Click to big up. Note the Empire State Building in the skylne
Battleships of the New York-class, USS New York and USS Texas, in New York City during the New York World’s Fair, 3 May 1939.
The two 28,000-ton pre-WWI era dreadnoughts at this time were among the oldest in the world still in front line service, with some 25 years of service behind them. Refitted to burn oil in the 1920s and given updated fire control, they still mounted an impressive battery of ten 14 inch/45 caliber guns.
When war broke out just under four months after this picture was taken, both ships served in the Neutrality Patrol in the Atlantic which kept them off Battleship Row in Pearl on Dec. 7th, 1941.
Texas went on to escort convoys, protect the Torch, D-Day and Dragoon landings before heading to the Pacific and hammering Okinawa.
New York did much the same but also squeezed Iwo Jima in, firing a total of 3,548.9 metric tons of ordinance during the conflict. Surviving both the Able and Baker nuclear tests, she was expended as a target in 1948 at age 34.
Texas on the other hand, was turned over to her home state that year and has been on display ever since. She has since been commissioned as the flagship of the Texas Navy
