Battleships: Past and Present; USS TEXAS Part 1 Quiz

Answer: La Porte, Texas

USS TEXAS is floating and moored in a slip off the Houston Ship Channel just east of Houston, Texas in the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site and has a LaPorte, Texas address. That has been her home since 1948. She is generally open to the public 10 - 5, 7 days a week but is closed on some holidays and occasionally for scheduled maintenance.

Answer: 2/New York Class

The USS New York (BB-34) and USS TEXAS (BB-35) were the last US battleships built with intermediate side armor, and coal fired boilers. The New York is considered the lead ship in the class even though the Texas was completed first. The USS New York (BB-34) was sunk in July 1948 after surviving two atomic bomb blasts at Bikini Atoll.

Answer: Prior to World War I, 1914

USS TEXAS (BB-35) was delivered to the Navy in March 1914 by the Newport News Shipbuilding Co. in Virginia, as events in Europe were spiraling towards the first global war. She actually joined the fleet at sea in May 1914. Arch Duke Ferdinand was assassinated in June 1914, triggering the events that lead to World War in July 1914.

Answer: Dreadnought Battleship

Even though there were other similar battleships introduced around the same time, HMS Dreadnought (1906) was the ship remembered for changing battleships forever by being among the first of the "all big gun" battleships. USS TEXAS (BB-35)was designed around the concept of HMS Dreadnought, was a contemporary of HMS Dreadnought, and although she was more modern and more powerful, she is classified as a Dreadnought era battleship. Super-Dreadnoughts were generally a decade or so newer than the Dreadnoughts and therefore would have fallen in the 1916 - 1920 range.

Answer: The Vera Cruz Incident, World War I, and World War II

The USS TEXAS (BB-35)was sent to Vera Cruz, Mexico on her very first operational deployment in May 1914 before she was even fully "worked up". She served with the British Grand Fleet in the North Atlantic during World War I and in many different US Fleets during World War II.

She was retired to Texas in 1948 and therefore missed the Korean Conflict. The original USS Texas Battleship did indeed fight in the Spanish American War.

Answer: Ten (10) 14" guns in five twin turrets

USS TEXAS (BB-35)and USS New York (BB-34) were the last US battleships designed with five turrets and the first with 14" guns. That arrangement of armament made them the most powerful ships afloat during their heyday. Many of her contemporaries had as few a six 12" guns, and the older Pre-Dreadnought ships were even less potent than that. Even as late as the end of World War II, she was a formidable lady firing her ten 14" guns onto the beach head.

Answer: Mount and launch an airplane

Even before WWI, navies had experimented with flying airplanes off ships. They were generally cruisers or auxiliaries and always as a temporary experiment. However, in March 1919 USS TEXAS (BB-35) became the first US battleship equipped with an airplane when US Navy Lt. Comdr. Ed McDonnell flew a Sopwith Camel bi-plane off the her deck.

Answer: Second Class Battleship / Maine

The original USS TEXAS was a 6000 ton displacement battleship, which was sunk during naval gunfire practice in Chesapeake Bay in 1911. Her sister, the USS MAINE was sunk in Havana Harbor in 1898 and "triggered" the Spanish American War. The very next battleships designed for the US Navy were the USS INDIANA Class at over 10000 tons.

Therefore, the original Battleship TEXAS was reclassified as Second Class Battleship even though she was virtually the same size as the armored cruisers of her day at 5500 tons. For reference, our USS TEXAS (BB-35) is a 27000 - 34000 ton ship, and the IOWA Class Battleships are almost 60000 tons; nearly ten times the displacement of the first Battleship Texas.

Answer: German shore batteries

In June of 1944, in the days following the D-Day landings, the USS TEXAS, while bombarding German gun emplacements, was repeatedly "straddled" by, and eventually hit by, German shore batteries off Cherbourg, France. One hit killed the helmsman and injured 13 others after striking the armored conning tower and exploding under the Navigation Bridge.

A second shell hit forward but did not explode. She continued her shore fire mission and, when relieved, retired to Plymouth, England for repairs.

Answer: She is the oldest battleship still afloat.

USS TEXAS was the first memorial battleship in the US, although she is not the oldest memorial ship. She is however the only battleship still in existence to have served in both World Wars, and the only Dreadnought battleship remaining, in the world, in any condition.

The oldest ship in the US and the oldest battleships in the world and still afloat will be the subject of a question in Part 2, so "stay tuned"!