U. S. Navy Electrician First Class (EM1) Merveyn Clifford Nelson (1913-1992) of Grove Farm, Kaua‘i, achieved the distinction of being Kaua‘i’s first fighting hero of WWII. He earned this honor during the first year of his wartime service, when he
U. S. Navy Electrician First Class (EM1) Merveyn Clifford Nelson (1913-1992) of Grove Farm, Kaua‘i, achieved the distinction of being Kaua‘i’s first fighting hero of WWII.
He earned this honor during the first year of his wartime service, when he participated in four battles, had two ships sunk from under him, and was wounded twice, the second time so badly that he spent the second and final year of his naval service recovering from his wounds in an Australian hospital before being discharged in October of 1943.
Nelson’s battle history began at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, where he was a seaman aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma during Japan’s infamous attack. The Oklahoma was hit by torpedoes and was capsized with hundreds of men locked in watertight compartments. Nelson was wounded and fell overboard, but was pulled out of burning, oil-covered waters, hospitalized briefly and recovered.
Then in February 1942, Nelson was at sea with naval task forces under admirals Halsey and Fletcher, built around the carriers Enterprise and Yorktown, that attacked Japan’s installations in the Marshall and Gilbert islands.
His third battle, the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval engagement in history fought without opposing ships making contact, occurred in May of 1942, during which the U. S. Navy stopped an attempt by enemy forces to land at Port Moresby off the coast of Australia.
Nelson’s fourth and final battle, the battle in which he was seriously wounded, took place on Aug. 22, 1943, while Nelson’s ship, the destroyer USS Blue (DD-387), was on patrol in Ironbottom Sound off Guadalcanal Island and was torpedoed by a enemy destroyer.
The explosion wrecked Blue’s main engines, shafts and steering gear, killing nine men and wounding 21, and Blue was scuttled the following day.
