Hello everyone and welcome to a new one-part post on the USS Texas and the incredible story of her D-Day attacks. This post will briefly touch on the USS Texas’s history but will mostly focus on her actions during D-Day. Finally, we will discuss where she is now. Without further ado let’s jump right in.

If you’ve read my previous posts on the USS Nevada, then you are already aware of what a dreadnought battleship is. If not, please check it out here for more details that we will be skipping over in this post. Moving on the USS Texas was also a United States dreadnaught built prior to WWI. She was a New York Class battleship who like Nevada received upgrades in the interwar period before entering WW2 service as the flagship of the Navy. She would also be the first ship in the navy to have US Marines among her crew. She would continue in wartime operations until her famous involvement in Operation Overlord or D-Day.

On June 6, 1944, the USS Texas arrived on the coast of Normandy to provide coastal bombardment support for the invasion. Texas began her attack with a 34-minute sustained bombardment launching 255 14-inch rounds from its turrets, the ship’s longest continuous firing. She would continue in this operation for five days until she ran out of ammunition and had to make for the rear detachment of the invasion force to receive more supplies and ammunition before returning to Normandy. However, this is when she would make a decision that would cement her legendary status.

By the time USS Texas returned to Normandy after her resupply, the Allied forces had pushed the enemy back considerably. In fact, the enemy line was now out of range of Texas’s main turrets. However, the Allied forces still needed her support, so the captain made an unheard-of decision. He brought the ship as close as he could to the shore and then ordered the starboard blister tanks completely flooded. This caused the ship to list to a significant degree and thus gave the turrets the extra arch and range they needed to hit enemy positions.

After D-Day the USS Texas would serve in the Pacific theater, becoming the only US ship to serve in all five theaters during the war. She would then subsequently be retired after the war and become a museum ship in the state of her namesake. Today, she sits in a drydock in Galveston being lovingly refurbished and restored after decades of poor maintenance and rusting steel. She remains the last US Dreadnought in existence and her repairs are greatly needed and important. If you’d like to learn more about the repairs or support Texas’s restoration efforts, please check out the Battleship Texas Foundation website here. Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed this post, please feel free to leave a comment and have a great day!