LST-325-- Part 2: An LST Veteran On This Ship

John Tallent and his team of 50 crew members -- most of them former military and all of them volunteers --  will spend the rest of the week docked in the Port of Dubuque.  The public isinvited to come tour the floating museum before it continues its journey down the Mississippi River and then the Ohio River to its home port in Evansville, Indiana.

Irwin Kuhns "came up from the hills" when he answered the call for service at the age of 17.  He said he "didn't even know what a ship was" before he was deployed to the South Pacific theater in an LST during World War II.

He learned soon enough.

"It was all new," said Kuhns, who is helping with the crew of the LST-325 on its Mississippi voyage.  Back during WW II, he said:  "And I'm an eager-beaver guy.  I just wanted  to know anything and everything."

Kuhns became a coxswain and was tasked with piloting Higgins boats, or landing craft attached to the LSTs.  He made a lot of supply runs and completed whatever errands were necessary.

"I'd run all over the place.  I had more time in the Higgins boat than anybody aboard the ship.

--GreGen