Hard Hat Tour: If naval history "floats your boat" 
have we tour for you. That's coming up on Passport 
To Texas.


Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife. 


Anchored in the Buffalo Bayou on the Houston Ship 
Channel is one of grandest pieces of military 
history-spanning two football fields in length and 
some 16 stories high floats the U.S.S. Texas. 


"She was completed prior to WWI and began her service 
in the Tampico Incident, and then in WWII she served 
in a number of campaigns, and perhaps most notably as 
the flagship of the task force off Omaha Beach on D-day." 


Barry Ward is the Director of Battleship Texas State 
Historic Site. Normally the public only gets to see a 
small portion of the ship, through self-guided tours. 
But once a month, the site opens up this nautical behemoth 
for extensive guided "hard hat" tours.


"You see everything that is recently accessible that you 
can't let the general public see on their own. So you are 
seeing the interior boiler room, machinery spaces, inside 
the ammunition handling systems..." 



And as the name implies, participants are required to 
wear hard hats, provided by the park. The three-and-a-half 
hour tour includes climbing ladders and squeezing through 
hatches. But while the exploration can be physically 
demanding, it's not difficult to comprehend the 
significance of the surroundings. 


To learn more about the Hard Hat Tour, come to 
passporttotexas.org. Coming up on tomorrow's show, a 
chance to meet the men who served aboard the Battleship Texas.


"It's a unique opportunity that will not be there in a 
few more years..." 
 
For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I'm Cecilia Nasti.