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Stewards, also called “messmen” or “mess attendants,” were a racially segregated branch of enlisted ratings during USS Texas’s service. During the Second World War, most of Texas’s stewards were Black sailors and a few were Filipino sailors. As some of her World War II-era stewards described it, they ran officers’ country like a hotel. Stewards prepared officers’ food, served as waiters in the officers’ mess, and handled housekeeping for officers’ staterooms. One of the most common questions we get about stewards and other service-oriented ratings (e.g., storekeepers, tailors, yeomen, etc.) is, “What did they do during battle?” Like everyone on board, the stewards had battle stations. We generally do not have official records showing enlisted men’s battle station assignments. Still, we do have various accounts from the crew. Let’s look at some of their WWII battle stations.

We have accounts from some crew members that stewards manned a few 20 mm guns, but they are inconsistent about which guns the stewards were on. We know there were enough stewards for several 20 mm gun crews, but we do not have any photos confirming which guns they might have manned. 20 mm guns were a common assignment for stewards on battleships and carriers, and the Bureau of Naval Personnel’s Steward’s Mates training manual featured 20 mm gun crews in 1946.

3”, 40 mm, and 20 mm magazines were common assignments for stewards on USS Texas. Willmer Cato, Steward’s Mate 2nd Class, and Eugene Avens, Steward’s Mate 2nd Class, both served in magazines, passing ammo into hoists to supply gun crews topside. This job was one of the more physically demanding battle stations. Consider that a fully loaded 40 mm ammunition box weighs 111 lbs and only holds sixteen rounds. That is eight seconds of firing time for one gun. During the Invasion of Southern France in August 1944, Texas fired 492 rounds of 40 mm ammo, or 31 ammo boxes worth. At the Battle of Okinawa in March through May 1945, she fired 3,100 rounds, or 194 boxes worth. A round of 3” ammunition weighed about 24 lbs, and Texas fired 490 of them at Okinawa. All this ammo had to be passed by hand at least part of the way, and men like Cato and Avens had their share of that load.

Clarence Roper, Steward’s Mate 2nd Class, earned a spot on the flag bridge as a lookout during battle. As he explained it to the war correspondent Cecil Carnes, he had been interested in planes since he was a kid and built model planes before joining the Navy. While onboard, he would read anything about planes and aviation he could get ahold of, and officers eventually noticed his interest. The officers arranged for him to take the test to become a lookout, and Roper broke all shipboard records for speed and accuracy of identification. Roper subsequently served as a flag bridge lookout during the Invasion of Normandy, Battle of Cherbourg, and Invasion of Southern France.

A crew member reported that one of the ship’s stewards served with him during battle as a stretcher bearer. We do not know who this was, but we have a possible picture of him in action at the Battle of Cherbourg on June 25, 1944. A 240 mm German shell struck the top of the conning tower and exploded, ripping open the navigation bridge from below. Eleven men were wounded in the explosion, including the helmsman, Christen Christensen, who later died of his wounds. To evacuate the wounded from the bridge, they had to be rigged into a litter (stretcher) and hooked onto lines and pulleys to transfer them down. In pictures captured by the war correspondent Wilmott Ragsdale, one Black sailor is helping maneuver one of the wounded men in a litter.

These four battle stations—20 mm gun crews, magazines, lookout, and stretcher bearer—are all we know for sure about Texas’s stewards during battle. This is one of the areas of the ship’s history with the most open questions, which is why we are excited to share that we will have more online content coming later this year about stewards on Battleship Texas.