On the morning of May 8, 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea, the USS Lexington was attacked by a Japanese airstrike. During the course of the battle, the Lexington was struck by two enemy torpedoes causing serious damage and casualties. Under constant aerial attack, the Lexington’s crew was fighting for their lives as well as their ship. Suddenly, the ship was hit by two enemy bombs, detonating the port forward five-inch ready ammunition locker. The explosion killed the entire crew of one of the 5-inch AA guns. One of the crewman killed was Pensacolian Oliver Daniel Nichelson, USMC. Oliver was 23-years old and the son of Thomas Jefferson and Alvaretta Jackson Nichelson of Pensacola. His father supported his family as a deckhand aboard the US Government boat “Dixie” assigned to the quartermaster corps during WWI. Following the war, the family moved to Niceville where he earned a living as a fisherman. For whatever reason, Alvaretta returned to Pensacola and rented a house at 1617 East Scott Street sometime after 1935. Oliver Daniel and his twin brother Jack Alexander attended school before Oliver enlisted in the Marines on December 3, 1939.
The war found Oliver aboard the USS Lexington in the Pacific and his brother Jack aboard a Navy water tender stationed somewhere in the Atlantic. During the battle, Oliver manned an antiaircraft battery on the side of the ship. As the Japanese dove from the sky he and his fellow Marines kept up a steady stream of shells into their oncoming midst. Even as torpedoes slammed into the side of the carrier in the immediate vicinity of his battery they continued to man their position, refusing to yield to the enemy until his death. Sadly, as the hapless Lexington settled to the bottom of the ocean she took the young Pensacolian with her. His brother Jack survived the war and went on to become a police officer with the Pensacola Police Department until 1948. He passed away in 2001 in Massachusetts.
USMC Cpl Oliver Daniel Nichelson
at family home
Pensacola News Journal 9-26-1943
Lexington gun crews fighting off enemy aerial attack May 8, 1942
USS Lexington on fire prior to her sinking May 8, 1942
USS Lexington wreckage and crew's eternal tomb discovered 2018
An empty grave in Valpariso, Okaloosa County, Florida serves as Oliver's memorial