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thedrifter
12-11-07, 04:47 AM
Burial for ex-World War II ship Queens

BY JOHN LAUINGER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, December 11th 2007, 4:00 AM

Queens is underwater - but this time, freak storms, swamped sewers and clogged storm drains had nothing to do with it.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, Texas A&M University at Galveston deep-sixed the Texas Clipper, a World War II-era attack transport vessel known in its fighting days as the USS Queens.

Launched on Sept. 12, 1944, and named after Queens County, the 473-foot-long ship took part in the Battle of Iwo Jima and hauled more than 6,000 victorious American G.I.s back home after the Japanese surrender.

After the war, it was first reincarnated as the Excambion, a transatlantic luxury liner, and then as the Texas Clipper, a training ship for merchant marines.

The venerable vessel was given a dignified burial in the Gulf of Mexico and is now serving as an artificial reef near Galveston.

"This ship is a veteran," said Stephen Curley, a Bronx-born English professor at Texas A & M-Galveston who taught classes at sea aboard the Texas Clipper for several summers.

"She gets an honorific burial instead of being scrapped."

"It is going to be a monument to the sailors, Marines and soldiers of the Second World War," added Curley, who is writing a book about the beloved bark's three lives.

But when the day, Nov. 18, finally came to send her under, Queens didn't go down without a fight.

To transform the ship into a reef, large holes were cut on both sides of her hull to allow water, marine life and scuba divers to pass through, Curley said.

High seas, which delayed the sinking several days, caused water to flood through those holes, causing the ship to list as it took a nosedive to the bottom.

The battle-tested ship now lies on its side in roughly 130 feet of crystal clear water off the coast of Texas' South Padre Island.

The Texas Park and Wildlife Department, which has the ship on permanent loan from the federal government, is planning to pull the vessel right-side-up.

"It's too important a ship to leave to a less-than-perfect burial," Curley said.

Yet there was something special, Curley said, in seeing the old vet show the fighting spirit that took her to the shores of Mount Suribachi and back - unscathed.

"The ship has a mind of its own, regardless of what we want to do with it," Curley said.

"And there is something pleasant in thinking about the personality of the ship: 'I'm going to do it my way.'"

jlauinger@nydailynews.com

Ellie