USS Nevada survivor recalls fight

Despite being hit by a Japanese torpedo, the USS Nevada was the only battleship to get underway on Dec. 7, 1941, and try to make a run for open sea.

In the process it became an inviting target for Japanese dive bombers, who hit it with five aerial bombs, according to a Navy war damage report.

With the ship on fire, the Navy felt it imperative to get the battleship clear of the harbor channel, and the Nevada was famously beached near Hospital Point and the Navy Yard, where a monument marks the location.

At a Pearl Harbor 75th-anniversary event Thursday, retired Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, said the damaged Nevada put up a legendary fight.

“I think it’s likely that Nevada shot down over the course of the battle at least five (Japanese) aircraft, possibly more,” Cox said. “And I think it’s probable that she … shot down more aircraft than any other single ship or vessel or unit in the battle.”

Two Medals of Honor and 15 Navy Crosses were awarded for heroism on the battleship, Cox said.

Among those attending the ceremony at Hospital Point was 95-year-old Geb Galle from Washington state, who was stationed three decks down in the engineering department.

Galle remembered thinking, “‘What the hell’s going on?’ We don’t know because I wasn’t on topside, so I couldn’t see nothing that was going on. I knew that we were getting underway. I could feel the ship getting underway.”

With the torpedo and bomb hits, “we could feel those vibrations,” he said.

Cox said the Nevada “had a couple of advantages.” It was moored by itself at the far north end of Battleship Row, “so the geometry of the torpedo attack was that most of the torpedo bombers went after the West Virginia, the Oklahoma, the California,” he said.

General quarters was sounded at 8:01 a.m., and the machine gun anti-aircraft battery was firing by 8:02 a.m., Cox said. By 8:03 a.m. the 5-inch batteries were firing on the Japanese.

“Now that’s actually incredible, astonishing, rapid reaction to what was going on in the battle,” he said. “Although she took the torpedo hit, her crew was extremely well trained, extremely good at what they did.”

Asked whether he was worried below decks, Galle said, “The thing is, when something like that happens, your adrenaline works up. What’s happening? We don’t know. So we just had to kind of wait and see.”

According to the war damage report, the Nevada had been ordered to sortie, and the ship had nearly reached the channel entrance when signals were received to not leave the harbor, and preparations were made to anchor. But after the dive bombers started to pummel it, causing fires and other damage, Nevada was beached near Hospital Point.

Wind was pushing the stern out across the channel, and the USS Shaw exploded, showering the Nevada with debris — leading to the decision to move the battleship to the other side of the channel. A tug pushed the stern farther around, the bow floated off and the ship’s engines were backed until the stern was hard aground in the new location, the damage report said.

Accounts vary, but more than 50 men were killed. Seventy-five years later Galle said he bears no animosity toward the Japanese.

“We’re at peace now. I feel comfortable. I speak to Japanese people if I run into them. I have no qualms about talking to them,” Galle said. “They are good people, too. We’re all good people in God’s heaven.”