Search, Ocean Infinity locate wreck of American battleship Nevada

Underwater and terrestrial archaeology firm Search and marine robotics company Ocean Infinity recently discovered the wreck of USS Nevada, one of the US Navy’s longest serving dreadnought battleships.

Nevada was located 65 nautical miles southwest of Pearl Harbor at a depth of over 4,600 metres.

The mission was jointly co-ordinated between Search’s operations centre and the Ocean Infinity vessel Pacific Constructor, which had an embarked assortment of robotic vehicles.

Pacific Constructor set sail for a range of commercial tasks in the Pacific in early 2020, ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result of the global health crisis, the ship has remained at sea on a range of taskings.

Completed in 1914 as the lead ship of its class, Nevada served in both world wars and even survived the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, despite suffering the loss of 60 of its crew and sustaining bomb damage that resulted in its sinking in shallow waters. The battleship was eventually raised, repaired, and placed back in service in time for it to participate in the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944 and the Iwo Jima and Okinawa invasions in the Pacific the following year.

After World War II, Nevada was assigned to be a target ship in the first Bikini Atoll atomic experiments in 1946, which it survived. Finally, in 1948 it was used as a gunnery practice target, finally going down in July of that year after having been hit by an aerial torpedo.