The mammoth warship steamed in darkness toward a new baptism of fire, its crew at General Quarters.
It was the early morning of D-Day, June 6, 1944. The aging battleship USS Nevada was heading for the coast of France to provide gunfire support for two of the American landing beaches at Normandy. In several hours, the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division would go ashore at Utah Beach, aiming to link up with paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division already dropped behind the German lines. Designated targets for Nevada and her two accompanying cruisers included 110 German artillery pieces spread throughout the inland area, as well as a twelve-foot concrete seawall. Their destruction was vital if the American soldiers were to survive and move inland.
Read the first part of this essay, Two Hours in Hell at Pearl Harbor, by Ed Offley
Few in the U.S. Navy would have imagined this scene thirty months before. During the deadly attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nevada was the only battleship able to get under way. She had been a dramatic sight as she steamed out from the smoke and flames. But then Japanese planes focused their deadly attack on Nevada, and she was soon broken and sinking near the harbor entrance.
Now the battleship was primed for combat halfway around the globe from where it had rested on December 7, 1941. She had already seen action against the Japanese in the Aleutians, but the test that her captain and crew now faced was far more deadly.
