TEXAS USS (BB-35)

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Built as a battleship under yard no 147 by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Va.
17 April 1911 keel laid down.
18 May 1912 launched under the name USS TEXAS (BB-35), sponsored by Miss Claudia Lyon. She was one of the New York class.
Displacement: 27.000 tons, dim. 174.7 x 29 x 8,7m. (draught).
Two VTE steam turbines, 28.100 shp. twin shafts, speed 21 knots.
Armament 10 – 14 inch, 21 – 5 inch, 4 – 3 pdrs. guns and 4 – 21 inch torpedo tubes.
Crew 954.
12 March 1914 commissioned under command of Capt. Albert W. Grant.

She was commissioned at a low point in the USA – Mexican relations, and her first assignment was in support of U.S. troops landing at Veracruz.
Later stationed off Tampico.
February 1915 resumed operations with the Atlantic Fleet.
After the U.S. entered the First World War she got orders together with Battleship Division 9 to proceed to Europe and join the Royal Navy at Scapa Flow.
26 September 1916 she ran hard aground on Block Island, and after refloated by tugs, she returned to New York for repairs what took till December.
February 1918 she joined the fleet at Scapa Flow, not many activities took place, she was present at Scapa Flow for the internment of the German High Seas Fleet on November 1918.

After the war she returned to the States.
09 March 1919 she was the first U.S. warship who launched an airplane.
From 1919 till 1924 she was assigned to the Pacific Fleet.
1924 Returned to Norfolk, USA east coast for a refit, in which her cage mast were replaced by tripod masts, and she lost one funnel, a plane catapult was added to her centre turret.
During World War II mostly used for convoy duty and provided gunnery support for Allied landings in Morocco and Algiers in November 1942.
During the Normandy landings left she Belfast Lough 3 June 1944, and opened fire against enemy shore targets at 05.50 of the 6th June.
During the Cherbourg bombardment was she damaged on the 25th.
After returning to the Sates she was assigned to the Pacific and was used in the same roll at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
21 January 1946 she left San Pedro and via the Panama Canal steamed to Norfolk.
21 April 1948 decommissioned, and handed over to the State of Texas to serve as a floating memorial and museum ship at Battleship Texas State Historical Park at La Porte, Texas.
2007 Still in use at a floating museum at San Jacinto State Park.

More info you can find on her at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Texas_(BB-35)

Gambia 1994 1d sg 1856, scott 1554
Marshall Islands 1997 20c sg 931, scott 649aq.
Togo 2005 350f sg?, scott?

Source: Ships of the World by Lincoln P.Paine.

[D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen]

France 1969, 0.45 Fr. StG.1837 (on the background)