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

LST-325 Visits Dubuque-- Part 3: Training and His Ship

As he walked through the LST-325, he recalled his days on the identical LST-806.

"We slid down those stairs," he said of a steep set of stairs leading down to the ship's living quarters,.  "Sometimes the seas were so rough the deck with ripple."

Roger Klauer entered Navy service on May 11, 1944.  His LST crew was assembled  shortly after that in Libertyville, Illinois.  "from there, we trained at Navy Pier (Chicago), then we were sent to Evansville, Indiana."

The Navy launched Klauer's LST-806 from the shipyards in Evansville (which is the LST-325's home port).  With him and the rest of the crew of 123 on board,  the USS LST-806 traveled down the Ohio River to Cairo, Illinois, where it went into the Mississippi River and eventually to New Orleans.

--GreGen

LST-325 Comes to Dubuque, Iowa, This Weekend

The famed World War  II LST-325 is coming to Iowa this weekend and will be at Dubuque and is currently moored there.  It will be open for tours from Thursday, Aug. 23 to Monday, Aug. 27.

Then it will visit Bettendorf, Iowa, from August 30 to Sept 3 and then to Chester, Illinois, September 6 to Sept. 9.

Hoping to visit it in Dubuque.

This ship, the LST stands for Landing Ship Tank, for one of its major jobs,  and was at D-Day and the follow up.  6 June 1944, it carried 59 vehicles,  30 officers and 396 enlisted men to the beach at Normandy, and then returned with 38 casualties.

Over the next nine months, the ship made more than 40 trips across the English Channel carrying thousands of men and pieces of equipment.

Then, later it was in the Greek navy.

The ship is 327 feet long and has a 50-foot beam.

A Lot of History Here.  --GreGen

World War II-era Vessel Still Sunk in Mississippi River

From the Dec. 23, 2011, St. Paul (Mn) Pioneer Press.

Unfortunately, I was unable to come up with the ship's name and am not sure if it was a submarine chaser or minelayer.  I'd guess sub chaser because of its size, though.  I also read that it was a minelayer used at D-Day and at one time had log books from the Normandy Invasion.

Anyway, the ship is partly submerged.  Maybe its not even there anymore as I did not read a follow-up on it.

Local governments and agencies are squabbling over who is responsible for the 200 ton ship's cleanup and removal.  It sank some four years earlier in 2007 between Denmark Township and Hastings, Minnesota.

Oil and petroleum has been removed from it, it poses no environmental threat and it is right by the shoreline in shallow water, posing no navigational hazard.

No one knows for sure who the current owner is.  Former owner Richard Lindsay lived on it and supposedly sold it to his friend Doug Lentz.

Cost to remove and get rid of pollutants is anywhere from $70,000 to $140,000, which is the big hold-up.

Let's get It Out of There.  --GreGen