Ten 14-inch guns, 573 feet of hull and a commissioning date of March 12, 1914 belong to Battleship Texas, the ship her caretakers count as the last surviving dreadnought anywhere in the world. Texas fought in both world wars, served 34 years in the U.S. Navy and has been a museum ship since 1948.
The ship is not open to visitors while a major repair project runs its course. Her claim to the title rests on the record of the organization that cares for her, and on a service history that runs from the Mexican coast in 1914 to Okinawa in 1945.
The Battleship Texas Foundation describes her as “a veteran of both World Wars” and “the world’s last surviving Dreadnought,” and adds that she is the last remaining battleship to have taken part in the Normandy landings. The same site currently lists the ship as closed due to a major repair project, with a plan to reopen as an educational resource “as quickly as possible.”
Built at Newport News, commissioned at Norfolk
The Navy’s official ship history, the Naval History and Heritage Command’s Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships entry for Texas (BB-35), records that she was laid down on April 17, 1911, by Newport News Shipbuilding Co. in Virginia and launched on May 18, 1912. She was commissioned on March 12, 1914, with Capt. Albert W. Grant in command. NHHC lists her at 27,000 tons displacement, 573 feet long, with a main battery of 10 14-inch guns and a complement of 954.
Her first deployment came within weeks. Per the Battleship Texas Foundation, Texas was sent to Veracruz in May 1914 to support the U.S. occupation there, her first visit to foreign waters, though the fighting had ended before she arrived.
Grand Fleet duty and a first for naval aviation
In World War I, Texas crossed the Atlantic in early 1918 and operated with the Sixth Battle Squadron of Britain’s Grand Fleet, the American battleship division attached to the Royal Navy, according to NHHC. Through November 1918 she escorted convoys and helped reinforce the Allied blockade. The foundation’s education history of the ship notes that Texas and the Grand Fleet patrolled the North Sea until the war ended, with no major battles in that time.
The ship’s next mark on history came the following spring. NHHC records that on March 10, 1919, while at anchor in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Texas became the first U.S. battleship to launch an airplane when Lt. Cmdr. Edward O. McDonnell flew a British-built Sopwith Camel off a platform built on top of her No. 2 turret. Two decades later, the foundation notes, Texas and her sister ship New York received experimental air search radar in 1939.
Normandy, Cherbourg, Iwo Jima and Okinawa
The Second World War put the ship’s guns to their heaviest use. On June 6, 1944, Texas was assigned to support the Army Rangers’ assault at Pointe du Hoc and the landings at Omaha Beach, according to the foundation’s ship history. On June 25, she was sent to support the Battle of Cherbourg, where NHHC records that a 240-millimeter shell struck her fire control tower and a second armor-piercing round passed through her port bow without exploding.
After repairs, she sailed to the Mediterranean for Operation Dragoon, the 1944 invasion of southern France, providing gunfire support off St. Tropez on the first day of the landings. NHHC reports that troops ashore moved inland quickly against light resistance.
Texas then shifted to the Pacific. NHHC says she arrived off Iwo Jima on Feb. 16, 1945, three days before the scheduled assault. Okinawa followed, and the foundation calls it “Texas’ final major battle and by far the hardest.” Over about 50 days in Okinawan waters, the foundation reports, she fired nearly 6,000 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition while supporting troops ashore. NHHC credits Texas with five battle stars for World War II service.
From the Navy Register to a state memorial
Texas arrived at the San Jacinto Battleground near Houston on April 21, 1948, and was decommissioned the same day, per the foundation. NHHC records that her name was struck from the Navy Register on April 30, 1948, and that she was turned over to the state of Texas as a permanent memorial. In 1983, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the ship was placed under that agency’s stewardship.
Houston station KPRC 2 reported on Dec. 11, 2025 that Texas entered dry dock in Galveston in August 2022 for a $75 million restoration. Crews were replacing more than 700 tons of steel, restoring anti-aircraft gun mounts and replacing the wooden deck with lumber from East Texas. Once the work is finished, the ship is set to move to Pier 15 in Galveston as a permanently moored museum ship; the foundation’s expectation at the time of that report was a reopening in late 2026 or early 2027.
Until then, the record stands as the foundation and the Navy wrote it: commissioned March 12, 1914, five battle stars in the second of two world wars, and the last dreadnought left anywhere.
Top image: Battleship Texas at a Galveston shipyard on Dec. 27, 2025, during her repair period. Image Credit: Spheroidite — CC BY 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.