Day of Infamy: Nancy's Ashes - U.S.S. Utah

Perhaps one of the oddest tales surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor is little Nancy...

The U.S.S. Utah, an American dreadnought battleship launched in 1912.  She was the later half of a duo known as Florida class battleships, the first being U.S.S. Florida.  These were the only ships built in this class of warship.  She mounted 10 12-inch guns in 5 twin gun-turrets, three aft and two forward.  Along with her sister ship Florida, Utah was one of the most powerful ships representing the American arsenal of sea power in the first decades of the 20th-century.

Both Utah and Florida participated in Naval actions in Vera Cruz, Mexico in 1914, being the first American warships to arrive.  Between the two, roughly 1000 men, sailors and marines were landed in the city and engaged with Mexican forces.  The Americans suffered 94 casualties over the course of the three day fight, almost 10%...an extremely high rate for such a small engagement.  During the First world War, Utah patrolled the the Atlantic on convoy duty, providing protection to the critical supply line stretching from the United States and Europe from any German commerce raiders who might attempt to capture or sink an Allied cargo ship filled with American soldiers heading to fight in France, material, or both.

By 1930, with changes coming to the Navy under the terms of the London Naval Treaty, Utah was downgraded to a less-than-stellar role....she was to become a radio-controlled target ship.  Recommissioned AG-16 on April Fool's Day, 1932, U.S.S. Utah would now play the role of the hunted, allowing naval and naval air assets to practice and hone their deadly business.

It was as a target ship, no pun intended, that Utah met her fate on the morning of December 7th, 1941.  She was one of the first ships sunk by Japanese warplanes during the first stages of the air attack.  Anchored on the West side of Ford Island, where the aircraft carriers usually tied up, so it may well be Utah was mistaken for one of them, and the Japanese pilots were well versed on what was where inside Pearl.  Six aircraft launches torpedo's were sent towards Utah, three hit, and the ship began to flood, eventually rolling over and capsizing.

58 men lost their lives on Utah that day.  Compared to casualties suffered on other ships, far more of her crew survived, 461, with four pulled out from the bottom of the ship after she capsized and turned over.  Quick action by Commander Solomon Isquith, who heard the knocking of these crewmen, had the men grab an acetylene torch from the cruiser Raleigh (moored just ahead of Utah) and cut them out from the belly of the ship.

There's one more in addition to the officers and men entombed on Utah, baby Nancy.  Chief Yeoman Albert Wagner was there on that fateful December day....and so was his daughter.  Little Nancy Wagner, along with her twin sister Mary on the 29th of August, 1937 in the Philippines where Chief Wagner was stationed at the time.  Both were born prematurely, Mary lived, but Nancy died after two days.  She was cremated, and when her Dad was reassigned to U.S.S. Utah, Nancy in her little urn went with him in preparation for a burial at sea.  Once the Utah set out to sea from Pearl Harbor on her next orders, Chief Wagner planned on completing this much delayed ceremony for his child.  Utah would never leave the harbor again.

 

On December 7th, 1941, Nancy's ashes sat in Chief Wagner's locker the Chief's quarters aboard U.S.S. Utah.  As the first bombs and torpedoes rocked Pearl Harbor and the Utah, Chief Wagner has absolutely no time to think about collecting his daughter's urn as sailors aboard were abandoning a ship which was flooding very quickly.  A few weeks later, divers were send down to see if the urn containing Nancy's ashes could be recovered, but the Chief's quarter were so badly damaged and crumpled, there was no way even to swim in, much less get to Wagner's' locker where the remains sit to this day, guarded by the 58 officers and seamen went down with their ship...