Rusting warship with crew of aging vets completes trans-Atlantic voyage
01/10/2001
Associated Press
MOBILE, Ala. – A rusting World War II ship and its crew of mostly 70-something veterans docked at Mobile's harbor today, capping a trans-Atlantic voyage that the Coast Guard said was too dangerous to attempt.
"Bravery is ageless," said Bill Shannon, a veteran from Fort Worth, Texas, who joined a throng at dockside to welcome the LST-325.
With a fire boat spraying water canons and a Coast Guard patrol boat escort, the old warship sailed up Mobile Bay to the Alabama State Docks pier for a welcoming celebration.
Shannon said the trip was successful because the Navy and Coast Guard veterans aboard "knew what they were doing."
The 29-member crew, mostly vets from World War II and the Korean War, left Gibraltar on Dec. 12 on the 4,350-mile voyage across the Atlantic, with the goal of making the warship a floating museum.
Coast Guard officials, fearing for the crew's safety, warned them not to attempt to cross the ocean in winter on a 58-year-old vessel in uncertain condition. But the aging crew – which lost one member to a heart attack before the crossing – rejected the Coast Guard advice.
"I never worried about them one second," said retired Rear Adm. J. Lloyd Abbot Jr. of Mobile, among the crowd welcoming the ship.
With a pilot boat as a guide, the LST-325 entered Mobile Bay from the upper Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday morning.
The Atlantic crossing was fairly smooth, Capt. Robert Jornlin of Earlville, Ill., said in a telephone interview Tuesday. He said they encountered a strong wind, strong current, and cold weather Monday and a mechanical problem that forced the crew to steer the LST, or landing ship tank, manually.
The crew had plenty of memories of battle grief but joy was the order of the day as they concluded their voyage to save the ship, which they want to put on display for future generations.
The trip brought back memories of World War II for veterans. John Chooljian, 75, of Carlstadt, N.J., recalled the English Channel crossings for D-Day and all the beachhead landings of the LSTs in the Pacific and Mediterranean.
"I don't think the war would have been won without LSTs," he said.
Art Cook, who went to Greece to help salvage the ship but became ill and had to leave the mission, said the vessel was in a dilapidated state when they first saw it in Greece last year. About 150 sailors from a nearby U.S. Navy base helped get it into sailing shape again.
The average age of the crew is 72, with Jornlin being one of the youngest at 61. Cook, Chooljian and Frank Conway of Blackwood, N.J., all had to pull out of the mission because of illness.
Bill Hart, another member of the return-voyage crew, became ill shortly after the ship left Greece and died of a heart attack after being flown back to the United States. Another crewman had to leave the ship in Gibraltar because of illness.
"I think they're No. 1 for what they did," said Robert Bush, 74, a former truck driver from Perrysburg, Ohio, who wanted to be on the voyage but couldn't because his wife broke her leg at the Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 26.
The veterans plan for the vessel eventually to be moved from port to port as an "operating museum," which would allow more veterans to walk the decks.
When acquired, the LST-325 was about to be decommissioned by the Greek navy. It had been used in Normandy as well as in campaigns in North Africa, Salerno and Sicily during World War II.
Crew members paid their own way to Greece and donated $2,000 to help cover expenses. An act of Congress allowed the transfer of the ship to the privately operated USS LST Ship Memorial Inc., which will conduct fund-raisers to keep the ship operating as a museum.
"I kind of thought they were crazy to do this," said Irene McCandrew, whose 69-year-old husband, James McCandrew of Sebastian, Fla., is a crew member. "I never thought it would materialize."
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