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Published: February 26th 2019
It was a pretty long drive down to the Galveston Bay site of Battleship Texas, but after all the driving we've been doing, it seemed like it was just around the block. I've always been interested in historical ships, but the Texas is special to me, and I was delighted to finally get a chance to visit it. While researching my family history a number of years ago, I had found (to my great surprise) that my grandfather, a man I know almost nothing about, had been a shipbuilder in the Brooklyn Navy Yard through the first couple of decades of the 20th century. Those years encompassed the construction of BB34, the Battleship New York. BB34 now resides on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, sunk for target practice after WW2, but BB35 Texas is her nearly identical sister ship, and as close as I will ever get to seeing and getting my hands on my "Grandpa's ship".
It was, as promised, a beautiful day, with bluebird skies and temps in the 60's. We arrived about 11AM, and their were only a few folks there on that fine Sunday morning. The ship is floating in a dug-out cove off a
very busy shipping channel, filled with oil-carrying tankers and barges -- and dolphins!. The first thing we noticed was the amount of water being pumped out to keep the old girl afloat. Over a century sailing on salt water has certainly taken a toll. We learned that the long-term plan for her preservation is to make her cove into a dammed-off drydock, with the ship on a dry foundation of steel shoring. That may be necessary, but it won't be cheap.
The ship is reached by a long gangway from shore. It is secured by two massive steel piles driven in along the starboard side. A bracket attached to the hull allows it to move up and down on the piles, but in no other direction. Some areas are roped off, of course, but they do allow quite a bit of freedom to explore the ship. Cathy was disappointed that we weren't allowed to climb higher than the upper bridge, but that was still pretty high.
A lot of the ship had been modified up to WW2 technology, but there was still plenty left of it's earlier 1914 configuration. Crew accommodations for the common seamen were rudimentary by
our modern standards, but I'm sure they were seen as acceptable then. I was afraid that we would not be allowed down into the engine room, but I was delighted to find that access to my favorite area was very good. We were treated to the sight to two massive 4 cylinder, triple expansion, dual acting engines. About 4 decks tall, they were in a way so big that they were hard to see. By that I mean that the catwalks were so close to the engine it was hard to see the whole thing from one vantage point. The thought of men standing there, so close, while all those tons of steel were moving at over 100 RPM is astonishing to me. I would have loved to see alive, but even inert and cold, I was in awe.
I was afraid Cathy would be bored with it all, but in fact I think she enjoyed it nearly as much as I did. I'm sure she was thinking of her Dad, serving on a much smaller, but still similar Canadian destroyer during the war. It's remarkable to think about how he lived and worked aboard a ship like this,
during war, and how that affected his outlook for the rest of his life.
As we left, we saw a color guard come aboard, along with quite a few veterans. Cathy asked one what was going on, and he told us it was a ceremony noting the 74th anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima, an engagement that included bombardment salvos fired by this very ship. Walking out, I stopped to look at a display of one of the Texas's 18' diameter propellers. These were made with replaceable blades, and I was surprised to see that one of these blades had been swapped out for one from her long-gone sister ship. There it was, a propeller blade from BB34, the New York. So to my delight, I did get a chance to touch a surviving bit of Gandpa's ship.
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Babs
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I wonder if all this nostalgia about our grandpa prompted me to sign in as Babs? I am so happy you got to visit this great relic, Tom. Knowing your interest in our heritage, this must have been a special treat for you. So in spite of a difficult star up, it looks like your trip is shaping up into another great adventure. Best of luck to the two of you. You so deserve this. Sending love.