Dick Ramsey was on board the USS Nevada off the coast of France during the Allied invasion on D-Day, June 6, 1944 — 2½ years after the battleship nearly sank in shallow water at Pearl Harbor during the infamous attack by Japanese airplanes.
Painstaking repair work had placed the durable Nevada, badly damaged by bombs and a torpedo, back into action. Ten 14-inch, .45-caliber guns were used in the Allies’ Operation Neptune on D-Day to bombard German artillery at Utah Beach as well as cannons and tanks miles inland, Ramsey said.
Built just before World War I, the USS Nevada was the only battleship to have fought on D-Day and was present at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii during Imperial Japan‘s attack on Dec. 7, 1941, said Ramsey, a resident of Long Beach, California.
‘It feels very lonely’
Now 80 years after D-Day, Ramsey, a former coxswain for the U.S. Navy, is one of the only two living crew members of the Nevada.
The other, Charles Sehe, 101, the only person to serve on the Nevada both during the Pearl Harbor attack and on D-Day, is in hospice care in Minnesota, he said.
“It feels very lonely,” said Ramsey, who at age 100 is talkative and spry. “We’re down to two people. We had many reunions.”
On Wednesday, one day before the 80th anniversary, Ramsey arrived at Normandy — his third trip there to celebrate D-Day — for the first of two days of ceremonies commemorating the attack against the German armed…
