Allied warships of Bombarding Force C, which supported the landings in the Omaha Beach area on June 6, 1944. The column is led by USS Texas (Battleship No. 35) (left), still with her 1930s mast houses, with the British Town-class light cruiser HMS Glasgow (C21), USS Arkansas (Battleship No. 33), Free French cruisers George Leygues and Montcalm following. The picture was taken from the Captain-class frigate/Buckley-class destroyer escort HMS Holmes (K581).
IWM – McNeill, M H A (Lt) Photographer
The Texas group would provide gunfire to open Dog one exit in Vierville-sur-Mer and support the Rangers attempting to destroy enemy guns at Pointe du Hoc, and remain offshore for the next ten days until the battle moved inland.
D-Day Map showing Firing Plan from USS Texas (BB-35) NHHC_1969-232-A_full
By the 15th, Texas had to flood compartments to create a list, upping the elevation of her guns enough to make the German lines near Isigny and Carentan.
Texas (and Arkansas) would come off the gun line at Normandy without a scratch only to grapple with the much more accurate 11-inch guns of Marine-Küsten-Batterie Hamburg off German-occupied Cherbourg three weeks later, costing the life of Texas helmsman Chris Christiansen and wounded 11 others. HMS Glasgow would be so badly damaged off Cherbourg that she would spend the next year in refit and repair, only steaming to join the British Pacific Fleet in August 1945.
However, that didn’t put the old American Great War-era dreadnought on the sidelines, as both Texas and Arkansas would steam to the Med where they bombarded the French Riviera during the Dragoon landings (Texas sent another 172 rounds of 14-inch and 171 of 3-inch into the Old Republic that August) and then to Iwo Jima (where Texas fired 923 rounds of 14-inch and 967 of 5-inch between 16 and 21 February 1945) and spend seven weeks in March and April off Okinawa (Texas: 2,019 14-inch, 2,640 5-inch, 490 3-inch, 3,100 40mm and 2,275 20mm rounds against air and shore targets).