USS Uvalde

The ship was laid down on March 27, 1944, at the Moore Dry Dock Company in Oakland, launched on May 20 and commissioned as AKA-88 on August 18; she had first been planned as the merchant freighter Wild Pigeon. She took part in the Lingayen Gulf landings on Luzon from January 11, 1945, worked at Leyte and Mindoro, and reached the Okinawa assault area on April 1, helping shoot down a kamikaze the next day. In 1954 she supported Operation Passage to Freedom in French Indochina. She was sold for scrap to Levin Metals of San Jose in 1969.

What the plaque says

USS Uvalde Constructed and commissioned by the U.S. Navy in 1944, the "USS Uvalde" was a C-2 type cargo ship named to honor former United States Vice-President John Nance Garner and the county of his residence. The "Uvalde" was built by the Moore Drydock Company of Oakland, California, with an overall length of 459 feet. The "Uvalde" served the United States Navy during World War II and was most active in the campaigns of the Pacific Theater. After the war ended, the ship provided troop and cargo transport to vital outposts in the Western Pacific and earned the Occupation Service Medal for operations in Chinese waters. After service as part of the United Nations Force in the Korean Conflict, the "Uvalde" became part of the reserve fleet. In 1961, the ship was reactivated in response to the events of the Cold War, including the Berlin and Cuban Missile Crises. After earning numerous service awards and citations, the "USS Uvalde" was decommissioned in 1968, the City of Uvalde, which had remained interested in the ship's service record over the years, gladly accepted the Navy's offer of several items of the vessel's equipment. The anchor and bell displayed at this site are reminders of the history of the ship and her crew. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Uvalde Grand Opera House — 0.8 mi
  An 1891 Victorian opera house on the Uvalde square with a turret and a dragon weathervane, once owned by John Nance Garner and still staging volunteer theater upstairs.
• Briscoe-Garner Museum — 1.1 mi
  The Uvalde house of John Nance Garner, the vice president who made the office a power in Congress, now a free museum to him and to Governor Dolph Briscoe.
• Fort Inge Historical Site — 2.4 mi
  A county park on the Leona River below a 140-foot volcanic plug, where an army post guarded the new road to El Paso from 1849 to 1869 and Texas Rangers camped after.

More markers nearby

• The Uvalde "Leader-News" — 0.7 mi
• Rice Hotel and Saddlery — 0.7 mi
• Reading Wood Black — 0.7 mi
• Kincaid Hotel — 0.8 mi