The Texas Clipper was built as a WWII troop transport and attack ship. Named the USS Queens back then, she was active in the Pacific theater and was the first attack troop transport to arrive to Iwo Jima.
After the war, The Queens was retrofitted as a luxury liner and recommissioned as the SS Excambion. The Excambion was one of the “four aces” of the American Export Lines fleet. Passengers and cargo were transported in style between New York City and various ports throughout the Mediterranean.
In 1965, as commercial aviation became the preferred way to travel across the Atlantic, the Excambion was retired. Facing dismantling, she was rescued by Texas A&M University-Galveston and became a maritime training vessel until 1996. Now in her final resting place at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, The Texas Clipper is home to thousands of fish, soft corrals and other reef organisms.