Road Trip 2021 "LST 325"

We are on the road again after spending 2 months at our home base in Marathon, in the Florida Keys.

Our first official destination is Oshkosh Wisconsin. We are headed there to attend the Experimental Aircraft Association annual airshow. We have never been and since we built an experimental airplane last winter, we felt we needed to go and see what everybody else is doing in the experimental field. 

We have been living full-time in our motorhome for 14 years and every year we try to travel a new route to see new things.  As we were driving north from Florida, we were trying to find interesting things to see along the way so we have been staying off the major highways and trying to take back roads to see things in remote places.

We decided that we would spend a couple of nights in Evansville Indiana, after we discovered that they have the only surviving fully operational World War II Navy LST.

The first thing you might want to know is what is an LST. 

That stands for landing ship tank and it is a very large flat bottom ship that has a large door on the bow.

Inside of the ship is a very large cargo deck that can carry 20 Sherman tanks. 

On the top deck of the ship they can put an additional 30 to 40 jeeps or trucks or smaller tracked vehicles.

Because of the flat bottom of the ship, it can drive all the way up to the beach and then lower its front ramp, allowing the tanks to drive straight into the battle.  After the tanks have left the lower deck, an elevator similar to the very large elevators on an aircraft carrier can lower each of the vehicles on the upper deck to the lower deck where they then drive down the ramp to the beach.

In addition to carrying all of those vehicles, the ship can also carry up to 400 troops and all of their equipment.

The first question we had was why is an LST in Evansville Indiana.

The answer was really surprising to us.

Since we are originally from California, it turns out that we don't know much about the geography of the United States.  Who knew that the Ohio River runs next to Evansville Indiana.  Who knew that if you built a big ship in Indiana, that you could sail it all the way to the ocean.

It turns out that when World War II started, Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister in England at the time realized that if England was able to hold off the Germans long enough, the United States would enter the war to help England. When that happened, Churchhill knew that Europe would have to be invaded and that the logistics of moving all of the men and equipment from England to the shores of Europe would be a monumental task.

He then began discussing this problem with various engineers and scientists in an effort to discover the best way to accomplish the movement of all of that equipment. One of the things that they invented was the concept of the LST.

When America entered the war, we immediately started manufacturing all of the things necessary for fighting the war.

That included ships, airplanes, weapons, and ammunition.

Evansville Indiana stepped up to the task and converted their shipyard which had been producing river boats and river barges and began producing LSTs.

As they ramped up production, they eventually were producing one complete ship every three weeks. As we walked around the ship on our guided tour, it became absolutely amazing to us that you could go from a blank spot in the shipyard to a completed ship ready to launch in three weeks!

The first stop on our group guided tour of the ship was the berthing section where the troops in transit were housed. This consisted of long hallways with fold down canvas bunks.  The bunks were stacked 4 high on each side of the hallway.  They were also very closely spaced vertically and a person lying on a bunk would only have about a 6 inch space between the end of their nose and the bottom of the bunk above them. The bunks also looked very short to me and so I measured them.  The canvas portion of the bunk was about 5 feet long.  They looked like they were about 24 inches wide so a guy my size would really have to curl up to fit. 

Our guide then described what an ocean passage would be like.  He told us that because of the flat bottom construction of the ship that it did a huge amount of rolling and pitching as it dealt with the natural swells of the sea.

This resulted in a large amount of seasickness.  He told us that the people that were stuck on the bottom bunks were in a terrible place if the people on the top bunks were seasick, and that soon, everyone would be covered with vomit and the place smelled terrible, just making things worse.  He also said that it was not uncommon to have several inches of vomit sloshing up and down the hallway.

As we continued our tour, we left the berthing spaces and went to the main cargo deck.

This was the main deck where the tanks would be stored for transport. The yellow X's are marking recesses in the floor where tiedown chains would be attached to keep the tanks from sliding around in rough seas.

This is what the ramp looked like for the tanks to exit onto the beach.

Imagine sitting in your tank hearing the sounds of battle and only seeing a small portion of the beach through the open bow doors. It must have been a nightmare driving through that door and into the battle.

If you look at the overhead area you'll see a large white structure. That is the bottom of the cargo elevator that would bring the vehicles on the upper deck down to the lower deck for unloading. It took six minutes for the elevator to move from the upper deck to the lower deck, and another six minutes for it to return to the upper deck. It took a very long time to unload 40 vehicles from the top deck.

1051 LST's were manufactured during World War II.  LST 325 was manufactured in Philadelphia.  It was refurbished and returned to Evansville to represent all of the massive production done there during World War II.  LST 325 is the only surviving LST of its kind in the world that is still fully functional. Every year, it travels up and down the Ohio River providing tours at its various stops.  

LST 325 was used in the D day invasion and landed at Omaha beach after the beach had been secured. On its first trip to Omaha beach, it carried 59 vehicles and 426 combat troops. On its return trip to England to pick up more troops and equipment, it carried 38 casualties back with it. During the next nine months of the war, it made 40 trips back and forth between England and France carrying thousands of pieces of equipment and thousands of troops to help in the successful completion of the war. This is a picture taken on D day of LSTs unloading equipment on Omaha beach. The LST at the far left edge of the picture is LST 325.

As a pilot, I was absolutely amazed to find out that they operated aircraft off of some of the LSTs. They use them for scouting mission's and the method of launch and retrieval was ingenious.

They rigged a cable off of the side of the ship that ran the length of the ship. They then hung a small scout airplane from that cable. The airplane would then accelerate and as it reached flying speed release a hook that attached it to the cable. The airplane could then fly a reconnaissance mission and return to the ship. Upon his return to the ship, it would then fly toward the wire and use a hook attached to the top of the wing to snag a ring hanging from the cable on the side of the ship.  The pilot would then chop the power and the airplane would decelerate as it slid down the wire and came to a stop.  It was difficult to photograph the model in the ship but this should help you visualize what they did.

This is a photo I took from a video that was playing on the ship showing an actual hook engagement as a plane returned to the ship.

This is a picture of a plane accelerating down the cable for takeoff.

We then went up on deck where Suzie demonstrated operating one of the anti-aircraft guns.

This was the bridge conning station

Suzie standing in front of one of the 4 Higgins Boats carried on the LST.  The Higgins Boats were also flat bottomed boats that carried troops and small vehicles to the beach.

We really enjoyed our tour of LST 325.  At the end of the tour, we learned there was another World War II museum in Evansville that was dedicated to the aircraft manufacturing that took place in Evansville.  Republic Aircraft had a manufacturing facility in Evansville and produced 6,242 P-47's for the war effort.  One of those planes is now in their museum.

Although it is long gone, the Evansville Ammunition Plant produced over 96% of all of the .45 caliber ammunition used during World War II.

Our trip now continues on to Oshkosh and we will see if there is anything there to write to you about.

There is lots to see out here and we hope you can get out and explore our amazing country sometime soon.