The Houston Vintage Radio Association Working with The Battleship Texas Museum
Battleship Texas
This page is being constructed by Frank Cooper
GOALS
Barry Ward, Curator, is defining the way in which HVRA can assist the Battleship Texas Museum in the Radio Rooms Restoration Project. The goal is to restore the radio rooms and equipment to 1945 appearance. HVRA has surveyed the surviving equipment, transmitters and receivers. Two receivers and one transmitter are currently being restored to operating condition. Other receivers and equipment in the main radio room (Radio Room 1) and the transmitter room (Radio Room 2) will be cosmetically restored.
HVRA is also working in cooperation with The BATTLESHIP TEXAS AMATEUR RADIO STATION (BTARS) NA5DV. The World War 2 radio call of the Battleship was NADV. BTARS is operating in the old "General Stores Keeper" office. Dennis Mitchell and his crew of First Texas Volunteers has restored the room. Earl Patterson of Gambrills, Md., a WW2 radio technician on the Texas, has donated a complete Kenwood amateur radio station for the use of BTARS. We have purchased an air conditioner for the room. We invite Houston area amateur radio operators to assist in the operation of BTARS. Please contact Frank Cooper, W5VID,NA5DV Trustee, at fxc@prodigy.net if you would like to participate in the operation of BTARS - NA5DV.
Click here to see the BTARS-NA5DV web page
October 7, 2000, BATTLESHIP TEXAS REUNION
I went to the Battleship Texas reunion on October 7, 2000, in order to meet one or more of the original radio operators from World War 2. A cold front had just moved through with heavy wind and rain greeting me as I arrived just before 1:00 p.m. The morning ceremony had ended and participants were on the ship enjoying a BBQ lunch. A bus for shuttling folks between the ship and the Hilton Hotel was parked in front of the museum. On a whim I entered the bus and shouted "are there any radio operators from the Texas on this bus?" The guy on the front seat answered "yeah, there are two of us." And so I got to meet Earl Patterson and Mark Been who served on the Texas repairing radio and related equipment. At the Hilton later that evening they told me they were the only radio personnel attending the Texas reunion. If I had known that earlier, it would have saved me from shouting "did anyone here serve as a radio operator?" the rest of my visit that afternoon.
At 7:30 that evening I met Mark and Earl and their wives at the Hilton to video tape their W.W.2 reminisces, get information about the operation of the radio rooms and to see if they could, after more than 55 years, identify any of the equipment from the pictures I brought along.
Earl Patterson(left) and Mark Been
October 6, 2001, BATTLESHIP TEXAS REUNION
Approximately 60 members of the USS Texas Veterans Association met on the USS Texas October 6th in order to reminisce and catch up on each other’s lives. This included four radio men who met with me in order to record their memories of the radio rooms on videotape. According to a October 7th Houston Chronicle article “the association has about 400 members, and there may be at least that many other surviving crew members. In its last battle, at Okinawa, it (the Texas) carried a crew of 1,810 members.” There have been six other reunions including one last year. The group of four radio men walked through radio room one (receiving room) and radio room two (transmitter room) sharing memories and the placement of equipment while I recorded their remarks with my video recorder. A copy of the videotape will be sent to the Battleship Texas archives and will be used to make the radio rooms as authentic as possible by placing the vintage transmitters and receivers in their original positions. Bill Werzner also accompanied the group. Members of the group were Raymond Knight, Port Arthur, Texas, who served as a radio operator from September 1945 to July 1946; Harold “Hypo” Taylor, San Burdeno, California, who was a radio man, 2nd class, from November, 1942 until 1945. Earl Patterson, Gambrills, Md., a radio technician from the end of 1942 until 1945; and Dalton Lewis, Jacinto City, Texas, a radio technician from June 1943 until Feb. 1946. The USS Texas was decommissioned in 1946.
(L to R) Raymond Knight, Harold "Hypo" Taylor, Earl Patterson, and Dalton Lewis
