was injured that day.

    The only ship in Tokyo Bay that day that I ever set foot on was the lone submarine tender USS Proteus AS-19 that continued to service submarines after WW2 in Holy Loch, Scotland and later in Guam. In those places mostly nuclear powered submarines.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Allied_ships_at_the_Japanese_surrender .

  7. “Operation Magic Carpet was the post-World War II operation by the War Shipping Administration to repatriate over eight million American military personnel from the European, Pacific, and Asian theaters….

    Planning – As early as mid-1943, the United States Army had recognized that, once the war was over, bringing the troops home would be a priority. More than 16 million Americans were in uniform; and more than eight million of them were scattered across all theaters of war worldwide….Nor was this a one-way stream. Former Axis POWs had to be repatriated from Europe and Japan and occupation forces had to be dropped in Germany, China, Korea and Japan…”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Magic_Carpet .

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