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Nevada Veterans Journal “Legacies of the Silver State: Nevada Goes to the War” is a compilation of 71 stories of courage and Henley contributed articles they have written.

“Legacies of the Silver State: Nevada Goes to the War” is a paperback book containing 71 stories of courage and service of the men and women who served aboard the battleships USS Arizona and USS Nevada or stormed the beach at Normandy. Others served their country in Europe or in the Pacific Theater. A section deals with Holocaust survivors and their separate fight for life, freedom and respect. Retired Nevada newspaper editor Steve Ranson spearheaded the project, and fellow journalists Kenneth Beaton and David C. Many of Ranson’s articles come from World War II veterans who flew on Honor Flights to Washington, D.C. and one that flew to Pearl Harbor in February 2020. Henley, a veteran newspaperman who reported for several Los Angeles newspapers and formerly owned a newspaper in Nevada, also wrote “Battleship Nevada: The Epic Story of the Ship that Wouldn’t Sink.”

10/07/2026
10/06/2026
10/06/2026

The Marine Corps celebrated the 75th anniversary of its Mountain Warfare Training Center on Sept. 25 by reflecting on its importance during the Korean War in the 1950s and for future missions.

Established during the early years of the Korean War in 1951, the MCMWTC southwest of Gardnerville has trained thousands of Marines and other service members who found themselves assigned to cold-weather missions in mountainous terrain.

👉 More on This Is Reno: Link in comments ⬇️

10/05/2026
09/29/2026

She Sank the Same Day as USS Arizona - Then the Navy Gave Up Trying to Save Her

On December 7, 1941, USS Utah was moored off Ford Island when Japanese torpedoes tore through her hull. She rolled over and capsized within minutes, taking 58 men down with her. In early 1944, Navy salvage teams tried to right her using the same 17-winch parbuckling setup used on USS Oklahoma nearby. It stalled. After rotating to roughly 38 degrees, the hull slid deeper into harbor mud instead of rolling upright. Engineers determined full recovery was far too costly for an obsolete target ship with zero military value. By March 1944, operations were formally abandoned. Left resting on her side, she was eventually declared a permanent war grave. She has never been moved or drydocked since.

USS Arizona, sunk that same morning across the island, gets a memorial visited by over a million people annually and a name almost everyone recognizes. Utah rests on the quiet northwest shore of Ford Island, an active military installation requiring base access or designated shuttle tours to visit. Both ships still release trapped fuel decades later, yet while Arizona’s sheen is widely photographed and commemorated as "black tears," the quiet decay of Utah draws far less public attention. A small pier memorial honors her lost crew. The vast majority of Pearl Harbor tourists never make the trip out.

Fifty-four men and an infant remain entombed beneath the harbor surface, just minutes away from the most visited naval memorial in America, largely overlooked by history.

Photos:
By U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist John M. Hageman - Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47551698
By U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Daniel A. Barker - Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8182679

06/30/2026

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Fallon, NV
89407

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