Posted on 08/31/2022 6:07:17 AM PDT by CodeToad
While in service, the USS Texas sailed through some of the globe’s most treacherous waters.
The Texas is one of only eight ships to serve in both world wars. Its crew supported American troops on D-Day and on Iwo Jima. After being decommissioned, the Texas became a floating museum, docked beside the old San Jacinto Battleground near Houston.
On Wednesday, the Texas will once again set out into open waters when a group of tugboats tows it to a dry dock in Galveston, where the ship will undergo extensive repairs on its hull as part of a long-term plan to preserve the vessel. The journey will be live-streamed starting about 3 a.m.
Bruce Bramlett, chief operating officer for the Battleship Texas Foundation, spoke to Texas Standard about moving the Texas and the ship’s future.
(Excerpt) Read more at kut.org ...
Thanks!
As a kid I loved visiting San Jacinto and touring the Texas.
I will miss the tradition of it being at San Jacinto and how it tied the continuation of Texas history together but I assume they are moving it to a better place, perhaps Galveston.
“”The Houston Ship Channel is closing?!That doesn’t happen very often.””
Texas does so many things right, they think big, act big, and they take care of their past.
Thanks!
Yes and no. “Battleship” as a term predated HMS Dreadnought. All-big-gun battleships patterned after Dreadnought were then called “dreadnought battleships”. However, dreadnoughts were quickly superseded by ‘superdreadnought battleships’ - *very* quickly indeed as within six years of Dreadnought entering service, superdreadnoughts were under construction.
The First World War showed that the all-big-gun idea of Dreadnought was great, but the thick above the waterline armor optimized for close range slugging matches turned out to be a problem in a combat environment that included plunging vertical fire at extended ranges. There was also no significant torpedo protection on many of the SDs. There was also the silliness of what to call the successor types, built from the lessons of the superdreadnought battleships. Ultramegahyperdreadnought battleships?
Basically at that point, some just went back to the old “battleship” moniker to separate them from the post-1918 old-think reputation of the superdreadnoughts. Others went back to it for simple linguistic convenience.
US dreadnoughts were all built and commissioned from 1910 to 1914. USS Texas was the last US dreadnought type built. The ‘Standard’ class battleships that followed on from 1914 to 1920 dropped any mention of the ‘dreadnought’ name in official documentation even though WW1 had just started when the first entered service. Some called them superdreadnoughts, but they are somewhat different in concept and layout from what everyone else considered an SD. And after 1920, the US started building “fast battleships” which could actually outrun most other countries’ battleships - and no few cruisers. Some note that technically the Iowa class would have been considered battlecruisers if we’d built the monstrous Montana class.
We did, however, have a large number of idiots in charge of USS Texas for many years. Unfortunately. It was at one point a sinecure post for favorites of the corrupt then-Democrat governors, and Texas decayed quite badly under the Battleship Texas Commission’s tenure, 1947-1983.
Case in point, when the teak deck of the battleship decayed badly due to neglect thus letting rain water into the ship, the Commission decided it would be a great idea to replace it with concrete. Well, the concrete was garbage and began breaking up, which meant that acidic rainwater (because concrete is acidic) was now getting into the ship...
God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong.... 🎵
There’s been some size creep in the intervening 110 years. The current Zumwalt class destroyers are larger (but do not displace as much) as some battleships that fought in WW1 and WW2.
The Houston Ship Channel is closing?!
That doesn’t happen very often.
Unless a couple of barges break loose and wedge under a causeway...
USS Texas disconnected as of 06:30 am CDT. Expected in Galveston ~4 pm CDT.
Thanks for the info.
Funny, I don’t remember any discussion of corrupt democrat governors on any PBS show ...
She’s actually running ahead of schedule by a couple hours. She just passed the Fred Hartman bridge an hour ago and that wasn’t expected until 11pm-noon. No problems reported.
It is tradition and pride and a whole lot of chutzpah.
I wish they were not slipping like the rest of the country but it is relative isn’t it?
The Ayes of Texas...
History Guy just did a neat presentation on the Texas and how the crew ballasted the ship down on one side to increase the elevation of the main battery to hit targets further inland on D-day. Now that is determination.
I would not have been surprised if they hadn’t driven her shoreward and ballasted her down to the bottom to get the battery more accurate.
Baytown or Beaumont would be terrible locations to move her. San Jacinto has been one of those slightly out of the way places down in the refinery country. I have not been there in quite some time but it did always seem out of the way. To say it has nothing to do with the San Jacinto Monument does not seem right to me. Both are symbols of Texas’ defiance. Going to Galveston may be OK but I don’t see any connection there either for that matter.
Is this going to be another patch job that does not last as they did the last time they went to so much effort to save her? Raising her out of the water seems the only real way to save her for very long.
It is small, yet she carried and launched bi-planes for a time. Always thought that was cool.
A good place for her would be in Corpus, next to the old carrier.
USS Iowa and Missouri still survive.
The City of Baytown is trying to get the battleship docked there close to the north end of the Hartmann bridge.
If you want to visit a great US Navy ship turned museum, go to San Diego and tour the USS Midway Museum aircraft carrier. You will need at least a full day. It is awesome. It’s the #1 tourist attraction in California.
I’ve been to visit the the USS Texas. Not nearly as impressive.
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