Set Sail

he Galveston Naval Museum sits on the northern tip of Pelican Island, looking northwest on one side to the bays protecting the heart of Texas, and northeast on the other side to the Gulf of Mexico, Texas’ window to the world. On an Island with so much history, Galveston’s rich naval story begins here. Surprising to some, that history stretches over almost 200 years, predating the foundation of the Republic of Texas.

And as it turns out, that history has been crucial to the preservation of the freedoms most Americans hold dear.

GALVESTON ’ S EARLY NAVAL HISTORY

Before Jim Bowie, William Travis and Davy Crockett drew a line in the sand to secure the freedom of the nascent Republic of Texas, the Texas Navy was hard at work protecting the Gulf flank of the Texas colonists fighting the War for Independence from Mexico. For many years, the Gulf of Mexico had provided an easy route to ship troops and supplies for the Mexican army operating within the Texas territory. To gain independence, Texans needed to disrupt that supply route. Thus in 1835, the sailors whose privateers were the guardians of colonists’ supply routes to New Orleans became the first Texas Navy and the wall blocking reinforcement and resupply of Mexican troops.

The first Texas Navy was pitifully small— four schooners, originally provided by the Constitution of the incipient Republic in 1835. Firefights were few but fierce. Two of these ships were lost in the Battle of Galveston Harbor in 1837, one was captured, and the last ran aground.

Understanding the importance of an effective naval force, however, the Congress of the new Republic allocated another $135,000, and then an additional $280,000, for acquisition of nine new ships. These ships would become the Second Texas Navy, commanded by Commodore Edwin Moore and sited at Galveston Harbor.

It took several years to bring the Second Texas Navy to full operational effectiveness and an unlikely alliance with the breakaway Republic of Yucatan. It also took some private initiative by the Commodore after several head-butts with Republic President Sam Houston, and ultimately, the people of Galveston, whose direct action prevented early auctioning of the Navy’s ships. Operating from its Galveston base, this new naval presence was increasingly successful at protecting the colonists’ supply lines while blocking Mexican efforts to resupply its own army. None of this action would rise to the notoriety of the Battle of the Alamo of course, but as proved by Generals Santa Anna, Napoleon and many other military leaders—both successful and not—wars are won with logistics and support. In this sense, these Galveston-based, early naval actions were crucial to the establishment of the Lone Star State. And after the War of Independence’s bugles stopped, the Second Texas Navy remained a crucial force preventing the Mexicans from launching any serious attempt to reconquer the territory lost to the newly founded Republic.

This was the powerful opening act in Galveston’s naval history—the efforts of the sailors of the Second Texas Navy protected the freedoms for which the heroes of the Alamo and Goliad fought and died in the War for Texas Independence. But successful as they were, their story is not well known. And their operations were short-lived; the Second Texas Navy was sold by Sam Houston to the United States when Texas became the 28th state admitted to the Union in December 1845.

World War Ii Ships

The Galveston Naval Museum is one of those small jewels that focuses on important stories in U.S. history, particularly stories that are a part of the Greatest Generation’s effort in World War II.

“Visitors will see a unique juxtaposition of the hunter [submarine] and the protector [destroyer escort],” says Brian Abugel, CEO of the Cavalla Foundation. “The Galveston Naval Museum is the only museum in the U.S. where visitors can see these two classes of warship together in the same space.” To the delight of its visitors, the Museum offers interactive exhibits and hands-on tours of the ships.

The museum is currently home to museum ships, the USS Stewart (DE-238), a destroyer escort, and the USS Cavalla (SS-224), the WWII submarine that sank the Japanese carrier Shokaku, which had attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. The musuem tells the story of the men who served on these ships.

“Most ship museums are focused on large capital ships like battleships and aircraft carriers,” Abugel says. “They tell the stories of large scale engagements and battles that many have heard about. Our focus is to tell the stories of the ‘Blue Jacket Navy,’ of the ships and crews that did hard, dirty and dangerous work without fame or notoriety.” And what stories the Museum has to tell.

If You Go

Where : Galveston Naval Museum, 100 Seawolf Parkway, Galveston

When : Open daily, including Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Admission : Adults, $13; seniors (65+), $10; children (5-11), $8; children (0-4) free. Active military, veterans and first responders, free. Special rates for groups of 15 or more (call)

Sleepovers: Experience a night aboard a WWII vessel (for groups of 15 or more)

Hardhat Tours : Experience the engine rooms and machinery, normally closed to the public

Private Events : On the decks of the Stewart or Cavalla galvestonnavalmuseum.com

Uss Stewart

The USS Stewart, named after Admiral Charles Stewart, the Commander of the USS Constitution in the War of 1812, was built in Houston and first set sail in 1943 when German U-boats seriously imperiled Allied shipping. At that time, destroyer escorts protected merchant shipments critical to maintenance of the primary war effort. They would deploy depth charges—canisters with 200-plus pounds of explosives—from automatic launchers on the fantail or from the MK6 “K Guns” mounted on the side decks, in an oval pattern behind the ship. Depth charges were most effective when they detonated within a few feet of a submarine. A direct hit was rare but not always required as shock waves from near hits could loosen submarine joints and damage instruments, requiring a submarine to surface, where it could be destroyed by conventional fire. A destroyer escort would usually carry up to 300 such charges.

During its time in the Atlantic, the USS Stewart made 30 crossings, battling enemy submarines and aircraft as well as heavy seas and icing. Before being transferred to the Pacific theater out of Pearl Harbor, the Stewart also had the distinction of escorting flag officers and President Franklin D. Roosevelt as he boarded the USS Iowa to attend a crucial meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. But these are the dry facts of the stories the Galveston Naval Museum tells its visitors.

“Crews on ships like the Stewart did the job of protecting convoys and escorting larger ships, protecting them from German and Japanese threats from above and below,” Abugel says. “These grueling runs would often be marked with long periods of monotony, punctuated by moments of sheer terror.”

The USS Stewart has been restored and maintained by the Museum so that the shipboard experience of the fighting men of WWII can be visualized by the visitor. In the shipboard tour, the visitor can see the depth charge systems and the guns, which would be manned during “battle stations” engagements. Additionally, the visitor can see the other components of shipboard living for the WWII sailors.

USS CAVALLA

The USS Cavalla was a Gato Class attack submarine credited with sinking 34,000 tons of enemy shipping. But certainly its most prized victim, sunk in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, was the Japanese carrier Shokaku, one of the key vessels in the armada that attacked Pearl Harbor to start the war in the Pacific. On June 17, 1944, on its patrol, the Cavalla made contact with a large Japanese task force, which it tracked for several hours. Two days later, it caught the carrier recovering planes and launched an array of six torpedoes. Three struck home, starting multiple fires, which in turn led to explosions of gas and munitions. Within minutes, the gutted carrier sank. For this kill, the Cavalla earned both a Presidential Unit Citation and, appropriately, the “Avenger of Pearl Harbor” appellation.

On its third patrol, in November 1944, the USS Cavalla encountered two Japanese destroyers and successfully dispatched the Shimotsuki in a surface attack. Six weeks later, still on its third patrol, the Cavalla made a nighttime surface attack on a Japanese convoy, sinking two more ships. Finally, on its sixth patrol, it received the cease-fire order and entered Tokyo Bay as part of the fleet awaiting the surrender by Japan on Sept. 2, 1945.

Post WWII, the Cavalla was recommissioned and refitted as a Soviet-era hunter-killer sub and reclassified as SSK-224. Subsequently, the Cavalla participated in NATO exercises before providing an electrical umbilical cord allowing the restart of a diesel generator that had failed on the nuclear submarine USS Thresher during a shutdown of its nuclear reactor.

In the 1970s, after a long and distinguished career, the USS Cavalla was decommissioned and sent to Seawolf Park as part of the Galveston Naval Museum’s installations. Here, she has been restored to allow visitors to imagine life onboard an attack submarine operating in late WWII and during the Cold War.

Preservation Of Battleship Texas

Recently, the 110-year-old battleship USS Texas (BB-35), now a museum ship, has been repositioned at Galveston for repairs and restoration. The Texas was launched in 1912 and saw its first action in Mexican waters as part of President Woodrow Wilson’s response to the “Tampico Incident,” which saw an American force landed at Veracruz after Mexico detained an American gunboat at Tampico. Shortly thereafter, the Texas made numerous WWI sorties into the North Sea, all without encountering the enemy. Then in WWII, some 30 years later, it escorted numerous war convoys across the Atlantic and later shelled beaches in North Africa as part of Operation Torch. A young Walter Cronkite had been aboard for this operation and launched his storied reporting career as a war correspondent when he broke the first uncensored news of operations in North Africa.

In its final action in the Atlantic, the Texas provided gunfire support in the D-Day offensive in June 1944,, where it shelled the western half of Omaha Beach. It was then sent to the Pacific to provide naval gunfire support for the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. By the end of WWII, it had earned its five battle stars.