Alexander Martin Model Ship Gallery

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U.S.S. Texas

In her heyday she was one of the finest and most powerful battleships afloat, the U.S.S. Texas, flagship of the Atlantic Fleet. This great battleship is ideal from the model maker's standpoint. Though beamy she has fine lines. On deck there is a variety of parts of an unusual character, objects that are good looking in themselves, instead of a monotony of cabins, structures, and hand rails that are found on a passenger ship. Though the model is specifically the Texas it would serve as well for the U.S.S. New York, her sister ship. Both were built from the same plans, the former at Newport News and the latter at the New York Navy Yard.

The Texas carried the ranking admiral's flag and was so powerful she could be miles out of sight of the coast yet blow a city to bits in short order. Her great 14 inch guns, 53 feet long, would pierce armor plate so far away that it could not be seen aboard. She had enough electric power to lite a small city. The ship had a displacement of 27,000 tons and an allowance of 1,315 men, and she cost about $11,000,000. Her length at the water line was 565 feet and the overall length was 573 feet. The beam was 100 feet.

This model is built to the scale of 1/16 inch equals 1 foot, giving me a model almost 3 feet long and 6¼ inches wide. She had turn screw propellers.

The Texas was flagship of battleship division one of battle force, U.S. fleet and was long famous as flagship of the Atlantic fleet. The full armament was as follows: 6 large searchlights, ten 14 inch 45 caliber guns in turrets, twelve 5 inch 51 caliber rapid fire guns, six 3 inch anti-aircraft, three 3 pounders saluting guns, ywo one pounders, two 3 inch landing guns.

If you will notice the little port holes and hawspipes on the model, these are eyelets dug out of old shoes. The greatest enjoyment I get in building ship models is that I try to make everything out of junk and scrap pieces that I pick up at random. I do not buy hardly anything except the paint. For instance, on the model the anchor chain had to be 11 links to the inch being a model scaled to 1/16 inch to a foot. I finally found a toy tin watch and chain in the ten cent store and upon measuring I found the little chain to be exactly 11 links to the inch, so I bought it for anchor chains.

Working in spare times, now and then evenings and weekends, this model took about a year to build.

The caliber of a gun is the diameter of the bore at the muzzle. Thus a 14 inch gun will have a bore of 14 inches. The designation of 45 caliber denotes that a gun is 45 times its caliber in length or in the case of a 14 inch gun, 52 feet, 6 inches to which is added the breach.

The Texas also carried a sea plane mounted on a catapult on top of a 14 inch gun turret. Six large search lights.

I hoisted a signal flag, blue and white checkerboard pattern called the "General Recall", when members of the crew were away from the ship, ashore on liberty or visiting other ships and sudden sailing orders were received. This flag (the General Recall) was hoisted calling everybody back aboard ship immediately and report to their assigned stations for "up anchor".

It might be interesting here to say that there is only one flag that can be hoisted above the American flag on the same halyard and that's a white pennant with a blue cross - lengthwise of the white pennant - called the church pennant to signify religious services were being held on board, or in the fort, or station, or camp. Another pennant called the "Mess" pennant is a long red pennant hoisted to the signal arm to signify all hands are at meals.

In former days it was customary to use the "Homeward Bound" pennant whenever a ship stationed in foreign waters receives orders to "up anchor" and sail for home waters. Each man in the crew pays for one foot of this pennant. It is a long pennant bearing the stars and stripes and flown from the peak of the mainmast. One ship that I was on, the U.S.S. Essex, a three-masted square rigged clipper ship, was ordered home from European station, and the homeward bound pennant was 326 feet long, flying from the masthead. The tail end was kept out of the water by 3 inflated bladders fastened to the end that floated on the surface of the water. This pennant was only hoisted when leaving port and when entering home port. When we got home and dropped the anchor the pennant was hauled down and it was cut in pieces so that each man got one foot as a souvenir of that glorious homeward bound trip. In an old issue of 1810 "The London Family Herald" that published the subject of christening ships at launchings with bottles of wine is about to be taken up by the temperance people who claim that the rolling of vessels at sea is mainly caused thereby.

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