USS Nevada (BB-36), the lead ship of the US Navy’s two Nevada-class battleships, was 65 nautical miles southwest of Pearl Harbor, where it had been lying since 1948.
The wreck of the ship has been located by a team composed of specialist archaeological firm SEARCH Inc and marine robotics company Ocean Infinity at a depth of over 15,400 feet.
The mission 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 on a range of taskings.
USS Nevada history
USS Nevada had an extraordinary service, spanning three and a half decades. She was launched in 1914, and performed escort duties for valuable convoys headed to the British Isles. At the end of WWI, she escorted the ocean liner George Washington, carrying U.S. president Woodrow Wilson to attend The Paris Peace Conference.
In WWII, on December 7, 1941, in the attack on Pearl Harbor, USS Nevada was the only battleship to get underway but, having been struck by five bombs, finally sank in nearby shallow waters. During this action 60 of her crew were killed and 109 wounded.
Following salvage operations she soon re-joined the war effort, sailing to the United Kingdom to take part in the D-Day landings, amongst other European operations. She then sailed to the Pacific, arriving off Iwo Jima in February 1945 and played an important part in the invasion of Okinawa.
After WWII, USS Nevada was assigned to be a target ship in the first Bikini atomic experiments in 1946, which she survived.
Finally, in 1948 she was used as a gunnery practice target. Unable to be sunk by the ships using her as a target, she finally went down having been hit by an aerial torpedo on July 31, 1948.
