Please Think of These Men!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A group of over thirty United States veterans have elected to refit a liberty ship located in Greece. As of now, acting against the advice of the U.S. Coast Guard, they are leaving the Straights of Gibralter for a Transatlantic Voyage during the winter. I ask you to please give the best wishes and thoughts for these determined men. They are personally rescuing a link to the lives that all of them risked and too often gave for our freedom.

Some excerpts from a quick search:

By DAVID OLIVA
.c The Associated Press

GIBRALTAR (Dec. 12) - All fueled up and bound for Alabama, 29 American war veterans - average age 72 - defied warnings and set off Tuesday to cross the Atlantic in an aging tank transport vessel with shaky steering and no safety equipment.

‘‘Everything’s good. We’re all looking forward to the trip,’’ ship Capt. Bob Jornlin said by phone shortly before the 58-year-old ship, known as the LST-325, departed from this British colony at Spain’s southern tip.

The vessel - an LST or landing ship, tank - was designed to land troops, tanks and other equipment directly onto a beach. It participated in the invasions of Sicily and Salerno and reached Normandy six days after D-Day in June 1944. It was decommissioned in 1946, put back into service in the Arctic in the 1950s, then lent to Greece in the 1960s. The United States LST Association has fought since the 1980s to repatriate it.

So far, the crew - made up of veterans from World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars - has sailed for 13 days from Greece to Gibraltar, where they arrived Nov. 30.

‘‘This trip is long over due,’’ said 72-year-old Texan James Edwards, the ship engineer officer. ‘‘It’s a tribute to the (war) survivors, the ship and the people who made the ship.’’

In its good days, the LST-325 would have had a crew of 85 but Jornlin is not overly worried. ‘‘They aren’t plenty but they are enough to get there,’’ he said.

The veterans also won’t be all alone on the sea. ‘‘We’ll be monitoring them,’’ the liaison officer, Melhuish, said.

AP-NY-12-12-00 1740EST
Hats off to these brave veterans!

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What are they going to do once they get to Alabama? Are we talking “permanent floating exhibit/Queen Mary-type tourist attraction” here, or is it purer than that? Either way, WTG! :smiley:

Methinks it’s CYA time at the Coast Guard. The South Atlantic, right? Not the North Atlantic.

Barbados, the Canary Islands, and Spain, starting at $4,680.

Send me a postcard, guys.

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Most importantly, good luck to these guys.

A Liberty Ship was a freighter inexpensively made from concrete. An LST is a conventional metal hulled vessel.

4

I’ll second that.

I wish I was sailing with them.

Those old guys are a lot tougher than you young whippersnappers give 'em credit for.

BTW, The last time I was in Mobile, 7 yrs ago, IIRC, the U.S.S. Alabama (battleship) was tied up as a floating exhibit there. Here’s a link:
http://www.maf.mobile.al.us/recreation/uss_alabama.html
My guess is they’re going to the same place. Anybody know?
They didn’t say on the TV.

5

CNN had a story on Pearl Harbor Day.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/12/07/returning.warship.ap/

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Touché, this boat went to Hell and back. Thank you for clarifying.

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Huh? According to this site:

And this site:

Then there is the History Channel documentary The Great Ships, which also mentioned that they were made of metal.

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They also mention ‘tank transports’.
I stand corrected, but confused on the issue of concrete liberty ships.
:slight_smile:

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I saw those men on the news just a few hours ago! I wish them luck, considering that they may face some very bad weather during the voyage.

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Some liberty ships were metal (like the one in San Francisco); others were concrete (like the one sunk in Galveston Bay-- I think.) The Liberty Shipbuilding Corporation built concrete freighters. This may be the source for the confusion. Then again, I’m no expert.

Steel: http://www.liberty-ship.com/

Concrete: http://www.covesoft.com/Capemay/concrete.html

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A tribute to freedom, too. It’s just amazing how some guys never stop to be heroes. Fantastic!

This reminded me of another story that I’m sure you will appreciate. Click here.

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Thanks, Cornflakes. I was to lazy to find a cite last night.

These guys remind me of the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about Ulysses. The poem, not the Joyce novel and not Homer’s Illiad.
Bored with a peacefull life after the Odyssey, Ulysses and his remaining followers set off on one last great journey. The last line is that there may yet be some great work to do, “not unbecoming men that strove with gods”.

Thanks for winning WWII, gentlemen and God’s speed.

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From cornflak’s “concrete” link:

That’s probably why I haven’t heard of concrete “Liberty” ships. The vast majority were steel.

The steel “Liberty” ships (the first all-welded ships, according to a link I posted earlier) had a fatal flaw. The midships welds would crack, resulting in the ship breaking in half. This was fixed later (IIRC) by adding a steel “patch” over the welds to give them extra strength. As we know from Titanic cold water can make poor-quality metal brittle. Let’s hope the men who are taking their ship across the Atlantic have good steel, good welds, and the strengthening retrofit on their vessel.
Question (since I haven’t looked into this particular story): Are all of the crew in their 70s? Or are there younger men (or women) crewing as well?

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The CNN article said their average age is 72.
One guy is 30 and another 112?

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They made it!

The ship docked in Mobile Alabama today.

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Wow, that’s neat! What a great bunch of guys.:)Thanks for posting an update, Zenster.

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Cool! What did they bring me?..Oh. How nice. A t-shirt that says, “MY GRAMPA SAILED AN LST ACROSS THE ATLANTIC AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS CRUMMY T-SHIRT”.

No coffee mug?

18

I am now officially thumbing my nose at that putz from the Coast Guard that said they wouldn’t make it. :wally: