NewsLST 325 from WWII arrives in Fort MadisonJoe Benedict and Brennan Umthun/MVM News network
FORT MADISON - The ship has arrived, and so have its many patrons, bringing with them their endless memories of yester-year and the oozing of good ol' American patriotism. But not only the veterans were talking, the ship seems to have a voice all its own. While approaching the LST-325 offers an amount of excitement in itself, one cannot describe, with certain language, all that the ship has seen in its 50-plus years of toured duty. The underbelly of the ship surely would have groaned with a moderate amount of emotional pain as the bay doors on the front of the ship opened to flood Omaha Beach with troops and equipment on June 6, 1944 (D-Day). One can feel the energy of a soldier who misses his wife and children, his mom, his father; compounded with the sheer reality that he may not make it home for the reunification. As you tour the ship, you notice how everything around you, just like the soldier's morale, must be maintained in-house. “We have an electric shop and a machine shop on board,” said LST 325 Capt. Robert Jornlin. “Everything that could have gone wrong on this ship, the crew needed to be able to fix it right here.” Jornlin said the mechanics also would have to repair or rebuild any part of the vehicles that it carried, as well. Two crew members of the LST 325, who are n Fort Madison this week, actually made the 52-day trip to bring the LST 325 back to the states from Greece. The ship served the Greek Navy from 1964 until 1999. “It took us about 52 days to get this ship to Alabama,” said Donald Lockas. “The actual sailing time was 43 days. The other guy here who was on that trip is our captain (Jornlin).” “This things floats like a feather bed on the river, it doesn't get rocked like it does on the ocean ... not a bit,” added Jornlin. In an opening ceremony Wednesday, Tracy Vance, executive director of the Fort Madison Chamber of Commerce, gave Jornlin a Sheaffer Pen manufactured in Fort Madison during World War II. The model was called “Vigilance,” a pen produced for the military, and it was donated by Pendamonium . The name of the pen could be applied to the dozens of World War II and Korean veterans who helped bring the LST back from Greece eight years ago. Their vigilance saved the old ship from being scrapped and brought it home to Evansville, Ind. It is the country's only working Navy ship museum, Jornlin said. He commented how companies like Sheaffer Pen, which also made war items like detonators in World War II, gave 100 percent to war efforts in those days. “I think if companies gave 10 percent now, we would have been out of Iraq in two weeks,” he said. Later, Lockas took time to talk to a veteran who recognized his name on the crew plaque, which is common among the stops these ships make. “We've had many people come tour the ship who had friends in the war,” said Jornlin. “One of them would end up on the East Coast, and the other the West Coast, then they'd bump into each other during one of the ship tours because they'd recognize their hat.” And like the jokes told by the fiery old veterans, just about everything on the ship is still functional. “The LCVPs (small landing crafts also used to boat soldiers, etc. to the shore) were actually used in a recent Clint Eastwood film, ‘Flags of Our Fathers,'” said Jornlin. “Just about everything on this ship still functions, and nothing has been changed for commercial use, except for the addition of an emergency bathroom.” Mayor Steve Ireland joined Jornlin on a private tour of the ship, starting in the engine room. The engines that push the ship are two cycle diesels built by General Motors and are 567 cubic inches per cylinder. For this trip, the ship filled up with 24,000 gallons of diesel at $3.60 a gallon. One crew member asked if they could borrow someone's credit card for the trip back to Evansville. The ship's capacity is 190,000 gallons. That's enough to travel pretty far at eight gallons per mile. Yes, gallons per mile. It also would cost about $800,000 to “fill ‘er up” at today's diesel prices. Jornlin said about three quarters of the expense at the floating museum is used to keep the ship operational. He said when the ship's engine dropped a cylinder, it cost $17,000 to fix it. The tour starts on the tank deck. This is the center of the ship that could store up to 20 Sherman tanks, but it carried a lot of other things too. Jornlin said one in the South Pacific took a load of beer. When asked if any of it made its destination, Jorlin spun an old sea tale. He said it started off with Marines guarding it, but it was dissappearing, so they had crew guard it and more dissapeared, so they had officers guard it. Then it really started to disappear, he said. Visitors also get to check out the ship's guns. Jornlin said most of the guns no longer fire shells, but there is a gun they light propane in to simulate a firing. The radio room also is a stop on the tour. Jornlin said the ship might even have been used as a broadcast station for Radio Free Europe during the Cold War. That's never been confirmed, but he does think it was a listening ship during the Cold War. The ship found a lot of vintage equipment to restore the radio room. Jornlin said someone asked him how all this equipment was found. “Well, wives had this stuff laying around for 60 years and decided it was time to get rid of it,” he said, laughing. All transmissions to the ship during the war was by morse code. A crewman would man the radio and type out the transmissions. Jornlin explained how it took an act of congress for the the LST Ship Memorial, Inc. to get the ship from the Greek and U.S. Government. The State Department said it was too sensitive a piece of equipment for them to own. So the group petitioned congress and they approved it with the president signing the ship over to the group. After the ship was made seaworthy, 29 veterans sailed it home. The captain said he hopes the ship is educational for the young. About 1,000 students are expected to tour the ship this week. “It's important to keep some sort of knowledge for the youger generation,” he said. “So they know what keeps this country free.” Copyright © 2010 - Daily Gate City
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