|
Today, the USS Texas is the last of the battleships, patterned after HMS DREADNOUGHT. She participated honorably in both World War I and the Second World War and is still considered one of the most powerful warship still afloat because of her ten 14"/45 guns in five twin turrets. The USS Texas is kept as a memorial at the San Jacinto Battleground and Historical Park located at:
3523 Highway 134
LaPorte TX 77571
281/479-2431
Authorized by President Woodrow Wilson in June 1910, the USS Texas (BB-35) was built by the Newport News Shipbuilding Company and launched on May 18, 1912. Her approximate cost at the time was six million dollars.
Commissioned on March 12, 1914, she left the Norfolk Navy Yard and headed to New York on March 24, 1914. During this time a detail of Mexican Federal troops detained an American boat crew in Tampico. President Woodrow Wilson then ordered a number of ships from the Atlantic Fleet to Mexico. The Texas was one of the ships sent.
The USS Texas started her first mission without the usual shakedown cruise, by joining Rear Admiral Fletcher’s force off Vera Cruz to support the American forces on shore. Remaining in Mexican waters for the following two months, the Texas finally returned to New York on August 21, 1914.
Resuming normal fleet operations, the USS Texas completed training operations along the coasts of New England and Virginia until the crisis of unrestricted submarine warfare caused the United States to join into the first World War in April 1917.
When the formal declaration of war was issued on April 6, 1917 the Texas was at the mouth of the York River with several other ships from the Atlantic Fleet. While she remained in the Hampton Roads – Virginia Cape area, the Texas conducted training exercises for naval armed-guard gun crews.
The battleship returned to New York for repairs and got underway on September 26 only to run aground on Block Island during the mid-watch on September 27. Tugs were required to aid in her clearance and extensive repairs were required for the hull damage she suffered.
Eventually finishing up repairs, she crossed the Atlantic and joined Division 9, also known as the 6th Battle Squadron of Britain’s Grand Fleet. During her service with the Grand Fleet, the USS Texas did strictly convoy missions with the occasional job of reinforcing the British Squadron’s blockade in the North Sea.
She continued these tasks until the armistice was signed with Germany on November 11, 1918.
On March 9, 1919, the Texas became the first American battleship to carry an airplane. On that same day, Lt. Comdr. Edward McDonnell flew a British built Sopwith off the ship, once again entering the history books with “first time” endeavor. Another first was when the Texas acted as a plane guard and navigational reference for the first transatlantic flight by a seaplane (NC-4).
During the peaceful years of the 1920s, the USS Texas completed many training maneuvers and eventually entered the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1925 for a major modernization overhaul. One of the new features included changing from coal to oil fired boilers.
In 1927, the Texas had the honor of becoming the flagship of the American fleet. It was also during this year she started a new program of entertaining the crew by showing “talking pictures.” In January of the following year, she carried President Herbert Hoover to the Pan-American conference in Havana, Cuba
Her history of firsts continued when the U.S. Navy installed the first commercial radar system on a warship in 1939. 1940 saw the USS Texas designated as the U.S. Atlantic Fleet’s flagship and the following year, the First Marine Division was founded aboard her.
During that same year, 1941, she was continually stalked by German submarine U-203 while carrying out her duties on “Neutrality Patrols.”
After Pearl Harbor and the America joining the war against the Axis powers, the Texas provided protection by escorting Atlantic convoys as well as continuing her history of military firsts. General Eisenhower’s first “Voice of Freedom” broadcast was transmitted in 1942 from the Texas. It was the General’s hope the French wouldn’t oppose the allied landings in North Africa but this was not to be so the Texas participated in the assault on Morocco by providing gun support to the amphibious assault. It was during this time the Texas put a soon to be famous war correspondent, Walter Cronkite, ashore to begin his career.
During the Operation Overlord “D-Day” invasion at Normandy on June 6, 1944 the USS Texas fired on Nazi land defenses and carried planes for the landing at Omaha beach. Shortly after the D-Day invasion she was hit twice by German coastal defense artillery near Cherbourg. Although losing one crewmen and having thirteen others wounded, she was quickly repaired and reentered the war by shelling Nazi positions in Southern France.
Shortly afterwards, she was hit twice in a duel with German coastal defense artillery near Cherbourg, suffering 1 fatality and 13 wounded when a 280 millimeter shell hit her fire control tower. Quickly repaired, she shelled Nazi positions in Southern France before transferring to the Pacific in September 1944.
The Texas’ fleet duty in the Pacific included gunfire support for military landings at both Iwo Jima and Okinawa. She stayed in the Pacific lending continued support until Japan signed the Peace Treaty aboard the USS Missouri in 1945. After the war had ended, the Texas started her missions as a troop carrier by bringing home American troops.
In February 1946 she began preparations for deactivation and moved to Baltimore, Maryland where she stayed until 1948. With so many of the battleships having suffered the sad fate of being scrapped or sank by the United States Government, the school children of Texas decided to have a penny drive to attempt to buy the ship. This drive was successful and on April 21, 1948 the USS Texas was decommissioned and turned over to the State of Texas to serve as a permanent memorial.
| 
