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LST 325

big tee

big tee

Well-known Member
The last remaining Landing Ship Tank was in Dubuque Ia. over the weekend and the last day was yesterday so I talked my oldest brother in to going to see it. He was on a LST in the early 60's and at first he said he was on one enough but talked he into it. We a good time--talked to a lot of old fellow sailors. He is 77 and gets around real good and said he had a good time--my early Christmas present to him. I was in a Navy aircraft squadron and when we went to sea we went aboard a carrier--was amazed at how cramped everything is on a LST. The guy in the yellow shirt is a new friend we met from Spring Grove Minn. He was a electricians mate like my brother so they hit it off pretty good! We got there at 10 am and there were about 50 people in front of us and I said--shucks--we should have gotten here sooner. But when we left the LST fans were lined up for 2 blocks.
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I saw the 325 near Cincinnati, OH a few years ago. It was well worth the time and trip.

I much wanted to see the engine compartment but that was not part of the tour.

I was able to see the EMD diesels from above through an open hatchway.

During WWII, my Father, a GM engineer, was on loan to the War Department. His job was to help the Navy maintain the, then new and super high tech, GM diesel engines being used by the tens of thousands. He spent about three years in the South Pacific Theatre.

Dean
 
Thru the wise wisdom of the Army tghey moved my group to the Mobil riverine of the 9th division down on the Mekong and broke us up on to the five ships with three on each , Whyi have no idea as we only did two mission in the delta with the rest being up north and to the N/W . I was on the only GRAY boat as i was on the LST 1166=1167 and 1168 as they rotated . The ship was BIG on the outside and the tank deck but the living quarters were SMALL . Now i may be off a few feet in it's length but she was around 930something feet long and it dwarfed the Destroyer that came along side to bring in fuel when she was running low . It served as a floating landing pad for choppers a ammo dump , troupe quarters floating party platform a place where river patrol boats could tie up and refuel and resupply with ammo and C/rat.
 
When I was a senior in High School we went on our senior trip to Chicago and toured the German U-bolt 505 and the guide told us to be a U-bolt crew member you couldn't be over 5ft 2in--??? The pic. is when the Navy captured it in 44.
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I would enjoy seeing that. Must not be much advertising as to where it's going to be. Didn't know it was there as I'm not that far away in MN.
 
My first "adventure" on the 'net was following those Men who re-fitted and sailed the 325 over from Greece. The whole story, and Log of the trip is on the LST325 website. Hours of good reading.
 
WoW. My Uncle was on LST 523 with the 300th Combat Engineers. He was one of the few who survived of Omaha Beach. I knew he had been badly wounded during the invasion but he never talked about it. I learned from my Aunt after he passed.
 
I guess the key words are "fully operational"--Don't know--this is a pamphlet they gave out.
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I once rode the LST 1170, USS Wyndham County, from Japan to Taiwan, as a member of a Marine Corps Air Group deploying to a Nationalist Chinese Air Force Base near Pingtung, Taiwan.

Someone once said an LST had 4 speeds, "Idle", "Cruise", "Fast", and "Combat", all in the vicinity of 10 knots. I can't argue it.

That being said, I was sitting on deck one day, killing time, when I got to looking at one particular sailor. I thought, "Dang, he looks familiar".

When he turned so I could see his name on his shirt, it turned out to be a guy I was in grade school with. He was crew on the ship. That chance meeting made the local newspaper.
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What carrier?

I was on the USS FDR, USS Saratoga, and USS Lake Champlain.

I always said, for a Marine I probably had more sea duty than a lot of sailors.
 
My father was on LST 582 in the pacific. They had a reunion several years after the war and I could not believe the happiness that brought to him. The bond they had was unlike any other I have ever seen anywhere else.
Thanks for sharing the pics!
 
I watched LST 325 come up river and lock through the dam in Clarksville Mo last Sunday on its way to you. Pretty impressive to see it chugging along under its own power! From what I understand these ships had flat bottoms, I don't know how much there draft is but but I would be nervous about running up on a sandbar if not in the main channel.
 
CVS-10 Yorktown--decommissioned -then CVS-11 Intrepid--they were oldest carriers in the Navy.
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We were there on Sunday and stood in line for 3 hrs to get in. Was worth every minute of wait. This was restored and is owned by a non-profit 501C3. They raised all the money to restore and operate it. Anyone can join the organization and they are always looking for volunteers to ride along and work as staff on the ship. Usually gone 5-6 weeks in late summer and make 3 stops like the one in Dubuque.
 
tractor vet,

The LSTs you were on were Terrebonne Parish, LST1156, class LSTs and were 384' long and had a draft of 17'

I spent 2 years on an older one, LST 758, as XO/Nav in '66 and '67.

The OP's pics of the 325 brought back a lot of memories.
 
I spent 4 years sleeping in a rack like those. Mattress, 2 _art sacks, pillow, blanket, and two straps to keep you in the rack during rough seas. Good times.
 
I spent 33 months on the first destroyer to drop anchor in Tokyo Bay in 1945. While I was in board her (60-63) she was USS Southerland DDR743, an early Gehring class can. There was not any extra room in the berthing compartments on them. Nor air conditioning and we went all over the Pacific in the summer.
 
They piloted that LST up the Ohio R to Madison, IN 3-4 yrs ago. The river main channel is maintained at 12 ft deep for grain barge traffic, some places are of course deeper. There was no dock where they parked the LST. The captain parked her at a right angle to the shoreline, looked like he put the bow into the shore dirt, then let the landing ramp down for tourists to get on directly from shoreline. The front of an empty LST is likely flat and not much draft. Quite the experience to see the boat.
 
I spent two weeks on LST 722, going to and from Puerto Rico, 1966. Interesting ship. Got a tour of the engine room, did a lot of maintenance and repair on the crawler crane that was on deck. Got a nice commendation letter from the ship"s captain for the repairs. Found out that welding on a ship is easier...only one cable to carry!
 
I had to dig back thru pictures to get the numbers correct They were BIG ships ,when that destroyer came up along side for fuel transfer i was amazed at how much smaller it was compared to the LST . One was hit by PRG rounds coming from the south bank just outside of Dong Tam , don't remember which one , one round went thru the ships store and got the ice cream machine and the Canon camera i had my eye on . If i was a little more computer savvy i could put pictures up as i have a boot box full from there .
 
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