Many people under the age of 60 are unaware of the contributions made in the war effort during World War II by inland boat yards.
Hundreds of landing craft were built in Quincy and then sent down river to New Orleans and shipped to Europe or the Pacific.
O.F. Christner was was a welding supervisor and trainer at the Quincy boat yard.
Evansville Indiana employed 19,000 workers building LST's (landing ship tank)
turning out 2 ships per week during the peak of the war.
There are only 2 LST's in the world still capable of navigating under it's own power. One of those ships has been on display this week in Hannibal.
I toured that ship with my 2 oldest sons and grandsons today.
In 1961 this ship was de-commissioned and "mothballed" at Green Cove Springs, FL.
In 1962 the US Navy sent me to Green Cove Springs to salvage equipment from LST's scheduled to be transferred to the Greek Navy.
The ship I was on today was transferred to Greece in 1963 and was later purchased by a group of Americans who are creating a mobile historical museum.
It is entirely possible that the decks I walked today, I walked 46 years ago.
Even more ironic, as we were leaving we were delayed as the ship's crew lifted an elderly gentleman in a wheel chain onto the deck.
A younger woman; presumably his daughter, said "He was at Omaha Beach, he got there on an LST". I got choked up when the officer of the deck said, "This ship was at Omaha Beach"!
Could it be that he had walked these decks 64 years ago???
My grandsons got to see two American heroes today. One was flesh and blood, the other was steel and gray paint
To learn more about LST-325 go to www.evansvillecvb.org
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