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Shōgun (novel)

James Clavell’s novel Shōgun (1975) is based on events and figures of 1600 Japan as the Azuchi–Momoyama period neared its end as the Edo period was about to begin. The third book published but the first chronologically placed, in Clavell's six-volume Asian Saga, by 1980 it had sold six million copies worldwide. The novel has been adapted into two television miniseries (1980 and 2024), a stage production (Shōgun: The Musical), as well as one board game and three video games.

Premise
Shōgun begins when Japan has had no Shogun (central ruler) for nearly three decades while rent by dynastic clashes, as well as meddled with politically and militarily by Catholic Portugal, their first and sole European trading partner for over 50 years. Further complicating the situation is a newly arrived ship from Protestant Holland tasked to take trade from the Portuguese. Based on events in the months before the Battle of Sekigahara—pivotal to the Shogunate restoration—Shogun ends with the battle's aftermath. The main protagonist is an English Protestant Pilot John Blackthorne.

Plot
The Dutch ship Erasmus has been secretly sent to Japan to take over Portugal's lucrative East Asian trade. After much of its crew, including its captain, had died, it ends up marooned in Izu Harbor; making them the first Protestants to reach Japan.

The ship, its armaments, records, and coin are seized, with the surviving crew held captive by Yabu, Izu's daimyō (lord). Yabu wishes to keep his good fortune a secret, but a spy alerts his liege Toranaga, Lord of the Kantō and President of the Council of Regents, of the ship’s arrival. Seeing the Erasmus as a possible provider of advantages against Lord Ishido, his chief rival in the Council, Toranaga has the navigator Blackthorne brought to him in Osaka.

Toranaga's meeting with Blackthorne is faithfully translated by a Portuguese Jesuit, Father Alvito, despite revelations of war between Catholic Portugal and Elizabethan England. Until then Toranaga was unaware that Christendom was so divided.

To sequester Blackthorne from the other regents, he is imprisoned with a Franciscan friar who teaches Blackthorne rudimentary Japanese and of how the Jesuits' rōnin (mercenaries) invaded Japan and launched violent agitations to profit the Portuguese crown. Before the two Catholic regents, urged on by the Jesuits, can have him executed, Blackthorne is abducted in transit and returned to Toranaga.

Lady Toda Mariko (a Jesuit-educated Catholic loyal to Toranaga, not her church) faithfully translates to Toranaga Blackthorne's account of the Pope granting Portugal colonial rights to Japan and East Asia in return for replacement of all non-Catholic lords, including Toranaga, with those loyal to Portugal and Rome. He also reveals that Catholic rōnin recently invaded Japan from a secret Jesuit base in Macau.

A taken aback Toranaga halts the departure of Portugal's trading ship; upsetting the other regents, who besides once again failing to assassinate Blackthorne, try to force Toranaga to commit seppuku. Instead he resigns from the council and flees Osaka. Aided by Blackthorne’s clownish antics, he, Toranaga, Mariko and others of his court make it to a safer Anjiro.

In Anjiro Blackthorne’s grasp of Japanese speech and customs improves, but he is still disparaged as a leader of uncouth European rabble. Regardless, he advances socially by teaching how to fire cannons with greater accuracy, and by rescuing Toranaga from underneath rubble after an earthquake. A grateful Toranaga elevates him to the high samurai rank of hatamoto. In turn Blackthorne raises his regard for Toranaga and for Mariko, a key part of his inner circle with whom he secretly has an affair. A chance encounter with Blackthorne's old crew finds them revolted by his Japanese ways, and he by the European character of their coarseness.

To deflect suspicions Toranaga feigns to all, except Mariko, acquiescence towards Ishido and professes no desire to do battle. When Toranaga's half-brother Zataki, who has allied with Ishido, arrives, Toranaga apparently surrenders, but he has Mariko re-enter Osaka with the intention to lay bare Ishido’s holding of noble households hostage. When, as planned, Mariko moves to exit Osaka, Ishido's men respond with violence until an intentionally unharmed Mariko gives up on leaving. Saying she has been dishonored, Mariko vows to kill herself the next day. She does almost end her life, but in a delaying gambit, Ishido grants her leave at the last minute. That night Toranaga's duplicitous vassal Yabu lets Ishido's ninjas into Toranaga's compound to kidnap Mariko. Having retreated to a storeroom, Mariko willfully stands in front of a door set to explode and is killed. Her death, which Ishido sought to prevent, forces him to free his noble hostages, thus weakening military alliances. The Jesuits inform Blackthorne that the Erasmus has been sunken. As for Yabu, he confesses to Toranaga and obeys his lord's order to commit seppuku, giving his prized katana to Blackthorne. Mariko wills money to Blackthorne to build a sea-worthy ship for Toranaga’s navy.

At the book's end, Toranaga in soliloquy says he sank the Erasmus to form alliances with the Catholic lords, who in return agreed not to kill Blackthorne. Blackthorne’s karma, Toranaga says, is to never leave Japan, as Mariko's karma was to die for her lord, and as Toranaga's is to become shogun. The book’s epilogue takes place after the Battle of Sekigahara with Toranaga burying a defeated Ishido up to his neck to die; which he does three days later.

Characters
Shogun is a work of historical fiction based upon the power struggle between the successors of Toyotomi Hideyoshi that led to the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate. Clavell based each character on a historical figure, but changed their names in order to add narrative deniability to the story.

 * John "Anjin" Blackthorne – Miura Anjin (William Adams) (1564–1620)
 * Yoshi Toranaga – Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616)
 * Yoshi Sudara – Tokugawa Hidetada (1579–1632)
 * Yoshi Naga – Matsudaira Tadayoshi (1580–1607)
 * Ishido Kazunari – Ishida Mitsunari (1559–1600)
 * Ochiba – Yodo-dono (1569–1615)
 * Yaemon – Toyotomi Hideyori (1593–1615)
 * Onoshi – Otani Yoshitsugu (1558–1600)
 * Harima – Arima Harunobu (1567–1612)
 * Kiyama – Konishi Yukinaga (1555–1600)
 * Sugiyama – Maeda Toshiie (1539–1599)
 * Zataki – Matsudaira Sadakatsu (1560–1624)
 * Toda Mariko – Hosokawa Gracia (1563–1600)
 * Toda Hiro-matsu 'Iron Fist' – Hosokawa Fujitaka (1534–1610)
 * Toda Buntaro – Hosokawa Tadaoki (1563–1646)
 * Toda Saruji – Hosokawa Tadatoshi (1586–1641)
 * Kasigi Yabu – Honda Masanobu (1538–1616)
 * Kasigi Omi – Honda Masazumi (1566–1637)
 * Goroda – Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582)
 * Nakamura – Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598)
 * Akechi Jinsai – Akechi Mitsuhide (1528–1582)
 * Lady Genjiko – Oeyo (1573–1626)
 * Father Martin Alvito – João Rodrigues (1561/1562–1633/1634)
 * Johann Vinck – Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn (1556?–1623)
 * Spillbergen – Jacob Quaeckernaeck (?–1606)
 * Father-Visitor Carlo Dell'Aqua – Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606)
 * Brother Michael – Miguel Chijiwa (1569?–1633)
 * Captain-General Ferriera – Horatio Neretti, captain of the Black Ship in 1600

Historical accuracy
Blackthorne's interactions with Toranaga are closely based upon accounts in the diaries of Adams. However, while Adams served in Tokugawa's army at Sekigahara, he did not become a retainer or a samurai until after the battle.

Adams never met Hosokawa Gracia, in contrast to Blackthorne's intimate relationship with Toda Mariko.

The novel contains numerous Japanese language errors, as well as mistakenly depicting Japanese castles as having portcullises and 17th-century samurai as using socket bayonets. Carrier pigeons, used extensively by Toranaga, were unknown in Japan at the time.

Background
Clavell was an officer in the Royal Artillery during World War II and was a prisoner of war at Changi Prison in Singapore from 1942 to 1945, an experience that formed the basis of his first novel King Rat. Despite this experience, he admired Japan and the Japanese people, and described Shogun as "passionately pro-Japanese."

Clavell stated that reading a sentence in his daughter's textbook that stated that "in 1600, an Englishman went to Japan and became a samurai" inspired the novel. Shogun was therefore based on an actual series of events involving Adams, who reached Japan in 1600 and became involved with the future shogun Tokugawa. He achieved high status managing commercial activities for Tokugawa's shogunate, though much of the interaction between the various characters in the novel was invented. The first draft was 2,300 pages and Clavell cut it down to 1,700 with the help of his editor, German Gollob. However, Shogun was edited lightly in comparison to Clavell's earlier novels.

Reception
The New York Times's Webster Schott wrote, "I can't remember when a novel has seized my mind like this one [...] It's almost impossible not to continue to read Shōgun once having opened it". In addition to becoming a best-seller, with more than six million copies of the novel in 14 hardcover and 38 paperback printings by 1980, Shōgun had great impact on westerners' knowledge of, and interest in, Japanese history and culture. Henry Smith, editor of Learning from Shōgun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy (1980), estimated that 20 to 50% of all students in American college-level courses about Japan had read the novel. He described the book as "a virtual encyclopedia of Japanese history and culture; somewhere among those half-million words, one can find a brief description of virtually everything one wanted to know about Japan", and stated that "In sheer quantity, Shōgun has probably conveyed more information about Japan to more people than all the combined writings of scholars, journalists, and novelists since the Pacific War". Criticizing inaccuracies in the author's depiction of Japan, Smith wrote in History Today that "Clavell is in effect delivering a sermon on the errant ways of the West", contrasting Blackthorne and other Christian Westerners' barbaric ways to the superior "meditative and fatalistic posture of the Japanese samurai". The author of James Clavell: A Critical Companion called the novel "one of the most effective depictions of cross-cultural encounters ever written", and "Clavell's finest effort".

Clavell said that Shōgun "is B.C. and A.D. It made me. I became a brand name, like Heinz Baked Beans." He reported that the ruler of a Middle Eastern petrostate offered him a full oil tanker for a novel that would do for his country what Shōgun did for Japan.

Television
In 1976 Clavell employed Robert Bolt to write a screenplay. In 1978, he selected Eric Bercovici to write a miniseries for NBC. Clavell and Bercovici decided to simplify the story for an American television audience by omitting one of the two major plot lines of the novel, the struggle between Toranaga and the other warlords, and focusing on the adventures of Blackthorne and his romance with Mariko. Due to the focus on Blackthorne's perspective, most of the Japanese dialogue was not subtitled or dubbed. This nine-hour television miniseries aired in 1980, starring Richard Chamberlain, Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Shimada, and John Rhys-Davies. This was edited into a two-hour theatrical release. A 5-disc DVD release appeared in 2003 and a 3-disc Blu-ray release in 2014.

On August 3, 2018, it was announced that FX would be adapting the novel into a TV series. The 2024 series stars Hiroyuki Sanada, who also served as co-producer, Cosmo Jarvis, Anna Sawai, Tadanobu Asano, Takehiro Hira, Tommy Bastow and Fumi Nikaido. The trailer was released in late 2023 and the first two episodes premiered on February 27, 2024. In contrast to the 1980 miniseries, this closely follows both plot lines of the novel and translates the dialogue between the Japanese characters, although several characters' names are changed, for instance, Yabu was changed to Yabushige. The series was met with acclaim, with special praise towards Sanada, Jarvis, Sawai, and Asano's performances. In May 2024, a second and third season were officially announced to be in development.

Stage musical
A stage musical adaptation, Shōgun: The Musical, was produced in 1990.

Games
There have been three video games based on the novel. Two text-based adventure games with sparse graphics were produced for the Amiga and PC, marketed as James Clavell's Shōgun by Infocom and Shōgun by Mastertronic. A unique graphical adventure game, Shōgun, was also produced for systems including the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and IBM PC by Lee & Mathias and released by Virgin Entertainment in 1986.

The tabletop game publisher FASA published James Clavell's Shogun in 1983. This was the third of four boardgame titles based on Clavell novels.

title: Shōgun (novel)


text:
USS Texas (1892)

USS Texas was a pre-dreadnought battleship built by the United States in the early 1890s. The first American battleship commissioned, she was built in reaction to the acquisition of modern armored warships by several South American countries, and meant to incorporate the latest developments in naval tactics and design. This includes the mounting of her main armament en echelon to allow maximum end-on fire and a heavily-armored citadel amidships to ensure defensive strength. However, due to the state of U.S. industry at the time, Texas's building time was lengthy, and by the time she was commissioned, she was already out of date. Nevertheless, she and the armored cruiser USS Maine (1889) were considered advancements in American naval design.

Texas developed a reputation as a jinxed or unlucky ship after several accidents early in her career; she consequently earned the nickname "Old Hoodoo". These mishaps included problems during construction, a grounding off Newport, Rhode Island, and flooding shortly afterwards while at dock in New York City. In the last, she settled to the bottom with her gun deck awash and several crew members drowned. She also received significant damage to her hull in drydock after being raised. Her reputation improved with her service in the Spanish–American War, when she blockaded the coast of Cuba and fought in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba.

After the war, Texas returned to peacetime duty, interrupted by several refits. She became the station ship in Charleston, South Carolina, by 1908 and was renamed San Marcos in 1911 to allow her name to be used by USS Texas (BB-35), a new battleship. She became a target ship that same year and was sunk in shallow water in Chesapeake Bay. She was used as a gunnery target throughout World War II and was partially demolished in 1959 because her remains were considered a navigational hazard.

Background

The delivery of the BRAZILIAN BATTLESHIP Riachuelo in 1883 and the acquisition of other armored warships by Brazil, Argentina, and Chile shortly afterward alarmed the United States government, as the Brazilian Navy was now the most powerful in the Western Hemisphere. The United States Navy now felt capable only of defending its own ports. The Chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee, Congressman Hilary A. Herbert characterized the situation thus: "if all this old navy of ours were drawn up in battle array in mid-ocean and confronted by the Riachuelo it is doubtful whether a single vessel bearing the American flag would get into port."

The Navy Advisory Board, confronted with the possibility of hostile ironclads operating off the American coast, began planning for a pair of ships to protect that coast in 1884. Both had to fit within existing docks and had to have a shallow draft to enable them to use all the major American ports and bases. They had to have a minimum speed of 17 kn and were to displace about 6000 LT. They were both optimized for end-on fire and had their gun turrets sponsoned out over the sides of the ship and echeloned to allow them to fire across the deck, much like the battleships Riachuelo and BRAZILIAN BATTLESHIP Aquidabã. The first ship, laid down for the then-traditional cruiser mission of battleship substitute on overseas deployment and armed with four 10 in guns, became USS Maine (ACR-1). The other, armed with two 12 in guns, became Texas, the first ship named in honor of that state to be built by the United States.

The Navy Department conducted an international design competition for Texas and the winner was the Naval Construction & Armaments Co. of Barrow-in-Furness, England. The winning design placed Texas's forward turret on the port side and her aft turret to starboard. The need for cross-deck fire caused the superstructure to be separated into three pieces to allow for each gun to fire between the sections of the superstructure. This significantly limited the gun's ability to fire to the opposite beam as the superstructure still restricted each gun's arc of fire. Furthermore, neither the deck nor the superstructure was reinforced to withstand the muzzle blast as the gun fired, as demonstrated during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba when her starboard deck was damaged.

Even five years before Texas was complete, the blast effects from end-on fire were considered prohibitive and en echelon mounting of main guns was abandoned in European navies and new American builds. This made Texas's armament arrangement obsolete. The Bureau of Construction and Repair in conjunction with the newly established Board on Construction, considered a thorough re-design which would have placed Texas's main guns on the centerline, either in two single turrets or one twin turret, and the heavy redoubt eliminated. Construction by this time was too far advanced for such a plan, however, and Navy Secretary Benjamin Tracy limited the Board to detail improvements.

General characteristics
Texas was 308 ft long overall. She had a beam of 64 ft and a maximum draft of 24 ft. She displaced 6315 LT at full load as built. Her hull had two wing compartments on each side of her machinery spaces as well as a centerline longitudinal watertight bulkhead separating the engines and boilers. Asymmetric flooding of the wing compartments posed a grave danger to her stability. Her double bottom protected most of her hull and extended up the side to the lower edge of the armor deck. She had a metacentric height of 2.54 ft and was fitted with a ram bow.

Propulsion
Texas's machinery was built by the Richmond Locomotive and Machine Works of Richmond, Virginia. She had two inverted vertical triple-expansion steam engines with a total designed output of 8610 ihp, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by four double-ended cylindrical boilers at a working pressure of 175 psi. On trials, she reached a speed of 17.8 kn, exceeding her contract speed of 17 kn. She carried a maximum load of 877 ST of coal. She carried two Edison electric dynamos to power her searchlights and provide interior lighting.

Armament
Texas's main armament consisted of two 12 in/35 caliber Mark I guns mounted in single Mark 2 hydraulically powered turrets inside her armored redoubt. These guns had a maximum elevation of 15° and could depress to −5°. Eighty rounds per gun were carried. They fired a 870 lb shell at a muzzle velocity of 2100 ft/s to a range of about 12000 yd at maximum elevation. The fixed rammers were below and outside the turrets. Initially, they could only be loaded at one positions, dead-ahead and at 0° elevation, but they were modified to load at all angles of train just before the start of the Spanish–American War.

Four of the six 6 in guns were mounted in casemates in the hull and the other two were mounted on the main deck in open pivot positions. The two main deck guns were 35-caliber weapons, while the casemate guns were 30-caliber guns. Data is lacking, but they could probably depress to −7° and elevate to +12°. They fired shells that weighed 105 lb with a muzzle velocity of about 1950 ft/s. They had a maximum range less than 9000 yd when fired at maximum elevation.

The antitorpedo boat armament consisted of a dozen 57 mm six-pounder guns (of unknown type) in casemates spaced along the hull. They fired a shell weighing about 6 lb at a muzzle velocity of about 1765 ft/s at a rate of 20 rounds per minute. Their range was less than 8700 yd. Two 37 mm Hotchkiss five-barrel revolving guns each were mounted on the fore and aft superstructures. In addition, two 37-mm Driggs-Schroeder one-pounder guns were mounted in each fighting top. They fired a shell weighing about 1.1 lb at a muzzle velocity of about 2000 ft/s to a range about 3500 yd. They had a rate of fire of about 30 rounds per minute.

Texas carried four 14 in torpedo tubes, all above water. One tube each was in the bow and stern and another on each side, towards the rear of the hull. She was originally intended to carry two small steam torpedo boats, each with a one-pounder gun, and a trainable torpedo tube, but they were cancelled after the poor performance of the boat built for the Maine.

Armor

The main waterline belt, made of Harvey armor, had a maximum thickness of 12 inches and tapered to 6 in at its lower edge. It was 188 ft long and covered the machinery spaces. It was 7 ft high, of which 3 ft was above the design waterline. It angled inwards for 17 ft at each end, thinning to 8 in, to provide protection against raking fire. It sloped downwards to meet the top of the protective deck. It was 2 in thick and sloped downwards at the ends of the ship. It also sloped downwards to the sides, but its thickness increased to 3 in. A 12-inch-thick diagonal armored citadel on the gun deck protected the turret machinery and the supports of the conning tower. The deck above it was two inches thick.

The sides of the circular turrets were 12 inches thick, and they had 1 in roofs. The conning tower had 9 in walls. Turret hoists, voicepipes and electrical leads were protected by armored tubes. The lateral hydraulic pipes that ran along the underside of the gun deck were initially unprotected, but armored tubes were installed to protect them during Texas's 1902 refit. Along the center of the ship, they were one inch thick, but increased to two inches closer to the sides of the ship.

No light armor was fitted above the main belt or at either end of the ship. This made Texas highly vulnerable to rapid-fire guns using high-explosive shells. This was not considered a significant threat at the time Texas was designed but would become so within a few years.

Construction
Texas was authorized by the U.S. Congress on 3 August 1886. The start of construction was delayed for nearly eight months over concerns about her stability and general characteristics. Her keel was laid down on 1 June 1889, at Portsmouth, Virginia, by the Norfolk Navy Yard. She was launched on 28 June 1892, sponsored by Miss Madge Houston Williams, granddaughter of Sam Houston; and commissioned on 15 August 1895, with Captain Henry Glass in command.

Early years
When drydocked in the New York Navy Yard for the first time after her trials several structural flaws came to light. The floors had buckled their brackets and the cement near the keel had cracked. Her floor brackets were reinforced with 4 x angle iron and the cement was repaired. But this raised issues regarding her structural integrity so a Board of Survey in January 1896 was formed to evaluate her condition and suggest improvements. The Board determined that further strengthening of her hull was needed, but the exact measures taken are not known, although they would cost $39,450 and take 100 working days. However, the Board wished to know what effect these changes would have on the draft, stability, and metacentric height of the Texas. The Board received a reply on 4 February that they would increase her displacement by 31 LT, deepen her draft by less than 2 in and raise her metacentric height to 2.76 ft.

The ship ran aground near Newport, Rhode Island, in September 1896. Operator error combined with signal failure were blamed. A few officers, including future Governor of Guam Alfred Walton Hinds, were publicly reprimanded. While under repairs in New York, the yoke that secured the main injection valve in the starboard engine room broke on 9 November 1896. Water pressure unseated the valve and allowed the compartment to flood as the receiving pipe had earlier been removed for repair. Leaks in the watertight doors, voicepipes and holes in the bulkheads for electrical cables allowed the flooding to spread to the other engine and boiler rooms, the coal bunkers adjacent to them, as well as most of the magazines and shell rooms. The ship settled to the bottom, but the water was so shallow as to aid salvage efforts. By the 11th most of the water had been pumped out, but she was still drawing too much water to enter the drydock. An estimated 300 ST of coal would have to be removed to lighten Texas enough to enter the drydock.

After repairs Texas was assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron, and patrolled the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. In February 1897, she left the Atlantic for a brief cruise to the Gulf coast ports of Galveston, Texas, and New Orleans. She arrived in Galveston on 16 February 1897 and anchored in 6 fathom of water. The local pilot assured her captain that this was the best berth in the harbor for a ship of Texas's length. However a strong tide swung her around onto a mud bank and held there. She was not able to get herself off and even the assistance of the U.S. Revenue Steamer Galveston was to no effect. Late the next day she was hauled off by the use of her port anchor and a tug. These two incidents gave her a reputation as being a jinxed or unlucky ship and earned her the nickname "Old Hoodoo".

She returned to the Eastern Seaboard in March 1897 and remained there until the beginning of 1898. During this period, her bow and stern torpedo tubes were removed in June 1897 and additional telescopic sights were added to her turret roofs between 14 July and 12 August. At the beginning of 1898, she visited Key West, Florida, and the Dry Tortugas en route to Galveston for a return visit, which she made in mid-February. Returning to the Atlantic via the Dry Tortugas in March, she arrived in Hampton Roads on 24 March and resumed duty with the North Atlantic Squadron.

Spanish–American War

Early in the spring, war between the United States and Spain erupted over conditions in Cuba and the supposed Spanish destruction of Maine in Havana harbor in February 1898. By 18 May, under the command of Captain J. W. Philip, Texas was at Key West, readying to prosecute that war.

On 21 May, the battleship arrived off Cienfuegos, Cuba, with the Flying Squadron to blockade the Cuban coast. After a return to Key West for coal, Texas arrived off Santiago de Cuba on 27 May. She patrolled off that port until 11 June, when she made a reconnaissance mission to Guantánamo Bay in support of the Marine landings there. The next day the Texas landed three field pieces and two M1895 Colt–Browning machine guns at the request of the Marine expeditionary commander, Lt. Col. Robert W. Huntington. For the next five weeks, the Texas patrolled between Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo Bay. On 16 June, the warship joined the cruiser USS Marblehead (C-11) for a bombardment of the fort on South Toro Cay in Guantánamo Bay. The two ships opened fire just after 14:00 and ceased fire about an hour and 16 minutes later, having reduced the fort to impotency.

On 3 July, she was steaming off Santiago de Cuba when the Spanish Fleet under Admiral Cervera attempted to escape past the American Fleet. Texas  took four of the enemy ships under fire immediately. While the battleship's main battery pounded the armored cruisers SPANISH CRUISER Vizcaya and SPANISH CRUISER Cristobal Colon, her secondary battery joined USS Iowa (BB-4), USS Gloucester (1891), and USS Indiana (BB-1) in battering two torpedo-boat destroyers.

"The two Spanish destroyers fell out of the action quickly and beached themselves, damaged heavily. One by one, the larger enemy warships also succumbed to the combined fire of the American Fleet. Each, in turn, sheered off toward shore and beached herself. Thus, Texas and the other ships of the Flying Squadron annihilated the Spanish Fleet." Texas was lightly damaged during the battle by a single 6 in high explosive shell that hit her on the starboard side above the main deck, immediately forward of the ash hoist. Fragments from the shell badly damaged the ash hoist and destroyed the doors of both air shafts and the adjacent bulkheads. Splinters riddled much of the adjacent structure as well.

"The defeat of Cervera's Fleet helped to seal the doom of Santiago de Cuba. The city fell to the besieging American forces on 17 July, just two weeks after the great American naval victory. The day after the surrender at Santiago, Spain sought peace through the good offices of the French government. Even before the peace protocol was signed in Washington, DC, on 12 August, American ships began returning home. Texas arrived in New York on 31 July. Captain Philip was promoted to Commodore on 10 August 1898."

"In late November, Texas moved south to Hampton Roads where she arrived on 2 December. The warship resumed her peacetime routine patrolling the Atlantic coast of the United States. Though her primary field of operations once again centered on the northeastern coast, she also made periodic visits to such places as San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Havana, Cuba, where her crew could view some of the results of their own ship's efforts in the recent war."

Post-war service
Texas was decommissioned for a lengthy refit on 3 November 1900 at the Norfolk Navy Yard but was commissioned again on 3 November 1902. During this refit, her funnel and topmasts were raised. Furthermore, the protection for her 12 in ammunition hoists was doubled and her broadside torpedo tubes were removed. On one voyage to New Orleans in February 1904, Texas could only make 13.9 knots under forced draft. During 1904 her armament was upgraded when she exchanged her four 6 in/30 cal guns for more powerful 35-caliber weapons and two one-pounder guns were landed. She served as flagship for the Coast Squadron until 1905, and remained assigned to it after its commander shifted his flag.

Texas was briefly decommissioned between 11 January 1908 and 1 September 1908. By 1908 she had become the station ship at Charleston, South Carolina. By 1910, she had lost her 37 mm revolving cannon and one more one-pdr gun in exchange for two additional six-pounder guns. Regarded as obsolete by 1911, she was relegated for use as a gunnery target to allow the Navy to evaluate the effects of modern shells on armored and unarmored parts of the ship, the probabilities of underwater hits and their depths, the effects of shock loads on pipes, etc., the flammability of the ship's fittings and the direction in which shells were pointing when striking at long range. As part of this evaluation, she was fully fitted out and only items which normally would have been allowed to be removed before action and those items added to her for service as a station ship were removed. Dummies were also rigged to evaluate the effects of hits on the crew. It is uncertain if her ammunition and powder remained on board for the tests. Preparing Texas for these tests cost $29,422.70.

San Marcos
"On 15 February 1911, her name was changed to San Marcos to allow the name Texas to be assigned to Battleship No. 35." She was sunk in shallow water in Tangier Sound in Chesapeake Bay on 21–22 March 1911 by gunfire from the battleship USS New Hampshire (BB-25). No detailed examination was made afterward, but it was noted that there were so many holes below the waterline that the water in the forward and rear compartments generally took on the motion of the outside water. The interior above the waterline was generally demolished. She was used as a target for a torpedo experiment on 6 April. "On 10 October 1911, her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register." A cage mast, a duplicate of those used on the Florida-class battleship dreadnoughts, was built atop the San Marcos's remains in 1912 and tested against 12 in shells fired by the monitor USS Tallahassee (BM-9) from a range of 1000 yd on 21 August 1912. Although the mast had been knocked down by nine hits, it was considered to have withstood the fire exceedingly well.

San Marcos was used for gunnery practice throughout World War II, although generally as an anchor for a canvas target screen. Sitting two to six feet below the surface and marked by an unlit buoy, she was responsible for the sinking of the cargo ship Lexington in 1940 following a collision. Tons of explosives were used to demolish her upperworks and drive her hull deep into the mud; by January 1959, they were successful and she remains there today.

Online sources

 * | Deck Log of the USS Texas, National Archives, Washington D.C.
 * | Deck Log of the USS Texas, National Archives, Washington D.C.
 * | Deck Log of the USS Texas, National Archives, Washington D.C.
 * | Deck Log of the USS Texas, National Archives, Washington D.C.
 * | Deck Log of the USS Texas, National Archives, Washington D.C.
 * | Deck Log of the USS Texas, National Archives, Washington D.C.
 * | Deck Log of the USS Texas, National Archives, Washington D.C.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: USS Texas (1892)


text:
USS Texas (CGN-39)

USS Texas (DLGN/CGN-39) was the United States Navy's second Virginia-class cruiser nuclear guided missile cruiser. She was the third ship of the Navy to be named in honor of the State of Texas. Her keel was laid down on 18 August 1973, at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company.

She was initially designated a guided missile destroyer leader (DLGN), but was reclassified as a guided missile cruiser and given the hull classification symbol CGN-39 on 30 June 1975, as part of the Navy's ship reclassification plan. She was launched on 9 August 1975, sponsored by Betty Jane Briscoe, wife of Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe, and commissioned on 10 September 1977.

1977–1982
Following a nine-week test of the ship's combat systems, Texas loaded weapons at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station in October and underwent refresher training out of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in November. Texas spent the first three months of 1978 conducting at-sea evaluation of her propulsion and weapons systems off the Virginia Capes and in the Caribbean. On 28 March, she transited to her building yard at Newport News to commence a Post Shakedown Availability (PSA) which was completed on 31 July. The remainder of 1978 was spent in individual ship exercises off the east coast and Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, interspersed with periods in her home port of Norfolk, Virginia. The maiden deployment of Texas was with the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) Carrier Battle Group (CBG) in the Mediterranean and North Arabian Seas during the Iranian hostage crisis in support of Operation Eagle Claw. She also served as flagship for Commander, Cruiser-Destroyer Group One. In 1980–81, during a maintenance period she received two 4-cell Harpoon anti-ship missile batteries and two CIWS gun mounts for anti-missile defense. Her second deployment was again with the Nimitz CBG, followed by operations in the Mediterranean. During this period, Texas saw combat for the first time, as she responded to Libyan aggression in the Gulf of Sidra.

1983–1987
On 1 March 1983 Texas sailed from Norfolk on her third deployment with the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) Carrier Battle Group (CBG), and included an around-the-world cruise which allowed her to visit every inhabited continent except South America and to sail every ocean except the Arctic. The world cruise also included a change of homeport to San Diego, from Norfolk. Texas spent the first part of the following year operating in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea after visits to Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Monaco, Morocco and Cote D'Ivoire. On 1 July 1983 the Carl Vinson CBG arrived at Perth, Australia. Texas, along with attack submarine USS Phoenix (SSN-702) arrived at naval base HMAS Stirling in Rockingham, south of Fremantle, where they stayed until the 7 July before Texas departed, operating independently from the battle group. Her next port of call was Brisbane, Australia, where she arrived on 14 July 1983. On 19 July, while departing the Fisherman Island Wharf, Texas was damaged above the waterline after colliding with the quay, but continued after repairs were made. On 11 August 1983, anti-nuclear activists marched in Wellington, New Zealand in opposition to a port visit there by Texas. The anti-nuclear movement in New Zealand objected to the US policy of not publicizing which of its ships carried nuclear weapons. Texas visited Albany, Western Australia, anchoring in King George Sound on 29 August 1983 for an R&R visit. She departed on 1 September 1983, returning to San Diego. She then began to make preparations for a homeport change to Alameda, California then went north to Bremerton, Washington, for a Complex Overhaul. She entered dry-dock at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in September, and remained there until April 1987.

1988–1992
After Dry Dock in Bremerton Washington she returned to its homeport Alameda, California, Texas deployed with the Carl Vinson Carrier Battle Group (CBG) for Westpac 1988 as the Anti-Air Warfare Commander. This, her fourth major deployment, included port visits to Singapore, Subic Bay, Hawaii, Thailand, Hong Kong and Kenya. In 1989, Texas conducted local operations and a short overhaul at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. By the end of the year, she was back at sea on counter-narcotics operations off the coast of South America.

In February 1991, Texas began her sixth deployment, en route to the Arabian Sea. She served during Operation Desert Storm as the command ship for the Anti-Air Warfare Commander of the Nimitz CBG. Additionally, she served as a base-ship for minesweeping operations off the coast of Kuwait, providing valuable logistic support for several minesweepers. She returned to San Francisco in August of that year. In April 1992, Texas returned to sea and conducted a second counter-narcotics mission that included visits to Ecuador and Panama.

Early decommissioning
Texas was halfway through her mid-life refueling and New Threat Upgrade overhaul and work had just begun on the installation of her new reactor cores in early May 1993, when the decision was made to cancel the work on her and also the planned refueling of her Virginia-class sister-ships. Texas was placed in reserve commission on 31 May 1993, then decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 16 July 1993 after just 15 years of service. Texas entered the nuclear Ship-Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on 1 October 1999.

Ship's Crest
The official crest of USS Texas CGN 39 was designed by Martha Bell, a freelance graphic designer from Texas. The colors—red, white, and blue—represent the state flag of Texas. The anchor and the fouled line symbolize the Navy, while the Lone Star signifies the state of Texas. The atoms and orbits within the Lone Star represent the nuclear power characteristics of the ship. The three stars at the bottom represent the past United States ships named "Texas". The motto, "Proud Heritage, Proud Purpose", refers to the history and legacy of those ships, and their purpose: defense of the United States.

title: USS Texas (CGN-39)


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USS Texas (SSN-775)

USS Texas (SSN-775) is a Virginia-class submarine, and the fourth warship of the United States Navy to be named after the US state of Texas.

The contract to build her was awarded to the Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard (then called Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.) on 30 September 1998 and her keel was laid down on 12 July 2002. She was christened on 31 July 2004 by Laura Bush, First Lady of the United States. She was launched into the James River on 9 April 2005, and commissioned as a US Navy warship in Galveston, Texas on 9 September 2006.

History
Texas arrived at Galveston Bay on 4 September 2006 and was escorted into the harbor by Elissa. With a crowd of 10,000 in attendance, Texas was commissioned in Galveston, Texas, and joined the US Atlantic Fleet on 9 September 2006.

The boat departed New London Naval Submarine Base at Groton for Pearl Harbor on 16 September 2009. On her way to Pearl Harbor, Texas traveled to the Arctic Ocean and surfaced near the North Pole's ice pack. Texas arrived at her new home port on 23 November 2009.

The submarine departed Pearl Harbor for her first three-month operational patrol on 27 October 2010. The location of her first deployment was not disclosed by the Navy.

In May 2012, Texas underwent a scheduled 20-month-long overhaul.

Ship's crest
"In the forefront is a full view of Texas, ready to go forth and take the fight to the enemy. Emblazoned on her hull is the shape of the state of Texas, denoting the outstanding patriotism and leadership the citizens of Texas have contributed to the American nation. Located within the state outline is a symbol of the atom, representing the warfighting capability and endurance afforded Texas by nuclear power.

Texas is backed by the traditional badge of the Texas Rangers. This identifies the singularity of purpose between the men and women who enforce Texas law and the sailors. The four white stars represent the four American warships to bear the name of the state of Texas. "Don't Mess with Texas" is a well known state slogan and a warning for those who attempt to prevent Texas from carrying out her mission. The battle scarred Lone Star flag flying behind Texas represents the gallant heroism of those who fought and died at the Alamo to ensure the future of Texas, and it also represents the perseverance with which Texas and her crew will endure through all missions that are put before her."

In popular culture
This commissioning was depicted in Season 2, Episode 4 of the Discovery Channel television series, FutureWeapons.

title: USS Texas (SSN-775)


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USS Texas (BB-35)

USS Texas (BB-35) is a museum ship in Galveston 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 for the first time when shooting medium-caliber guns at supposed submarines (no evidence exists that suggests these were anything more than waves). From September 1927 to September 1931, Texas became the flagship of the United States Fleet, one of only four ships to be designated U.S. Fleet flagships from 1922 to 1941. 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.

Texas was also a technological testbed: the first U.S. battleship to mount anti-aircraft guns, the first U.S. warship to control gunfire with directors and range-keepers, the first U.S. battleship to launch an aircraft, and one of the first U.S. Navy warships to receive production radar. She was the first battleship in the world to be outfitted with 14-inch guns.

Texas was the first U.S. battleship to become a permanent museum ship, she was turned over to the state of Texas on 21 April 1948 as a permanent museum in Houston. In 1976 she became the first battleship to be declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark, and is the only remaining World War I era dreadnought battleship. She is also one of the seven remaining ships and the only remaining capital ship to have served in both World Wars. Texas is owned by the people of Texas and is officially under the jurisdiction of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Everyday operations and maintenance of Texas have been handled by the non-profit organization Battleship Texas Foundation since August 2020. At the end of August 2022 she was moved to a dry dock in Galveston, Texas, to undergo a $60 million repair project. On completion, her new permanent home will be Galveston. As of March 2024, the repair project is still underway, but she has moved out of dry dock.

Construction
The United States Congress authorized the construction of Texas, the second Navy ship to be named after that state, on 24 June 1910. Bids for Texas were accepted from 27 September to 1 December with the winning bid of $5,830,000—excluding the price of armor and armament—submitted by Newport News Shipbuilding. The contract was signed on 17 December and the plans were delivered to the building yard seven days later. Texas keel was laid down on 17 April 1911 at Newport News, Virginia. She was launched on 18 May 1912, sponsored by Miss Claudia Lyon, daughter of Colonel Cecil Lyon, Republican national committeeman from Texas. The ship was commissioned on 12 March 1914 with Captain Albert W. Grant in command.

Texas's main battery consisted of ten 14 in/45 caliber Mark 1 guns, which could fire 1400 lb armor-piercing shells to a range of 13 mi. Her secondary battery consisted of twenty-one 5 in/51-caliber guns. She also mounted four 21 in torpedo tubes for the Bliss-Leavitt Mark 8 torpedo, one each on the port-side bow and stern and starboard bow and stern. The torpedo rooms held 12 torpedoes total, plus 12 naval defense mines. Texas and her sister USS New York (BB-34) were the only battleships to store and hoist their 14-inch ammunition in cast-iron cups, nose-down.

Service history

On 24 March 1914, Texas departed Norfolk Navy Yard and set a course for New York City, making an overnight stop at Tompkinsville, New York, on the night of 26 March. Entering New York Navy Yard on the next day, she spent the next three weeks there undergoing the installation of fire-control equipment.

During his 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.

President Wilson saw in the incident an opportunity to put pressure on a government he felt was undemocratic. On 20 April, Wilson placed the matter before the United States Congress and sent orders to Rear Admiral Frank Friday Fletcher, commanding the naval force off the Mexican coast, instructing him to land a force at Veracruz and to seize the customs house there in retaliation for what is now known as the "Tampico Incident". That action was carried out on 21–22 April.

Due to the intensity of the situation, Texas put to sea on 13 May and headed directly to operational duty without benefit of the usual shakedown cruise and post-shakedown repair period. After a five-day stop at Hampton Roads from 14 to 19 May, she joined Rear Admiral Fletcher's force off Veracruz on 26 May. She remained in Mexican waters for just over two months, supporting the American forces ashore. On 8 August, she left Veracruz and set a course for Nipe Bay, Cuba, and from there steamed to New York, where she entered the Navy Yard on 21 August.

The battleship remained there until 6 September, when she returned to sea, joined the Atlantic Fleet, and settled into a schedule of normal fleet operations. In October, she returned to the Mexican coast. Later that month, Texas became station ship at Tuxpan, a duty that lasted until 4 November, when she steamed for Galveston, Texas. While at Galveston on 7 November, Texas Governor Oscar Colquitt presented the ship's silver service to Captain Grant. The Young Men's Business League of Waco, Texas, raised the $10,000 to purchase the silver.

Texas sailed for Tampico on 14 November and thereafter to Veracruz, where she remained for a month. The ship left Mexico on 20 December and set a course for New York. The battleship entered New York Navy Yard on 28 December and remained there undergoing repairs until 16 February 1915. On 25 May, Texas, along with battleships USS South Carolina (BB-26), USS Louisiana (BB-19), and USS Michigan (BB-27), rescued 230 passengers from the damaged Holland America Line passenger ship SS Ryndam, which had been rammed by Norwegian-flagged fruit steamer Joseph J. Cuneo. In gratitude, Holland America Line presented Texas with a model of a 17th-century warship, which is displayed with the wardroom silver as of 2014. In 1916, Texas became the first U.S. battleship to mount anti-aircraft guns with the addition of two 3 in/50-caliber guns on platforms atop the boat cranes, 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 alternating between training operations along the New England coast and off the Virginia Capes and 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 U.S. 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 onboard merchant ships. One of the gun crews trained aboard Texas was assigned to the merchant vessel SS Mongolia (1903) at the beginning of the war. On 19 April, the crew of Mongolia sighted a surfaced German U-boat and the gun crew trained aboard Texas opened fire on the U-boat, averting an attack on Mongolia and firing the first American shots of World War I.

In August, she steamed to New York for repairs, arriving at Base 10 on 19 August and entering the New York Navy Yard soon thereafter. She completed repairs on 26 September and got underway for Port Jefferson that same day. During the mid-watch on 27 September, she ran hard aground on Block Island. Captain Victor Blue and his navigator, confused about shore lights and more concerned about the minefield at the opening of Long Island Sound, made the turn at the wrong time and ran the ship aground on the island from the bow all the way aft beyond midships. For three days, her crew lightened ship to no avail. On 30 September, tugs came to her assistance, and she finally backed clear. Hull damage dictated a return to the yard, and extensive repairs precluded her departure with Battleship Division 9 for the British Isles in November. The secondary battery was reduced to eighteen 5-inch guns in October 1917. Captain Blue, a protege of Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels, was never court-martialed and remained in command of Texas. The Navy Department held his navigator entirely responsible for the accident.

By December, she had completed repairs and moved south to conduct military simulations out of the York River. Mid-January 1918 found the battleship back at New York preparing for the voyage across the Atlantic, including the removal of two more 5-inch guns, reducing the total number aboard to 16. She departed New York on 30 January 1918, arrived at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland on 11 February, and rejoined Battleship Division 9, by then known as the 6th Battle Squadron of Britain's Grand Fleet.

Texas's service with the Grand Fleet consisted entirely of convoy missions and occasional forays to reinforce the British squadron on blockade duty in the North Sea whenever German heavy units threatened. The fleet alternated between bases at Scapa Flow and at the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Texas began her mission five days after her arrival at Scapa Flow, when she sortied with the entire fleet to reinforce the 4th Battle Squadron, then on duty in the North Sea. She returned to Scapa Flow the next day and remained until 8 March, when she put to sea on a convoy escort mission from which she returned on 13 March. Texas and her division mates entered the Firth of Forth on 12 April, but got underway again on the 17th to escort a convoy. The American battleships returned to base on 20 April. Four days later, Texas again stood out to sea to support the Second Battle Squadron the day after the German High Seas Fleet had sortied from Jade Bay toward the Norwegian coast to threaten an Allied convoy. Forward units caught sight of the retiring Germans on 25 April, but at such an extreme range, bringing the German fleet into engagement with the Grand Fleet was not possible. The Germans returned to their base that day, and the Grand Fleet, including Texas, did likewise on the next.

Texas and her division mates passed a relatively inactive May in the Firth of Forth. On 9 June, she got underway with the other warships of the 6th Battle Squadron and headed back to the anchorage at Scapa Flow, arriving there the following day. From 30 June to 2 July, Texas and her colleagues acted as escort for American minelayers adding to the North Sea Mine Barrage. After a two-day return to Scapa Flow, Texas put to sea with the Grand Fleet to conduct two days of tactical exercises and war games. At the conclusion of those drills on 8 July, the fleet entered the Firth of Forth. For the remainder of World War I, Texas and the other battleships of Division 9 continued to operate with the Grand Fleet as the 6th Battle Squadron. With the German Fleet increasingly tied to its bases in the estuaries of the Jade and the Ems rivers, the American and British ships settled into a routine schedule of operations with little-to-no hint of combat operations. That state of affairs lasted until the Armistice ended hostilities on 11 November 1918. At 03:35 on 21 November, she got underway to accompany the Grand Fleet to meet the surrendering German Fleet. The two fleets rendezvoused about 40 nmi east of the Isle of May and proceeded to the Firth of Forth. Afterward, the American contingent moved to Portland Harbour, England, arriving there on 4 December.

Inter-war period

On 12 December 1918, Texas put to sea with Battleship Divisions 9 and 6 to meet President Woodrow Wilson embarked in SS George Washington on his way to the Paris Peace Conference. The rendezvous took place around 07:30 the following morning and provided an escort for the President into Brest, France, where the ships arrived at 12:30 that afternoon. On the afternoon of 14 December, Texas and the other American battleships departed Brest to return to the United States. The warships arrived off Ambrose light station on Christmas Day, 1918, and entered New York the next day.

Following overhaul, Texas resumed duty with the Atlantic Fleet early in 1919. On 10 March, she became the first American battleship to launch an airplane when Lieutenant Commander Edward O. McDonnell flew a British-built Sopwith Camel off the warship at Guantanamo Bay. Later in 1919 Texas's captain, Nathan C. Twining, successfully employed naval aircraft to spot the fall of shells during a main battery exercise. The results were that aircraft-borne gunfire spotters were significantly more accurate than shipboard spotters. In testimony to the Navy General Board, Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Whiting attested that the increase in gunfire effectiveness with air spotting was likely to be as great as 200%. As a result of these first experiments, the Navy would add floatplanes to all of the fleet's battleships and newer cruisers. In May 1919, Texas served as a plane guard and navigational aid for the successful attempt by Navy Curtiss NC flying boat NC-4 to become the first airplane to cross the Atlantic. On 26 July 1919 Texas entered the Pacific Ocean as part of the newly formed Pacific Fleet and she would spend the next five and half years as a part of Pacific Fleet. On 17 July the following year, she was designated BB-35 under the Navy's newly adopted alpha-numeric system of hull classification symbols.

Texas left the Pacific on 16 January 1924 and returned to the east coast for overhaul and to participate in a training cruise to European waters with Naval Academy Midshipmen embarked. While operating in the Atlantic, on 25 November 1924, she sank the incomplete battleship USS Washington (BB-47) in compliance with the Naval Arms Limitation Treaty of 1922, and later that fall, conducted maneuvers as a unit of the Scouting Fleet. On 31 July 1925, she entered Norfolk Navy Yard for a major modernization overhaul. The overhaul, which replaced both cage masts with tripod masts, replaced her 14 Babcock & Wilcox coal-fired boilers with 6 Bureau Express oil-fired boilers, added anti-torpedo bulges and upgraded her fire-control equipment, was completed on 23 November 1926. Also, her AA armament was increased to eight 3-inch guns, and the torpedo tubes were removed. Six of the 5-inch guns were relocated to new main deck casemates at this time. Following completion of her overhaul, Texas was designated the flagship of the United States Fleet and resumed duty along the eastern seaboard. She kept at that task until late 1927, when she did a brief tour of duty in the Pacific from late September-early December. In 1927, Texas set another first with the showing of "talking" pictures for crew entertainment. Near the end of the year, Texas returned to the Atlantic and resumed normal duty with the Scouting Fleet. In January 1928, she transported President Calvin Coolidge to Havana, Cuba, for the Pan-American Conference and then continued on via the Panama Canal and the west coast to maneuvers with the fleet near Hawaii. She returned to New York early in 1929 for her annual overhaul and had completed it by March when she began another brief tour of duty in the Pacific. She returned to the Atlantic in June and resumed normal duty with the Scouting Fleet. In April 1930, she took time from her operating schedule to escort SS Leviathan into New York when that ship carried the returning U.S. delegation to the London Naval Conference. In January 1931, she left the yard at New York as flagship of the United States Fleet and headed via the Panama Canal to San Diego, California, and then on to Los Angeles (port of San Pedro) which became her home port for the next six years and three months. There would be a temporary redeployment back to the Atlantic from April to October 1934. During this Pacific period, she served first as flagship for the entire Fleet and, later, as flagship for Battleship Division 1.

In the summer of 1937, she once more was reassigned to the east coast, as the flagship of the Training Detachment, United States Fleet. Late in 1938 or early in 1939, the warship became flagship of the newly organized Atlantic Squadron, built around Battleship Division 5. Through both organizational assignments, her labors were directed primarily to training missions, Midshipman cruises, Naval Reserve drills, and training members of the Fleet Marine Force. Also in 1937, eight 1.1 in AA guns in two quadruple mounts were added to improve the light AA armament. In December 1938, Texas received for testing the first shipborne radar designed and made by a commercial company, RCA, for the U.S. Navy, the 385 MHz CXZ. In 1941, Texas was one of fourteen ships to receive the RCA CXAM-1 radar.

Early operations
Soon after war broke out in Europe in September 1939, Texas began operating on the Neutrality Patrol, an American attempt to keep the war out of the Western Hemisphere. Later, as the United States moved toward more active support of the Allied cause, the warship began convoying ships carrying Lend-Lease materiel to the United Kingdom. In February 1941, the U.S. 1st Marine Division was activated aboard Texas. On 1 February, Admiral Ernest J. King hoisted his flag as Commander-in-Chief of the re-formed Atlantic Fleet aboard Texas. That same year, while on Neutrality Patrol in the Atlantic, Texas was stalked unsuccessfully by the German submarine GERMAN SUBMARINE U-203.

On Sunday, 7 December 1941, the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the battleship was at Casco Bay, Maine, undergoing a rest and relaxation period following three months of watch duty at Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland. After 10 days at Casco Bay, she returned to Argentia and remained there until late January 1942, when she got underway to escort a convoy to England. After delivering her charges, the battleship patrolled waters near Iceland until March when she returned home. At various times in 1942, the secondary battery was reduced to six 5-inch guns and the light AA battery was increased, adding two extra 1.1-inch/75-caliber quad mounts (these would be replaced by 10 quad mount 40 mm Bofors in June 1943) and adding fourteen 20 mm Oerlikon cannons (increased to 44 by 1944), the attack on Pearl Harbor having demonstrated the need for this. For the next six months, she continued convoy-escort missions to various destinations. On one occasion, she escorted Guadalcanal-bound Marines as far as Panama; on another, the warship screened service troops to Freetown, Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Africa. More frequently, she made voyages to and from the United Kingdom escorting both cargo- and troop-carrying ships.

Operation Torch
On 23 October 1942, Texas embarked upon her first major combat operation when she sortied with Task Group 34.8 (TG 34.8), the Northern Attack Group for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. The objective assigned to this group was Port Lyautey in French Morocco. The warships arrived off the assault beaches near the village of Mehedia early in the morning of 8 November and began preparations for the invasion. Texas transmitted Lt. General Dwight D. Eisenhower's first "Voice of Freedom" broadcast, asking the French not to oppose Allied landings on North Africa. When the troops went ashore, Texas did not go into action immediately to support them. At that point in the war, the doctrine of amphibious warfare was still embryonic. Many Army officers did not recognize the value of prelanding bombardments. Instead, the Army insisted upon attempting a landing by surprise. Texas entered the battle early in the afternoon when the Army requested her to fire upon a Vichy French Army ammunition dump near Port Lyautey. One more gunfire mission was provided on the 10th before the cease fire on 11 November. Thus, unlike in later operations, she expended only 273 rounds of 14-inch shells and six rounds of 5-inch shells. During her short stay, some of her crewmen went ashore to assist in salvaging some of the ships that had been sunk in the harbor. Texas was one of only three U.S. battleships (USS Massachusetts (BB-59) and New York) that took part in Operation Torch. On 16 November, Texas departed North Africa for the East Coast of the United States in a task force along with USS Savannah (CL-42), USS Sangamon (CVE-26), USS Kennebec (AO-36), four transports, and seven destroyers.

The young news reporter Walter Cronkite was on board Texas starting in Norfolk, Virginia, through her service off the coast of North Africa, and thence back to the US. On the return trip, Cronkite was flown off Texas in one of her OS2U Kingfisher aircraft when Norfolk was within flying distance. He was granted permission to be flown the rest of the distance to Norfolk so that he could outpace a rival correspondent on Massachusetts to return to the U.S. and to issue the first uncensored news reports to be published about Operation Torch. Cronkite's experiences aboard Texas launched his career as a war correspondent.

Operation Overlord
Throughout 1943, Texas carried out the familiar role of convoy escort. With New York as her home port, she made numerous transatlantic voyages to such places as Casablanca and Gibraltar, as well as frequent visits to ports in the UK. That routine continued into 1944 but ended on 22 April of that year when, at the European end of one such mission, she remained at the Clyde estuary in Scotland and began training for the invasion of Normandy.

Rehearsal

During the next twelve days, Texas carried out many 14-inch gun-firing exercises with British battleships HMS Ramillies (07) and HMS Rodney (29). The firing was done in conjunction with Royal Air Force airplanes as spotters. On 29 April, Texas, USS Nevada (BB-36), and USS Arkansas (BB-33) relocated to Belfast Lough, Northern Ireland. There, final preparations were made, including the removal of the airplane catapult and the ship's OS2U Kingfisher observation planes. The three pilots who flew Texas's Kingfishers during this period were temporarily transferred to a newly formed squadron, VOS-7, that was composed of the pilots who flew observation and scouting planes from the cruisers USS Augusta (CA-31), USS Quincy (CA-71), and USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) and the battleships Arkansas, Nevada, and Texas. VOS-7 received training in defensive fighter tactics, aerobatics, navigation, formation flying and spotting procedures in Royal Air Force Spitfires; they flew spotting missions in the Spitfires because of the threat from German fighters. The pilots of VOS-7 would fly spotting missions for the U.S. warships off Omaha and Utah Beaches during D-Day. Also, during this time additional radio equipment was added, including a device to detect and jam radio-guided missiles. Final exercises were carried out to the south in Dundrum Bay and Belfast Lough. During the final preparations, General 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 U.S. 29th Infantry Division and the U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion at Pointe du Hoc, and the U.S. 5th Ranger Battalion, which had been diverted to Western Omaha to support the troops at Pointe du Hoc.

The Omaha Beach bombardment force consisted of two sections with Texas and the British light cruiser HMS Glasgow (C21) responsible for the western half with Arkansas, and the French light cruisers FRENCH CRUISER Georges Leygues and FRENCH CRUISER Montcalm responsible for the east. Also assigned to Omaha Beach were the American destroyers USS Frankford (DD-497), USS McCook (DD-496), USS Carmick (DD-493), USS Doyle (DD-494), USS Emmons (DD-457), USS Baldwin (DD-624), USS Harding (DD-625), USS Satterlee (DD-626), USS Thompson (DD-627), and the British destroyers HMS Tanatside (L69), HMS Talybont (L18) and HMS Melbreak (L73). Texas was one of only three U.S. battleships (Arkansas and Nevada) that took part in Operation Neptune (D-Day).

At 02:09 on 3 June, Texas and the rest of the Western Taskforce sailed from Belfast Lough for Normandy. In sight, on a parallel course was a group of British ships, including the battleships HMS Warspite (03) and Ramillies. At 07:10 on 4 June, the taskforce had to reverse course due to unacceptable weather in Normandy. Later that evening, off Lundy Island, the taskforce reversed course and headed for and joined the invasion fleet gathering at Area Z. The invasion fleet then headed south toward Normandy and navigated the German minefield, through which minesweepers had cleared channels; not a single Omaha Beach vessel was lost.

D-Day
At 03:00 on 6 June 1944, Texas and the British cruiser Glasgow entered the Omaha Western fire support lane and arrived at her initial firing position 12000 yd offshore near Pointe du Hoc at 04:41, as part of a combined total US-British flotilla of 702 ships, including seven battleships and five heavy cruisers. The initial bombardment commenced at 05:50, against the site of six 15 cm guns, atop Pointe du Hoc. When Texas ceased firing at the Pointe at 06:24, 255 14-inch shells had been fired in 34 minutes—an average rate of fire of 7.5 shells per minute, which 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 5-inch 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 strong points 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 strong points farther inland.

By noon, the assault on Omaha Beach was in danger of collapsing due to stronger than anticipated German resistance and the inability of the Allies to get needed armor and artillery units on the beach. In an effort to help the infantry fighting to take Omaha, some of the destroyers providing gunfire support closed near the shoreline, almost grounding themselves to fire on the Germans. Texas also closed to the shoreline; at 12:23, Texas closed to only 3000 yd from the water's edge, firing her main guns with very little elevation to clear the western exit D-1, in front of Vierville. Among other things, she fired upon snipers and machine gun nests hidden in a defile just off the beach. At the conclusion of that mission, the battleship attacked an enemy anti-aircraft battery located west of Vierville.

On 7 June, the battleship received word that the Ranger battalion at Pointe Du Hoc was still isolated from the rest of the invasion force with low ammunition and mounting casualties; in response, Texas obtained and filled two LCVPs with provisions and ammunition for the Rangers. Upon their return, the LCVPs brought thirty-five wounded Rangers to Texas for treatment of whom one died on the operating table. Along with the Rangers, a deceased Coast Guardsman and twenty-seven prisoners (twenty Germans, four Italians, and three French) were brought to the ship. The prisoners were fed, segregated, and not formally interrogated aboard Texas, due to the ship bombarding targets or standing by to bombard, before being loaded aboard an LST for transfer to England. Later in the day, her main battery rained shells on the enemy-held towns of Formigny and Trévières to break up German troop concentrations. That evening, she bombarded a German mortar battery that had been shelling the beach. Not long after midnight, German planes attacked the ships offshore, and one of them swooped in low on Texas's starboard quarter. Her anti-aircraft batteries opened up immediately but failed to hit the intruder. On the morning of 8 June, her guns fired on Isigny, then on a shore battery, and finally on Trévières once more.

After that, she retired to Plymouth to rearm, returning to the French coast on 11 June. From then until 15 June, she supported the army in its advance inland. By 15 June, the troops had advanced to the edge of Texas's gun range; her last fire support mission was so far inland that to get the needed range, the starboard torpedo blister was flooded with water to provide a list of two degrees which gave the guns enough elevation to complete the fire mission. With combat operations beyond the range of her guns on 16 June, Texas left Normandy for England on 18 June.

Battle of Cherbourg

On the morning of 25 June Texas, in company with Arkansas, Nevada, four cruisers and eleven destroyers, closed in on the vital port of Cherbourg to suppress the fortifications and batteries surrounding the town while the U.S. Army's VII Corps attacked the city from the rear. While en route to Cherbourg, the bombardment plan was changed and Task Group 129.2 (TG 129.2), built around Arkansas and Texas, was ordered to move 6 mi to the east of Cherbourg and engage the guns of Battery Hamburg, a large shore battery composed of four 24 cm guns. At 12:08, Arkansas was the first to fire at the German positions, while the German gunners waited for Arkansas and Texas to be well in range to return fire. At 12:33, Texas was straddled by three German shells; five minutes later Texas returned fire with a continuous stream of two-gun salvos. The battleship continued her firing runs in spite of shell geysers blossoming about her and difficulty spotting the targets because of smoke; however, the enemy gunners were just as stubborn and skilled. At 13:16, a German 24-cm shell skidded across the top of her conning tower, sheared the top of the fire control periscope off (the periscope remains fell back into the conning tower and wounded the fire control officer, Lt. Cmdr. Richard B Derickson Jr. and three others), hit the main support column of the navigation bridge and exploded. The explosion caused the deck of the pilot house above to be blown upwards approximately 4 ft, wrecked the interior of the pilot house, and wounded seven. Of the eleven total casualties from the German shell hit, only one man succumbed to his wounds—the helmsman on duty, Christen Christensen. Texas's commanding officer, Captain Baker, escaped unhurt and quickly had the bridge cleared. The warship herself continued to deliver her 14-inch shells in two-gun salvos and, in spite of damage and casualties, scored a direct hit that penetrated one of the heavily reinforced gun emplacements to destroy the gun inside at 13:35.

At 14:47, an unexploded 24 cm shell was reported. The shell crashed through the port bow directly below the Wardroom and entered the stateroom of Warrant Officer M.A. Clark, but failed to explode. The unexploded shell was later disarmed by a Navy bomb disposal officer in Portsmouth and is currently displayed aboard the ship. Throughout the three-hour duel, the Germans straddled and near-missed Texas over sixty-five times, but she continued her mission firing 206 fourteen-inch shells at Battery Hamburg until ordered to retire at 15:01.

Operation Dragoon
After Texas underwent repairs at Plymouth from damage sustained at Cherbourg, she drilled in preparation for the invasion of southern France. On 16 July, she departed Belfast Lough and headed for the Mediterranean. After stops at Gibraltar and Oran, Algeria, the battleship arrived in Taranto, Italy on 27 July. Departing Taranto on 11 August, Texas rendezvoused with three French destroyers off Bizerte, Tunisia, and set a course for the French Riviera. She arrived off Saint-Tropez during the night of 14 August and was joined early the next morning by battleship Nevada and cruiser USS Philadelphia (CL-41) At 04:44 on 15 August, she moved into position for the pre-landing bombardment and, at 0651, opened up on her first target, a battery of five 15 cm guns. The beaches had been fortified and heavy resistance was expected. Due to very poor visibility that morning, Texas relied on her SG radar equipment to determine her position and track for both navigation and gunnery purposes. No landmarks were visible during the firing and for the greater part of the forenoon.

The heavy opposition that was expected never materialized, so the landing forces moved inland rapidly. As fire support from Texas's guns was no longer required, she departed the southern coast of France on the early morning of 17 August. After a stop at Palermo, Sicily, she left the Mediterranean and headed for New York where she arrived on 14 September 1944.

Operations Detachment and Iceberg
At New York, Texas underwent a 36-day repair period during which the barrels on her main battery were replaced. She replaced all ten of her 14-inch main gun barrels for the third and final time in her career during this refit. In an incredible stroke of luck she was reunited with 9 out of 10 of her original gun barrels that served on Texas from 1914 to 1923. These nine guns served with USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) prior to being refurbished, relined, and reinstalled on Texas in late 1944. These original guns have remained on Texas ever since. After a brief refresher cruise, she departed Maine in November and set a course, via the Panama Canal, for the Pacific. She made a stop at Long Beach, California, and then continued on to Oahu. She spent Christmas at Pearl Harbor and then conducted maneuvers in the Hawaiian Islands for about a month at the end of which she steamed to Ulithi Atoll. She departed Ulithi on 10 February 1945, stopped in the Mariana Islands for two days of invasion rehearsals, and then she set a course for Iwo Jima. She arrived off Iwo Jima on 16 February, three days before the amphibious landings began. She spent just three days pounding the Japanese defenses on Iwo Jima in preparation for the landing of three Marine Corps Divisions. After the Marines stormed the beaches on 19 February, Texas switched to providing naval gunfire support for them. "On-call fire" in response to requests from Marine units continued through 21 February.

Though the island of Iwo Jima was not declared to be captured until 16 March, Texas departed from the Volcano Islands on 7 March, and returned to Ulithi Atoll to prepare for the invasion of Okinawa (Operation Iceberg). She departed from Ulithi with Task Force 54, the gunfire support unit, on 21 March, and arrived in the Ryukyu Islands on the 26th. Texas moved in close to Okinawa and began her prelanding bombardment that same day. For the next six days, she fired multiple salvos from her main guns to prepare the way for several Army and Marine divisions to make their amphibious landings on 1 April.

Each evening, Texas retired from her bombardment position close to Okinawa, but returned the next morning to resume her bombardments. The enemy ashore, preparing for a defense-in-depth strategy as at Iwo Jima, made no answer. Only air units provided a response, as several kamikaze raids were sent to harass the bombardment group. Texas escaped damage during those attacks. On 1 April, after six days of aerial and naval bombardment, the ground troops went ashore, and for almost two months, Texas remained in Okinawan waters providing gunfire support for the troops and fending off the enemy aerial assault. In performing the latter mission, she claimed one kamikaze kill on her own and claimed three assists. Texas was at general quarters for over 50 days straight at Okinawa due to the threat of kamikazes. This meant that the crew were at their battle stations at all times for seven weeks and ate only crackers and K-rations for meals and their only resting time was a quick shower and change of clothes every 3 days. Texas was never damaged as a result and it is believed that this was the only U.S. ship that stayed at general quarters for such duration at any point during World War II. She fired 2,019 fourteen-inch shells, 2,643 5-inch shells, 490 3-inch shells, 3,100 rounds of 40 mm ammunition, and 2,205 rounds of 20 mm ammunition during the Okinawa campaign. On 14 May she departed Okinawa for the Philippines.

End of the war
On 17 May, Texas arrived at Leyte in the Philippines and remained there until after the Japanese capitulation on 15 August. She returned to Okinawa toward the end of August and stayed in the Ryukyu Islands until 23 September. On that day, she set a course for the United States with homeward bound troops embarked as part of Operation Magic Carpet. The battleship delivered her passengers to San Pedro, California on 15 October, and celebrated Navy Day there on 27 October before resuming her mission to bring American troops home. She made two round-trip voyages between California and Oahu in November and a third in late December. On 21 January 1946, Texas departed San Pedro and steamed via the Panama Canal to Norfolk where she arrived on 13 February, and soon began preparations for inactivation. On 18 June, she was placed officially in reserve at Baltimore, Maryland.

Battleship Texas Commission
On 17 April 1947, the Battleship Texas Commission was established by the Texas Legislature to care for the ship. The $225,000 necessary to pay for towing her from Baltimore to San Jacinto was the Commission's first task. On 17 March 1948, Texas began her journey to her new anchorage along the busy Houston Ship Channel near the San Jacinto Monument, at San Jacinto State Park, arriving on 20 April, where she was turned over to the State of Texas the next day to serve as a permanent memorial. Texas sat just across from the monument at Battleground Park in the waters of the Port of Houston where she was ceremoniously decommissioned on the 21st, nine days later on 30 April 1948 her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register. Texas was the first permanent battleship memorial museum in the US. USS Oregon (BB-3) was displayed as a floating museum in Portland, Oregon from 1925 to 1941 but was scrapped in 1956. When the battleship was presented to the State of Texas, she was commissioned as the flagship of the Texas Navy.

The funding produced by the Battleship Texas Commission was not up to the task of maintaining the ship. Consequently, years of neglect resulted in cracks and gaps in coated surfaces, water intrusion, and steel deterioration. Paint in interior spaces began to crack, then flake, exposing metal surfaces underneath, which began to rust. At the same time, pipes open to the sea ultimately failed, flooding various voids and bunkers. 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 would be 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. By this time, newspaper articles reported that Texas was "under attack" from neglect and insufficient funding. 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.

Transfer to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
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). The legislature abolished the commission effective 31 August 1983, and TPWD assumed operational control the next day. One of the first actions by TPWD was to hire a firm of naval architects to survey the ship in order to assess the deterioration and make recommendations as to what actions should be taken to preserve the ship. The survey revealed that the ship's watertight integrity was badly compromised, the hull was open to the sea in many places, and many compartments were full of standing rain water. The architects determined that the ship needed to go to dry dock for major repairs to the hull and to keep rain water from coming through the porous concrete deck. As part of this plan, serious consideration was given to protecting sensitive fabrics and restoring the interior of the ship. After a five-year-long fund-raising campaign, $15 million was collected to dry dock the ship and complete necessary repairs.

1988–1990 dry dock period
On 13 December 1988, Texas was pulled from her berth with great difficulty over the course of six hours by six large tugboats to begin the 56 mi trip from her berth to Todd Shipyards in Galveston, Texas. Once under tow in the Houston Ship Channel she started taking on water, with a serious breach just forward of the engine rooms. The crew had three 4 in pumps and two 2 in pumps in continuous service to combat the flooding. During the nine-plus hour transit, the ship's draft increased by 18 to 20 in in the stern.

Texas entered the yard's floating drydock at approximately 22:30 on 13 December, at high tide with only 6 in to spare between her hull and the blocks she would sit on. She underwent a 14-month refit that sought to restore the ship to her 1945 condition. While under refit, yard workers sand-blasted paint from not only the hull but also the superstructure and replaced many tons of rusted metal from the hull. Inside the ship, welders and fabricators replaced weakened structural beams and numerous rusted-out deck plates. Topside, workers removed the concrete from the main deck in preparation for a new pinewood deck to be installed later in the refit. In total, more than 375000 lb of steel (amounting to about 15% of the ship's hull) were replaced and more than 40,000 rivets were seal-welded on the underwater hull.

On 24 February 1990, tugboats moved Texas from dry dock to Brown & Root's offshore fabrication facility on Green's Bayou for further repairs, and installation of the four mooring attachments on the starboard side of the vessel. Special diamond bit cutting blades had to be used to cut the 4" thick hull steel which was made in Germany and hardened in carbonized beds to reach over 425 HB hardness values according to original blueprints. It was here that the wood deck was also installed and four of the ten mounts of quad 40 mm guns were installed. On 26 July, the ship was returned to her berth at San Jacinto where the final six mounts of 40 mm guns were installed. The original ten quad 40 mm guns of Texas were removed in 1948 due to the guns still being actively used by the Navy for many decades after World War II. In an amazing coincidence Missouri and other battleships of her class were recalled to active service and due to modernization had to remove all of their 40 mm guns in 1986. Texas took advantage of this situation to not only get a full complement of ten of the best light anti-aircraft gun mounts of World War II but also then to proceed to repaint and reinterpret the Texas to how she looked in the Pacific theater in 1945 with a Measure 21 dark blue paint scheme and no longer the haze gray paint scheme that she wore in the Atlantic theater and then from 1948 to 1990 before her first dry dock refit. Six to eight of the ten 40 mm quad gun mounts that Texas received were on Missouri until the 1980s. The four old inferior gun mounts that the Navy gave to Texas in 1948 were removed. Repairs complete, the ship officially reopened to the public on 8 September 1990. Since returning to her slip at San Jacinto, members of the ship's staff and volunteers have worked to restore the interior spaces.

Dry berth project
In 2004, after many years of working with many of the stakeholders at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site evaluating a wide range of alternative plans to address the ship's problems, TPWD adopted a Master Plan that called for placing Texas into a permanent dry berth. The Texas Legislature was approached to secure appropriate funding. The Legislature allowed the voters of Texas to express their opinion and on 6 November 2007 Texas voters approved $25 million in funds to dry-berth the ship to prevent further deterioration from the corrosive waters of the ship channel.

One of the provisions of the bond legislation was the Battleship Texas Foundation (BTF), a non-profit support organization, raise $4 million in private funds to supplement the $25 million in bond funds. This would provide a total of $29 million to accomplish the goal.

BTF contracted a maritime engineering firm which determined that the ship's keel and main supporting internal structure would be sufficiently strong to support the ship in a dry berth, while another maritime engineering firm was also contracted to study the full range of dry berth alternatives. With these and other studies complete, TPWD presented a progress report to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) in late July 2008.

In March 2009 the LBB released the funds for the dry berthing project to commence. After a lengthy selection process and fee negotiations, TPWD signed a contract with AECOM, on 26 October 2010, to design and develop the plans for Texas's dry-berth. The contract called for AECOM to have its preliminary design completed by spring 2011, with the bidding process for the construction of the dry berth and temporary mooring of Texas to begin in mid-2014, and construction completed by summer 2017. However, by February 2019, funds had not yet been secured to commence construction, with efforts instead dedicated to repairs to the ship.

On 28 May 2019, it was reported that Texas would be undergoing $35 million worth of repairs and then be moved further up the Texas coast, largely due to a decline in visitors at its current location. Later that year, Texas was closed to the public so necessary preparations could be made for the upcoming restoration process.

Leaks
In June 2010, a leak on the starboard side of the ship caused Texas to sink two to three feet in her mooring. The leak was precipitated by a burned out pump, which allowed the ship to take on more water than usual. Consequently, a seam separation was pulled below the waterline creating a second leak. Once the leak was discovered, the broken pump was replaced. 105,000 U.S. gal (400,000 L; 87,000 imp gal) of water had to be pumped from the ship.

On 9 June 2012 about 30 new leaks, between 1 in holes and 2 sqft gaps, were discovered, ultimately necessitating a three-week closure of the ship to visitors; removal of water and repair was complicated by the presence of residual oil in the ship's fuel bunkers. In less than a month, the leaks were fixed.

On 12 June 2017, a 6 by hole about 15 ft below the waterline caused the ship to list six degrees to starboard. After emergency repairs, crews pumped out about 105,000 U.S. gal (400,000 L; 87,000 imp gal) of water per minute out of the ship for more than 15 hours.

2022 dry dock period

On 31 August 2022, Texas was towed out of her berth to a floating dry dock at Gulf Copper Dry Dock & Rig Repair in Galveston for repairs. The journey took four tugboats pulling the ship 40 mi through the Houston Ship Channel and ended at around 4 pm. Gulf Copper's old dry dock was no longer usable so, in order to find a quick affordable option for their client Texas, they found a sunken dry dock, a very large 42-year-old dry dock that sank off of the Bahamas, that they had to salvage by repairing it after raising it from the seafloor and then cutting its length in half due to heavy damage from its sinking. The first vessel to use this recycled dry dock was Texas.

Once repairs are complete, the Battleship Texas Foundation intends to berth the ship at a different city; Galveston and many other Texas cities are interested but in March 2023, Baytown and Beaumont were told by the foundation that they were no longer under consideration. As part of the conditions for receiving the $35 million from the Texas government, Texas can only be berthed in the upper coast region of Texas after she is repaired, meaning any part of the Texas coastline from the San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge to the Louisiana border. Texas also received a matching $35 million federal grant from the United States government for her repairs. This $70 million can only be used to repair the battleship and cannot be used on cosmetic-related maintenance like replacing the wooden deck and painting the ship. Also, infrastructure-related projects for the new homeport such as the parking lot or museum buildings cannot be paid for by these funds. Texas later received $25 million more in funding for repairs from the Texas government in 2023.

In November 2023, the Port of Galveston board of trustees approved Galveston to become the new home for Texas. Her new home will be at Pier 20 in Galveston and rent will be $480,000 per year. She left dry dock on 5 March 2024 but will receive more repairs while afloat for the next 18 to 24 months to her superstructure, smaller guns, and interior spaces.

Commemoration
Texas was the first and oldest of the eight U.S. battleships that became permanent floating museums; the other battleships honored in this way are Massachusetts, USS Alabama (BB-60), USS North Carolina (BB-55), USS New Jersey (BB-62), USS Missouri (BB-63), USS Wisconsin (BB-64), and USS Iowa (BB-61). Texas is also one of the oldest surviving modern naval ships, having turned 100 years old on 12 March 2014.

Radio commemorations occur on Texas yearly during Museum Ship Weekend and Pearl Harbor Day. Amateur radio operators from the Battleship Texas Amateur Radio operate on those two occasions under the Federal Communications Commission callsign NA5DV, similar to the original callsign NADV.

The Texas Legislature designated the battleship Texas as the official "State Ship of Texas" in 1995.

Media

Texas has appeared in several films prior to and since her retirement. Her cinema debut, though brief, was in the final scene of the 1937 film Boy of the Streets starring Jackie Cooper and Maureen O'Conner. The 1966 Steve McQueen film  The Sand Pebbles shot some scenes aboard the ship, but these were removed from the final cut of the movie and subsequently lost. For the 2001 film  Pearl Harbor, Texas was chosen as a filming location because she is the only surviving American battleship that was built and in service prior to 1941, and her exterior and interior components look very similar to other battleships that were built in the 1910s and 1920s and were present on Battleship Row during the attack. Numerous exterior and interior shots were filmed on Texas, with actors using the main deck and numerous interior areas. The interior scenes of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) were also shot inside Texas. For the 2006 films  Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima actual film footage of the exterior of Texas taken by the film crew were used to depict her fighting at Iwo Jima. Close-up shots of actors manning the smaller guns of Texas also were used. The only thing added in post-production was computer-generated imagery depicting the main turrets turning and firing.

title: USS Texas (BB-35)


text:
Down Under

The term Down Under is a colloquialism differently construed to refer to Australia and New Zealand, or the Pacific island countries collectively. The term originally referred solely to Australia and gradually expanded in scope. It comes from the fact that Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, “below” almost all other countries on the usual arrangement of a map or globe which places cardinal north at the top.

The term has been in use since the late 19th century, and the persistence of the media use of the term has led to its wide acceptance and usage, especially in reference to Australia. The Men at Work song “Down Under” became a patriotic rallying song for Australians. The Russian-Australian boxing champion Kostya Tszyu was nicknamed “The Thunder from Down Under”, as is Australian snooker player Neil Robertson. When the then Miss Australia Jennifer Hawkins was crowned as Miss Universe 2004 in Quito, Ecuador, she was called by the same nickname by host Billy Bush.

According to American film critic Roger Ebert's tongue-in-cheek Glossary of Movie Terms, the Down Under Rule: "No film set in Australia is allowed to use the word Australia in its title where “Down Under” is an acceptable alternative. For example, we don't get The Rescuers in Australia or Quigley in Australia."

The Tour Down Under is a cycling race in and around Adelaide, South Australia, and since 2009 has been the inaugural event of the UCI World Tour Ranking calendar, which culminates in the Giro di Lombardia.

title: Down Under