Seei just couldnt galveston dying. I thought wed come back than ever. And its true. Everything looks beautiful. Its got fresh paint on it. Ha six yearshad the best ever. And every year, it gets better and better. Very happy that we made that choice. We close out the cspan cities tour of galveston aboard the texas clipper, now a training ship at the texas maritime academy. Was and war ii, it u. S. S. Vessel named the queens. The texas clipper, which is that it goes by now, is now an artificial reef off the texas. F right near the texasmexico border. About 30 here for years. And it sailed. There were generations of students that sailed on it. The first training ship. There was texas clipper 2 and clipper 3 afterwards. But it was the first training ship. Not born as the texas theper but it was born as u. S. S. Escambia. An attack transport during the second world war. 1944, there was tremendous tremendous Shipbuilding Program out of maryland, not far from baltimore, outside the inner harbor. It was one of those ships that was built in that tremendous Shipbuilding Program. It was not one of the 90day wonders. Ship,as a highclass because it was intended to a cargo transport passenger carrier after the war was over. So it was built to the specifications of the american export line. The ship comes out in december 1944. It is launched. By this time, the war is going the allies. Early on in the war, nobody knew who was going to win. On in thet, early war, it look as if the axis powers had the upper hand. The were winning all battles. But by 1944, the war had changed. Its timespent most of woundedhe war taking soldiers and bringing them to the hospital on board the ship and then taking them back to hawaii, where there were bigger hospitals. After their stop, the ship went on back and forth between the west coast of the United States pacific. Lands in the and it did that up until the war was over. Then it was the first ship sasebo, which is the submarine headquarters in japan. There the forerunners which nowadays are seals. They had gotten there early. Those days, there was an interesting relationship between sailers in the navy and marines. So these navy people had big placards saying, welcome, marines, when the marines came in afterwards. They said the marines were not that. With but after the war was over, the do, still had a job to because there were so many doctors,urses, soldiers, sailors, marines, all the world. And they were in the business now of transporting. They transported them in waves like seattle and pedro, the, san harbor in los angeles. After the war was over, the ship brought to the james river in virginia and was put into there, until the company that it was originally built for, the american export it. S, claimed and then it and three others of the ship were taken up to the northeast and they were refinished. All their armaments removed. The ship itself stayed exactly configuration that it originally had. Kindhe superstructure that of the kind of deck structure changed remarkably. Was put in the civiliancture now were kinds of spaces, a ballroom, for tea room. A different skyscraper look. ,n 1949, the ship was launched along with three other ships that were called the four aces. The american expert lines. They were midsized ships that could hold about 250 passengers. Days, they had a crew of about 250. To care for those 250 to run the ship. You cant find that kind of linerion if you go on a today. It did that all the way up latter 50s. Something happened then and what happened was air travel. Was of course air travel before the second world war. The second world war, there was increasing air travel. S, the late 1950s, jet first commercial jetliner between new york and europe moved back and forth. That really spelled the death for many of the transatlantic passenger ships. The ships, you could get over here just counting the time in passage, in maybe 14 days. Over inuld take you 810 hours. It was not as luxurious. You did not get the kind of attention or food. But we are interested in convenience more than luxury. What happens is most of the american passenger liners begin to sell off their ships and go out of business. It was put in the hudson river this time and stayed there. This is 1959. Until 1964. That is when this new school in texas, the school i teach at, today it is texas a m at galveston, that is when the school began. It needed a training ship. The students who went there orined to become third mates assistant engineers, to run the power plant. Their training included a lot of stuff in the classroom. Sea importantly, it needed training. The students used to go out on a passenger ferry that was part of the Texas Department of Transportation System owing between galveston to the east. They used to learn the rules of the road. They had ship came in, the opportunity to go on a summer training cruise. When school was out, they would board the ship and in the beginning of june, they would sail and come back and ought in august, having done just about everything you could do on a ship, including visit many of the reports. The ship was renamed when it was claimed for the academy, renamed the u. S. Training ship texas clipper. I taught on the ship about a studentsrs, teaching english composition