TAMUG (Texas A&M University - Galveston) and the Texas Maritime Academy

Lawman32RPD

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Aggies Name Training Ship for D-Day Hero

Yesterday, June 06, 2012, 12:18:56 PM | Jim Bell
On the 68th anniversary of D-Day, the name of a Texan who led a battalion of army rangers up the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, France, and saved the day at Omaha Beach is now painted on the bow of Texas A&M University at Galveston’s new training ship.

Naming the 224-foot General Rudder after Major General James E. “Bud” Rudder also marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of A&M’s Galveston campus, the only maritime academy on the Gulf Coast.

Rudder, then an army Major, and 224 rangers of the 2nd Ranger Battalion stormed the 100-foot cliff on D-Day to silence 155mm guns that threatened the landings at Omaha and Utah beaches.

Even with 70 percent casualties, they succeeded and the D-Day landings achieved their goal.

Rudder is revered at Texas A&M. A 1932 A&M graduate, Rudder was school president from 1959 until his death in 1970. Under his leadership, A&M became a full fledged university in 1963, and started admitting women the same year. In 1962, he engineered establishment of Texas A&M at Galveston when it looked like plans for the maritime academy would fail for lack of money.

The new Training Ship General Rudder was formerly named the Kings Pointer, and it comes to Galveston after serving as a training ship for the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York for 19 years.

via Aggie ship named after D-Day hero – Houston Chronicle.

The General Rudder is replacing the legendary WWII era Training Ship Texas Clipper, which was retired six years ago, and sunk in the Gulf of Mexico in the “Ships to Reefs“ program created by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

The Texas Clipper is also a popular diving platform for scuba divers.

To see a picture please use the following link:


http://ksfa860.com/tags/d-day/feed/...&utm_campaign=Feed:TAMUinTheNewsTAMUInTheNews
 
We Aggies do have great admiration for General Rudder. He was a great man who did great things, even when they may not have been popular at the time. A statue of him stands proudly on our campus!
 
http://www.tamug.edu/corps/trainingship.html

More info. Ship is loading tomorrow for the second cruise as the General Rudder.

Fyi, it is Texas A&M at Galveston, Not Texas A&M - Galveston, as the hyphen denotes schools not apart of the main campus. TAMUG however is, and thus does not contain a hyphen. :thumb:
 
Here's wishing the Cadets at Texas Maritime fair winds and following seas on your training cruise. I spent the 4th of July sailing in Narragansett Bay off Newport- which made me think of Masefield's poem. I hope you come back with some "merry yarn's" from your "laughing fellow rover's".:wink:


[
Sea Fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
 
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