USS Texas (BB-35) Totally Explained

Everything about Uss Texas Bb-35 totally explained

USS Texas (BB-35) is a, and the second ship of the United States Navy named in honor of the U.S. state of Texas.
During her career Texas saw action in Mexican waters following the "Tampico Incident", and escorted Allied convoys across the Atlantic Ocean during World War I. When the United States formally entered World War II, Texas resumed her role of escorting war convoys across the Atlantic, and later shelled Axis-held beaches for the North African campaign and the Normandy Landings before being transferred to the Pacific Theater late in 1944 to provide naval gunfire support during the Battle of Iwo Jima and Battle of Okinawa. Texas was decommissioned in 1946, having earned a total of five battle stars for service in World War II, and is presently a museum ship near Houston, Texas. Among the world's remaining battleships, Texas is notable for being the oldest remaining dreadnought battleship. She is also noteworthy for being one of only two remaining ships to have served in both World War I and World War II, and she's the only surviving American-built warship to have been powered by reciprocating steam engines. and the first battleship declared to be a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Construction

Texas was the second of two s authorized on 24 June 1910. Bids for Texas were accepted from 27 September until 1 December with the winning bid of $5,830,000—excluding the price of armor and armament—submitted by Newport News Shipbuilding Company. The contract was signed on 17 December and the plans were delivered to the building yard seven days later. Texas’s keel was laid down on 17 April 1911 at Newport News, Virginia. She was launched on 18 May 1912, sponsored by Miss Claudia Lyon, and commissioned on 12 March 1914 with Captain Albert W. Grant in command. She originally also mounted four torpedo tubes, two on each side forward at frame 31, with a magazine of 12 torpedoes.
During her stay in New York, President Woodrow Wilson ordered a number of ships of the Atlantic Fleet to Mexican waters in response to tension created when a detail of Mexican federal troops detained an American gunboat crew at Tampico. The problem was quickly resolved locally, but Rear Admiral Henry T. Mayo sought further redress by demanding an official disavowal of the act by the Huerta regime and a 21-gun salute to the American flag. In 1916, Texas became the first US battleship to mount anti-aircraft guns and the first to control gunfire with directors and rangefinders, analog forerunners of today's computers.

World War I

Upon her return to active duty with the fleet, Texas resumed a schedule of training operations along the New England coast and off the Virginia Capes alternated with winter fleet tactical and gunnery drills in the West Indies. That routine lasted just over two years until the February-to-March crisis over unrestricted submarine warfare catapulted the United States into World War I in April 1917. The 6 April declaration of war found Texas riding at anchor in the mouth of the York River with the other Atlantic Fleet battleships. She remained in the Virginia Capes–Hampton Roads vicinity until mid-August conducting exercises and training naval armed-guard gun crews for service on board merchant ships. Final exercises were carried out to the south in Dundrum Bay. During the final preparations, General Dwight D. Eisenhower came aboard on 19 May to speak to the crew. On 31 May the ship was sealed and a briefing given to the crew about the upcoming invasion. For the invasion, Texas was designated Bombardment Force Flagship for Omaha Beach, in the Western Taskforce. Her firing area of Omaha was the western half, supporting the US 1st Infantry Division on the eastern half of Omaha, the US 29th Infantry Division on the western half of Omaha, the US 2nd Ranger Battalion at Pointe du Hoc, and the US 5th Ranger Battalion, which had been diverted to Western Omaha to support the troops at Pointe du Hoc.
   The bombardment force consisted of the American battleships Texas, which would be responsible for the western half of Omaha Beach, Arkansas, which would be responsible for the eastern half of Omaha Beach, the destroyers,,,,,,,,, the British light cruiser, the British destroyers,,, and the French light cruisers Georges Leygues and Montcalm, which took up station on the eastern end of Omaha Beach.
   The initial bombardment commenced at 05:50, against the site of six guns, atop Pointe du Hoc. When Texas ceased firing at the Pointe at 06:24, 255 shells had been fired in 34 minutes—a rate of fire of 7.5 shells per minute—and was the longest sustained period of firing for Texas in World War II. While shells from the main guns were hitting Pointe du Hoc, the guns were firing on the area leading up to Exit D-1, the route to get inland from western Omaha. At 06:26 Texas shifted her main battery gunfire to the western edge of Omaha Beach, around the town of Vierville. Meanwhile, her secondary battery went to work on another target on the western end of "Omaha" beach, a ravine laced with strongpoints to defend an exit road. Later, under control of airborne spotters, she moved her major-caliber fire inland to interdict enemy reinforcement activities and to destroy batteries and other strongpoints farther inland. When the battleship was presented to the State of Texas, she was commissioned as the flagship of the Texas Navy. By 1968 the wooden main deck of the ship was so rotted that rainwater was leaking through the deck into the interior of the ship and pooling in various compartments. The Commission found that replacing the decayed deck timbers was prohibitively expensive. The solution at the time was to remove the wooden deck and replace it with concrete. The concrete eventually cracked, and again, rainwater began to leak through the main deck into spaces below. In 1971 three local charitable institutions, the Brown Foundation, the Moody Foundation, and the Houston Endowment, together contributed $50,000 to the ship to enable the Commission to sandblast and paint the hull. Nevertheless, Texas was designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1975, and a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service in 1976.
   By 1983, concerns with the leadership of the Battleship Texas Commission led to the decision by the State Legislature to turn over control of the ship to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD).
   Finally, on 13 December 1988, Texas was set afloat and towed by barge from her berth to Todd Shipyard in Galveston, Texas. This solution will permanently cradle the ship in a dry berth at her current location. Accordingly, the depth of the current slip will be increased to below sea level before driving over 1,000 concrete piles into the bottom soil to support a thick concrete foundation. A cradle of of concrete pylon beams and cribbing will rest upon this foundation and support the ship. This entire structure will be enclosed by a long cofferdam with a concrete sidewalk and viewing platform on the top, all of which is projected to be completed by the centennial of the construction of the ship in 2011. Texas was the first of an eventual total of eight US battleships that have become floating museums; the other battleships honored in this way are,,,,, and .

Media

Texas has appeared in two films since her retirement. Her cinema debut was the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, in which she portrayed the battleship in the scenes depicting Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Doris Miller. Some of the ship's interiors were also used to portray the interior of the aircraft carrier in the film. Texas also appears as herself in the 2006 film Flags Of Our Fathers; the ship is depicted shelling Iwo Jima in preparation for the Marines' amphibious assault. The original opening scenes for the 1966 Steve McQueen film The Sand Pebbles were shot on the USS Texas, but were not used in the finished edition of the movie.

Notes and references

Johnston, Ian and McAuley, Rob. The Battleships. Channel 4 Books, London ISBN 0-7522-6188-6

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