Battleship Texas enters next step of restoration mission
While this isn’t the first time Battleship Texas moved under the cover of darkness and fog, the 27,000 ton vessel seemed to travel with ease early Tuesday as it arrived in the Galveston Channel for more of its $70 million in planned repairs and renovations.
“I’m pumped, I’m excited and we are on to the second phase of the restorations,” said Tony Gregory, president and CEO of the Battleship Texas Foundation. “Today is the fruit of all the work we have been doing.”
As most of Texas slept, the dry dock-holding Texas slowly sank into Galveston Channel. With dense fog wafting along the water, work to maneuver the ship into position started just after 6 a.m. Moving methodically with multiple boats assisting, the ship remained on the north side of the channel awaiting its big turn.
By 7 a.m., when polls opened for Texas’ primary election, tugboats were awaiting orders. By 9:30 a.m., tugs pulled and pushed the behemoth into deeper waters, for a relatively fast journey a few hundred feet down the channel, before another sharp turn, putting her bow-first back along a pier.
Tuesday’s 2,500-foot trip was a minor happening for the historic ship that journeyed around the North Atlantic in 1916, around North Africa during World War II and later Iwo Jima. It was even shorter than the 40-mile trip down the Houston Ship Channel in 2022, when repairs began on the cracked, failing hull that had allowed the Texas to take on water for years.
Making sure Texas is shipshape will continue even with the hull back in the water, said Matt Pham, vice president for the development of the Battleship Texas Foundation.
“The great thing about Pier D is we can look at any problems we see and make any adjustments,” Pham said.
The trip to an adjacent pier at Gulf Copper marks a major milestone in the 18-month effort to keep the Texas, the only dreadnought-era battleship, above water. Crews have replaced an estimated 700 tons of steel and logged 200,000 hours of work so far. Next on the to-do list is work on the interior room, the reinstallation of the Texas’ 5-inch guns and replacement of many deck planks. Metalwork will also go on above deck — all the way to the crow’s nest that ignited a fear of heights for many Texas schoolchildren.
The ship continued to draw crowds Tuesday, as about two dozen spectators gathered at dawn at Pier 21 for a chance to see Texas in motion.
David Bristow drove from Sugar Land, arriving in Galveston by 5 a.m., when fog shrouded early portions of the move.
The 67-year-old first saw the battleship as a freshman at Rice University, when he and some friends rode their bicycles to the San Jacinto Monument, back when riding a bike on Texas 225 was less risky.
Tuesday the trip was much smoother, he said, and simply a labor of love.
“I figure why not get up and see it one more time,” he said.
The ‘Mighty T’
Known to generations of Texans who visited on field trips and as tourists, Battleship Texas was given by the Navy to the state in 1948, rather than scuttling the warship at sea.
Deployed in 1914, Texas is the only remaining dreadnought — from the era when battleships were the behemoths of the ocean as opposed to aircraft carriers. So feared were its 10 giant 14-inch guns, the “Mighty T” did not have to fire a shot during World War I because no other ships would engage as it roamed the Atlantic.
By World War II, however, Texas was the old maid of the water, and the Navy was more than willing to put it close to German guns. Texas shelled North Africa to support troops landings and sailors watched the D-day invasion of Normandy from the deck as they shelled Nazi artillery positions.
“She began churning up the coastal landscape with her 14inch salvos,” the Navy’s research department said in its summary of the Texas’ wartime service. “Meanwhile, her secondary 5-inch battery went to work on another target on the western end of Omaha beach.”
The hope is that history has a chance to resonate with new visitors, likely in Galveston. As part of the restoration work, state officials agreed to kick in $35 million for the move from the San Jacinto Monument and the repairs, but with the caveat that the foundation would find a way to make Texas a nonprofit with no additional money from the state.
Those efforts are pinned on finding a berth that makes sense in terms of visitors and selling people on the museum quality of an aging ship returned as much as possible to its late-1945 condition, Gregory said.
“We want to put her in the best place in Galveston where the most tourists are,” he said.
Part of that plan is returning the ship to what it looked like in 1945, even if some of those details, as of Tuesday, are back in the water. Texas has a fresh coat of black paint on its lower hull, as it would have looked to German submarines.
Upward, Texas is the true blue the ship would have returned from World War II with, down to the smaller-scale “35” — its Naval inventory number — on the side.
Ship is ‘tough,’ ‘delicate’
Though battle-tested, the battleship remains a sacred and fragile object to those who have spent countless hours sourcing it up.
“She’s delicate,” longtime volunteer David Peart said as he watched tugboats get in position for Texas’ latest move. “She’s tough, but she’s delicate.”
His knowledge of the ship runs along every level. He’s helped repair everything from gun sights to the ship’s whistle.
Peart is organizing Battleship Texas Artisans, which provides discarded materials from the ship to metal artists and woodsmiths for reuse as cutting boards, knives, pens and other objects that will be sold to benefit the battleship.
The hope, he said, is to draw even more interest — and funds — for the future floating museum. When he reached out to artists, the sentiment was almost universal.
“Every hand went up,” he said.
In the meantime, Peart said he’s just glad to share in the journey. A few weeks ago, as the dry -dock removal was in preparation, volunteers took a tour.
“I’m glad I got to see her and give her a big hug,” he said.