USS Nevada Reunion in 2016-- Part 4: Ship Survived Atomic Blasts

The USS Nevada was the Navy's first battleship with triple turrets. and an oil-fired steam plant.

Les Pullman, 91, of Menasha, Wisconsin, boarded the Nevada in late 1942.  He was also a 5-inch gun pointer and also remembered the 80 straight hours they had at Normandy.

Ansel Tupper, 83, of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, served in the ship's navigation office 1945-1947.  He remembers it surviving two atom bomb blasts at Operation Crossroads in 1946 off Bikini Atoll, but said the ship "wasn't painted red, it was painted orange" at the tests.  It survived a test from above and one from below.

His ship was contaminated with radiation from the blasts and decommissioned, but later served as a target ship before being sunk by a torpedo about 65 miles southwest of Oahu in 1948.

--GreGen