Donate to support USS Texas’s preservation: https://battleshiptexas.org/donate/
USS Texas is a New York class battleship that was commissioned in 1914. She would serve faithfully in both World Wars and be present at Operation Torch, D-day, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. After the war, she was fortunate as while all her fellow dreadnoughts would wind up scrapped, she would be saved by the state of Texas and preserved as a museum ship. But even in that role she’s had her share of battles against the elements and neglect.
0:00 – Intro
1:25 – Construction and Early Roles
9:22 – WWI
13:39 – Interwar Period
20:47 – WWII
23:44 – Operation Torch
27:18 – D-Day
37:16 – Pacific Theatre
39:39 – Battles in Preservation
“USS Texas (BB-35) is a museum ship and former United States Navy New York-class battleship. She was launched on 18 May 1912 and commissioned on 12 March 1914. Texas served in Mexican waters following the “Tampico Incident” but saw no action there, and made numerous sorties into the North Sea during World War I without engaging the enemy, though she did fire in anger for the first time when shooting medium-caliber guns at supposed submarines (no evidence exists that suggests these were anything more than waves). In World War II, Texas escorted war convoys across the Atlantic and later shelled Vichy French forces in the North African Landings and German-held beaches in the Normandy Landings before being transferred to the Pacific Theater late in 1944 to provide naval gunfire support during the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. She was the only Allied battleship that took part in all four of these amphibious landings. Texas was decommissioned in 1948, having earned a total of five battle stars for service in World War II.”
🚢 Further reading 🚢
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Texas_(BB-35)
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#documentary #history #truestory
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as a Texan thanks
great video 👍🛳🚢
Suggestion for a ship video either USS Pennsylvania or USS Massachusetts (the South Dakota Class Massachusetts)
America's most gangster battleship.
Good bye
"Unopposed under crimson skies
Immortalized, over time their legend will rise
And their foes can't believe their eyes, believe their size, as they fall
And the dreadnoughts dread nothing at all!"
From the #Sabaton song "Dreadnoughts" (coincidentally, Sabaton visited USS Texas in drydock a year ago).
As a note, the current foundation and almost all museum ship curators will tell you that a dry berth is a terrible idea for a ship long term. That idea is dead on a permanent basis. Any ship is designed to sit in water, not rest on the keel, and the HMS Victory is having hull problems. Much of Texas's problems date to when the Navy handed the ship over to the state. Brackish water in the bottom tanks rotted the ship out from the inside. The structure is getting repaired, with coatings being added to prevent further issues.
could you do the history of the forgotten battleship Pennsylvania the forgotten sister of the Arizona i think its battles and accomplishments should be remembered?
She truly is the LAST. There is NO OTHER WAY TO SAY THIS.
Hey cobber. Thanks for the add to your British Rail Critics, truly honoured! Great vid, thank you.
It's fitting as my day started with Sabaton's Dreadnoughts that it ends with a video on the last dreadnought.
That would be (little Texas 👍👍👍)thank you for the video if you do these like the train videos it will be the s…👍👍👍👍👍
It would be cool tho if there was a um BIG CHUNGUS 😆😆👍👍
How's that for efficiency, built in four years, not bad at all.
I was about 7 the first time my Dad took me to the Texas. Driving up to her those guns were so huge. The first fund raiser time period so many businesses in the Gulf coast was helping out. The one I remember most was Pizza Hut. Every Friday we would go get pizza and I would put half of my allowance in the charity box every week. I think seeing the Texas as a child lead to me going into the Navy. Oh and that's I have God Blessed Texas by Little Texas stuck in my head fun fact Little Texas isn't from Texas
Finally, a video about the Texas that touched on everything that has happened to her, I as a Texan am so happy that it’s still being watched over, and enough people care to keep her alive. Thank you Darkness, your one of the most amusing and fascinating channels out there. Well done
Little fun fact, the ship’s deck Timbers were given to a gun maker (Colt I think) and they made guns with carved commemorative designs into the handles, using the old deck. And a percentage of the money made from them were used as funding for the Ship’s upkeep. IDK what they where sold for but they were definitely not cheap.
Texas was posted to the Royal Navy because she was a coal burner at that stage. Britain didn't have enough oil to fuel oil burning ships.
If you're wondering why would a battleship be put on a convoy escort mission. The Germans had pocket battleships and other surface raiders. Nothing says get your ass away from this convoy like the 14 inch guns of a battleship.
This may be a hot take, but it may be possible to encase her hull in concrete like Japan did with Mikasa; she's one of a kind as well. The last and only existing Pre-Dreadnought, and the only British built battleship still in existence.
GAL Vuh stun.
This Texan also thanks you for this. She is the last dreadnought in another way, too. She is the last of the USN's first-generation dreadnoughts. BB-36, U.S.S. Nevada premiered a new, more effective, armor arrangement.
10:22 Texan here. Totally unsurprised.
I spent a large part of my childhood walking her decks, climbing on her anti-aircraft guns, and poking about through her interior. I've seen the shell that failed to detonate, I've read the engravings on the silver set, and I've touched her engines with my bare hands. Sadly, I live hundreds of miles away from her now, so I haven't seen her in years, and it breaks my heart to see the state she's in now. I hope soon that those responsible for her can figure out a permanent solution.
Perhaps they can try what Long Beach has done with the Queen Mary. The Mary is also in salt water, has received very little maintenance, yet thanks to cathodes mounted to her plating, her hull is in much better condition. (Though her superstructure is a different story.)
Whatever they end up doing, I hope Texas is with us for decades more to come. It would be a crime to lose her.
Come On Texas! May you survive another 100 years
The shell that didn't explode was actually a intentional dud made from a labor camp
Little known fact about the two New York class Battleships. USS Texas was actually built and launched FIRST before the New York (Class leader of that class) Was even finished. Also, thank you so so much for doing an episode on my states namesake ship, though… the whole tryna have a Texan accent, It doesn't work, many of us don't actually sound like that >_>
I learned of the USS Texas when my grandfather emailed me about its restoration last year. His own father, a son of Sicilian immigrants to Connecticut who joined the Navy around the age of 15-16 to avoid poverty, actually sailed aboard the Texas around 1938 to Europe, so we have a bit of familial connection to this ship.
However, Navy-wise, that’s about as far as it gets, as he became an officer in the Army during WWII, kicking off a lineage of Army officers of which my generation (pretty much just me right now) has ended up being the first to break.
so when HMS Warspite she is also worthy of the story/ video
Great video as always. Also: 32:18 One of those destroyers was the USS Laffey, another ship you should definitely do a video on.
Could you do a stand-alone video about Columbia River Belt Line 7? That is a very interesting locomotive with a unique history behind it. I know you included it as an entry in one of your top 5 lists, but there’s a lot more to her than what you described yourself.
Thank you History of the dark for the video of Uss Texas I've been a fan your channel for a while keep the great videos
I'm still pissed Warspite, Queen Elizabeth or Dreadnought was not preserved.
Was fortune enough to see the Texas in drydock back in January. My wife and I took a boat tour and the captain brought our little boat as close as he dared to that dock so we could get a good look. She is a beautiful ship and it will be interesting to see where she goes. I'm thinking Corpus Christi would be the best site as she will have a companion in the U.S.S. Lexington with her.
Bit late to the party, but thank you so much for making this video. Every native born Texan is deeply proud of our state's flagship, and this tribute to her legacy moved me near to tears.
That said, even exhaustive as this chronicle was, there's still a couple of incidents and anecdotes that got left out:
1. During the First World War, USS Texas briefly found herself stationed at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Isles, home base of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet. During her time there, she served as the primary medical facility for the base as she had the most advanced medical and operating equipment ever equipped on a battleship at that time. Many sailors' lives were saved on Texas' operating tables.
2. On her last mission for Operation Magic Carpet, ferrying returning troops back from Hawaii to San Diego, Texas' captain noticed that at the speed they had been ordered to maintain they would not reach American shores until after Christmas; hundreds of war weary troops, not to mention the ship's own crew, would have to endure one more lonely Christmas at sea, far away from home and family. His response was something along the lines of "Well… F*ck that!" and ordered the engines to flank speed, supposedly reaching a personal record of 26 knots. With the extra speed boost, Texas ended up arriving into San Diego several days early, on the evening of December 24th, just in time to let her grateful crew and passengers celebrate the holiday on dry American land.
3. When Hurricanes Ike and Harvey struck Houston in 2008 and 2017, USS Texas was used as an evacuation point for the volunteers and workers at the museum facility and their families. Despite her poor structural condition at the time, Texas reportedly weathered the full fury of both hurricanes and came out without so much as a scratch, saving the lives of those who sheltered within her.
Overhauled more times than kills it scored against much smaller and cheaper targets.
Texans be all proud….um its New York class, built, and serviced. This thing didn't hit the Gulf until retirement.