The USS Nevada at Bikini
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The Smithsonian Affiliated National Atomic Testing Museum “Using lessons of the past to better understand the present.” The USS Nevada at Bikini The National Atomic Testing Museum recently enjoyed a very informative Breakfast Question and Answer session with five former crewmen of the historic battleship USS Nevada. We thank those brave veterans for their service to our country and others from the audience who joined the program. We are also very grateful to Ms. Kim Pool, District Representative of Congresswoman Dina Titus’s office, who presented the panelists with certificates of recognition for their service. We thank the support of Keith Hughes and Matt Taylor from Congressman Joe Heck’s office as well for joining us. The Nevada veterans honored were as follow: Ansel Tupper, Les Putman, Byron McGinty, Richard Ramsey and Cliff Burks. The USS Nevada and her crew represent a true American story. Participating in the first nuclear test following World War Two, the Nevada served as a target ship along with ninety-four other vessels of all shapes and sizes. These even included the surrendered Japanese battleship Nagato which had served as Admiral Yamamoto’s flagship and the German cruiser Prinz Eugen that had coordinated with the Bismarck in the sinking of the HMS Hood. Operation Crossroads took place in June and July, 1946 at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. It involved two tests, an airborne detonation and the first ever underwater explosion. A third was planned but not completed. A number of fascinating books have been written about Crossroads detailing all the events and controversy surrounding that series of tests. These works take many hundreds of pages just to do the story justice. A photo panel in the Museum documents Crossroads, and it is my hope we may be able to give that historic nuclear test operation more exposure as we get into the new Master Plan. Certainly, Operation Crossroads provided invaluable data on the effects of a nuclear explosion on surface ships. This came at a time in which the armed forces were considering how to adapt to the nuclear age. The year 1946 became a time of intense interservice rivalry as the Army Air Force worked toward autonomy as an independent branch of the armed services, becoming the United States Air Force in 1947. 1 This was also a time when the air and naval factions were competing for funds in a postwar budget. All the while the United Nations and President Truman were trying to address the whole issue of how to control and regulate atomic energy. This, while hundreds of reporters and live radio feeds covered the dramatic nuclear tests that summer from Bikini lagoon. International attention became very focused. As an amusing footnote, the media sensation surrounding the atomic tests inspired Parisian swim suit designer Louis Réard to coin his latest summer creation the bikini. Not all was as lighthearted, and significant criticism arose in Congress that these numerous target ships, although mostly obsolete, were still worth tremendous dollars in scrap value at a time when the nation needed to recover from war debt. Over the years some of these historic ships could have generated tens of millions of dollars in tourist revenue if preserved as museums. The USS Nevada is just one of many amazing maritime legends associated with the tests. The ship, in fact, literally served at the center stage of Operation Crossroads. Painted orange and red with white on top of the turrets, and affectionately nicknamed “Scarlet Fever,” the Nevada was the key target ship for the first twenty-one kiloton “Able” test which would be an airdrop. The Nevada was in the crosshairs of a veteran B-29 bombardier from the 509th Bomb Group’s “Dave’s Dream.” For better or worse the skilled bombardier of twenty-four WWII missions was off somewhere. After dropping the bomb, the air detonation occurred a half mile away from the Nevada. Bulkheads were buckled, but the ship remained remarkably serviceable. The USS Nevada easily survived that nuclear blast and a later underwater explosion of equal force known as the “Baker” test. Our veteran panelists told us at our recent Breakfast Question and Answer session that after the tests they were sent to re-board the ship for up to eight hours. Their accounts told of the ship remaining sea worthy, but they described a blackened interior apparently from the paint being scorched from the intense heat generated during the tests. Our veteran panelists 2 did not suffer ill effects, but they fervently told of buddies of theirs who unwisely sneaked off souvenirs from the ship which caused those individuals long-lasting health effects and eventually death because those artifacts were radioactive. The underwater Baker explosion had infused so much radioactivity into the ocean water and sand drawn up from the sea floor that it made the target ships like Nevada highly contaminated, being so thoroughly drenched with this toxic mixture of fallout. The Navy at that stage simply did not know how to adequately contend with contamination. The Baker test, however, illustrated critical lessons to formulate proper procedures. After Operation Crossroads, the Nevada returned to its base at Pearl Harbor, notably radioactive, and was officially decommissioned. Two years later consensus thought it best to sink Nevada in deep water because of her levels of contamination. They chose to send the great ship out in style in conventional tests, so the Navy towed her sixty-five miles southwest of Hawaii where many types of ordinance trained on her for a final target practice. She still remained afloat, so heavy explosives were placed aboard and detonated. The ship refused to sink, so the Navy tested guided-missile “Bat Bombs” with no result. Sixteen-inch battleship fire from the USS Iowa commenced, but the Nevada remained determined as ever. Cruiser fire followed and air attacks also were launched. It was only after taking numerous aerial torpedo hits did the thirty-four-year-old battleship slip beneath the waves. Ironically, the Nevada had been sunk before. One of our veteran guests at our Breakfast Questions and Answers session actually served on the Nevada the day she was attacked at Pearl Harbor. He recounted how on December 7th, 1941 the mighty ship managed to get underway, but after numerous torpedo and bomb hits, Navy tugs intentionally grounded her to prevent the ship from blocking one of the narrow channels into Pearl. The ship burned for almost twelve hours as its hull filled with water and fuel oil. Salvaging the ship began as they refloated her and eventually sailed the Nevada under her own power to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington State. Here she received her new twin five-inch anti-aircraft gun turrets where most of our veteran panelists served. Extensively modernized by the end of 1942, the Nevada went on to support many operations of war including the Normandy landings. Nevada brought the fight back to the Japanese at Iwo Jima and Okinawa where she was hit by a Kamikaze. Nevada did finally get to Japan, supporting occupation duty in Tokyo Bay. 3 The age of the battleship probably ended with the early stages of World War Two. Although many an old Navy man will argue that even though aircraft carriers became the dominant capital ship after Pearl Harbor, the battleship continued to provide valuable contributions to the war effort. Frankly, the big sixteen-inch-gunned battleships of the Iowa class continued to provide services that no other type of ship could in Korea, Vietnam and even Desert Storm. The USS Nevada was actually the first modern American battleship (then called dreadnoughts) in the United States Navy. She was actually part of a world-wide arms race at the time that has many analogies to an arms race in the Cold War period. That latter arms race involved nuclear weapons that became as important in strategic deterrence as battleships did a half century earlier. When launched in 1914 she had a radical new concept incorporated into her eleven-inch- thick armor protection along with oil-fired steam turbines and triple turrets supporting large caliber fourteen-inch guns. All these engineering features became the centerpiece of every American battleship and cruiser to follow. Many a naval enthusiast considered the Nevada a modern marvel of the day as well as an object of industrial beauty. An Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, watched Nevada’s christening with great emotion as she slid down her slipway on July 12th, 1914. President Woodrow Wilson sent Nevada to assist with America’s entry into World War One in 1917, and then had her return to Europe when accompanying his ship the SS George Washington as he sailed for the Versailles Conference. Following the next Great War, it is fitting that Nevada once again played such a key part in post-World War Two issues of deterrence. 4 We welcome an exciting and amazing new display to our Museum, a handmade professionally constructed 1/200 scale replica of the Battleship USS Nevada BB36, 1914 to 1948. As executive director of this museum, I was stunned to learn after hosting a group of USS Nevada veterans this past Spring that there is not more recognition paid to this historic ship, nor has its long history of distinguished service been documented thoroughly enough. Accordingly, we made plans to honor the many veterans of the USS Nevada by establishing a memorial here at our museum in the form of a museum-quality model. This iconic dreadnought was central to the first postwar nuclear test in Operation Crossroads, so it will be appropriately displayed near our Bikini exhibit.