Update on BB-35...

[Truckman]

Outer hull repairs are complete, and painting is finished...One step closer......Ben

[Dave Grubb]

Excellent, at least it can float again

[Truckman]

Excellent, at least it can float again

Until old man rust holes the hull again in the coming decade...The immediate problem is in finding a suitable berth for it...Right now the direction is leaning toward Galveston......Ben

[UTAH]

She's an amazing ship with a historic role.

"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.
- Wikipedia

Hunter

[Truckman]

She's an amazing ship with a historic role.

There were many instances of its participation in historic events...BB-35 was present at the Normandy invasion bombarding the coast to cover for troops landing on shore...At one point the ship's 14" guns had reached their maximum elevation and could not gain the trajectory to land shells further inland...The German forces figured this out and dug in their defenses just beyond the farthest shell craters...At this point the ship's Captain ordered the old battlewagon's offshore side torpedo blisters flooded which effectively raised the guns' firing angle allowing further penetration into enemy held territory...The German Army took the hint and found a safer temporary neighborhood...

After refitment and replenishment USS Texas crossed the Panama Canal into the Pacific in time to give the Japanese forces the same treatment during the invasion of Iwo Jima...Two key invasions during WWII would have been far more costly in terms of American lives without the presence of BB-35...Its legacy is one worth preserving...

The crossed anchors decoration pictured below on my desk was fashioned from the corroded deck armor salvaged from a previous restoration of USS Texas...Look carefully just below the shackle ring where the stopper crosses the shank on each depiction to see BB stamped on one and 35 on the other...It was $150 well spent as it went toward the current restoration in Galveston......Ben

[Truckman]

A further update: the hull is now completely painted...Who wants to volunteer for a coat of Meguiar's Show Polish before it leaves drydock?......Ben

[UTAH]

Those crossed anchors are beautiful.

I liked where you wrote about BB 35 saving lives by preventing additional deaths. For, I believe many of the actions we took during that war (including using nukes) resulted in substantial numbers of lives that were saved.

Hunter

[Dave Grubb]

Story time---and I have told this in the past

In the early 70's I was doing a job for Bethlehem Steel. I was in the lobby of their engineering office building waiting for an escort. I picked up a copy of their company magazine and read an article about their then new "super" ore carrier, the Stewart J. Cort---the first 1000 footer on the Great Lakes. They had built the bow and stern sections in Huntsville , welded them together and towed it to Erie where they cut them apart and inserted the freight holds which had been built in Erie.

Fast forward to the following winter and I was installing a 250,000 lb/hr high pressure power boiler at Hammermill Paper Co in Erie. I got done early one day and taking advantage of the remaining daylight I took a ride down to the docks. There seemed to be no one around and I spied the Stewart J Cort tied up to a pier----frozen in the ice (the entire lake was frozen at that point). It was bow first into the pier and I could drive right up to it---and look up at the massive bow.

The Texas is a big ship at 573' long and a 95' beam. The M/V Cort is 1000' long with a 105' beam, 14,400 HP, 58,000 gross tons and 49' hold depth. I walked around to the side by the pier and maybe 3/4 of the way toward the stern was one guy, hanging on a Bozsum's Chair with a paint pale and a brush----I could not help but laugh out loud

Then compare to my first "cruise" ship---the Gen W. A. Mann, 623' long, 76 ' beam and a capacity of 6,800 sweaty, fartin GIs with an attitude and not a lick of AC in August on the Pacific It took my wife many many years to get me on another ocean cruise

[Truckman]

I'll concede the Cort being longer and slightly wider at the beam, but how many 14" 45 caliber guns does it have installed?......Ben

[Dave Grubb]

I'll concede the Cort being longer and slightly wider at the beam, but how many 14" 45 caliber guns does it have installed?......Ben

They keep that secret

[Truckman]

They keep that secret

Well they would have to hide them...Texas is still missing 2 of its original contingent of 10 14 inchers after an overhaul in New York harbor...Those sticky-fingered NY harbor gangsters are always stealing more than they can swim with anyway...

Good luck finding ammo for them though...There is still some aboard BB-35 in case anyone tries another hijack...And they are still stored in their original cast iron tubs with the pointy end down...Texas and New York BB-34 (now at the bottom of the Pacific after being sunk as a naval target) were the only battleships to use that method of storage for their projectiles......Ben

[Dave Grubb]

No surprise here----dem NY mob types would steal their own Mother's undies if they could sell em

[UTAH]

Oedipus rises.

Hunter

[Truckman]

Negotiations are underway for BB-35 to find its new home right across the channel from where it is currently drydocked...I hope everything is found to be suitable......Ben

[Dave Grubb]

That's interesting---the NJ was redone in the Philadelphia Navy Yard----and then towed across the Delaware River to it's permanent dock in Camden.