Thanks for posting CW
They sure have a big job getting this ship back to museum quality
It's sad that the original conservators made so many mistakes that eventually caused the damage that is having to be repaired now, at great expense. Replacing the deck timbers with concrete, filling the partially full fuel bunkers with seawater, on the theory that that would prevent corrosion (whereas it actually caused corrosion), etc., have left today's conservators with very tough choices.
But at least the ship wasn't scrapped. I will never accommodate myself to the fact that USS
Enterprise (CV-6), the most decorated U.S. Navy ship of WWII, maybe in the history of the USN, was sent to the scrappers in 1958, disregarding the efforts of many to save her.
USS
Texas was fortunate to have been an older ship in 1941.
Texas (BB-35) was the USN's last dreadnought battleship. The next class, the
Nevada-class (
Nevada [BB-36] and
Oklahoma [BB-37]), began the era of the USN's "standard-type" battleships. They had a top speed of 21 knots, the had the same turning circles, with the exception of the last class they were were armed with 14" main guns. The remaining "standard" classes were the
Pennsylvania-class (
Pennsylvania [BB-38] and
Arizona [BB-39]), the
New Mexico-class (
New Mexico [BB-40],
Mississippi [BB-41], and
Idaho [BB-42]), the
Tennessee-class (
Tennessee [BB-43] and
California [BB-44]), and the
Colorado-class (
Colorado [BB-45],
Maryland [BB-46],
Washington [BB-47, cancelled and sunk as a target after the 1921 Washington Naval Treaty], and
West Virginia [BB-48], which had the ships' main armament upgraded to 16" guns. All of those ships except
Colorado and the
New Mexicos were at Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec 1941.
Colorado was being overhauled at Puget Sound and the
New Mexicos were in the Atlantic.
The South Dakota class was next, but all six (
South Dakota [BB-49],
Indiana [BB-50], Montana [BB-51], North Carolina [BB-52], Iowa [BB-53], and Massachusetts [BB-54]) were scrapped before completion in compliance with the Washington Naval Treaty.
So, USS
Texas was with the Atlantic Fleet, operating on Neutrality Patrols, in 1941, along with the New Mexicos and the two brand new Washington Treaty-compliant fast battleships of the
North Carolina class (North Carolina [BB-55] and
Washington [BB-56].
Had Texas been at Pearl Harbor, she might have met the fate of Arizona (catastrophically destroyed) or Oklahoma (too badly damaged to be economically repaired). And then there would have been no American dreadnought to survive to become a museum ship.
