Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
7:07 | After the Normandy beachhead was secured, the USS Nevada was sent to the Mediterranean to aid in the coming invasion of southern France. First stop was North Africa, where Bill Owens and the rest of the crew were warned, don't go to the Casbah.
Keywords : Bill Owens USS Nevada (BB-36) Utah Beach England Strait of Gibraltar Mediterranean Sea Oran Algeria North Africa drinking drunk Casbah veil Arab USO show United Service Organizations (USO) Irving Berlin Taranto Italy
Bill Owens left the farm in South Carolina and enlisted in the Navy as World War II raged around the world. After an abbreviated basic training he was assigned to the USS Nevada, the only battleship to get underway during the Pearl Harbor attack. His destination, however, was across the Atlantic.
It was an unbelievable sight over the English Channel. From his 20 mm gun position on the battleship Nevada, Bill Owens could see a vast train of aircraft heading to Normandy and others returning. The sea was full of five thousand ships and it was all targeted on Hitler's war machine.
After the Normandy landings, the battleship Nevada was directed to Cherbourg, where they were directed to knock out big German guns. Bill Owens recalls how a smokescreen was used to hide minesweepers and the big ship as well. The shrapnel from the German artillery was falling like rain on the deck.
The first step is shore bombardment. The battleship Nevada let loose with it's big guns on the coast of southern France to kick off the operation. Bill Owens remembers how their big boomers were becoming less effective and had diminished range. The guns were simply worn out after the massive effort during the previous campaign at Normandy.
What a sight. Bill Owens became emotional when he saw the Statue of Liberty on his way back from the campaigns at Normandy and in the Mediterranean. His ship, the Nevada, was on it's way to dry dock to refit it's worn out guns. But first, a bunch of farm boys were let loose on New York City. Then it was off to the Pacific.
For eighteen days the battleship Nevada pummeled the island of Iwo Jima. The problem was that the Japanese had dug in so deep that there was very little effect. The water was deep close to shore so the ship got close enough for Bill Owens to see the hand to hand combat as the Marines ran into a hornets nest.
As soon as the operation to take Okinawa began, the USS Nevada was hit by a shore battery. For Bill Owens and the rest of the crew, that was just the beginning of the battle. Next came the kamikazes. On the third day a wave of over a hundred of them targeted the fleet. Part 1 of 2.
Just before a kamikaze hit the Nevada, the ship's AA guns did enough damage that it broke up and cartwheeled from it's path, which was squarely aimed at Bill Owens. The body of the Japanese pilot was recovered and, later, after the battle and after the dead American sailors were buried at sea, the chaplain insisted that the man get a dignified service.
Along with thousands of other servicemen, Bill Owens was waiting in the South Pacific, dreading the upcoming invasion of Japan. He knew there would be hordes of kamikazes and the resistance would be desperate and fierce. Then came word of the atomic bomb.
Bill Owens had gone to war at seventeen. As a crew member of the USS Nevada, he saw service at Normandy, southern France, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He had grown up fast and was determined to make a success in life. A friend suggested that he go to school on the GI Bill. The GI Bill? What's that?
