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LST to cruise Illinois River and dock for tours

By Scott Richardson
srichardson@pantagraph.com

PEORIA -- At age 85, Ken Mann of Bloomington still remembers June 6, 1944, as if it were yesterday. Mann was there when Allied forces stormed the beaches at Normandy on D-Day, the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's iron grip on Europe.

Millions had already died during the blitzkriegs, on battlefields, in the concentration camps, in the once-quiet English neighborhoods bombed by German rockets and planes. Whether millions more would die depended on people like Mann, who served onboard an LST, which stands for "landing ship, tank."

Small by Navy standards, the amphibious ships had a big job: They carried tanks, soldiers and other equipment. They were designed to hit the beach, drop their nose planks and unload quickly under fire.

Mann can still reel off the dimensions of the ship he called home for 2½ years.

"It was 328 feet long and 50 feet wide. It was like a long tube," said Mann, a retired cement mason who'll soon have a chance to step aboard an LST again.

The restored LST 325, which took part in the Normandy invasion, will cruise up the Illinois River and dock for public tours Aug. 20-28 in Peoria, Aug. 30-Sept. 4 in Henry and Sept. 6-11 at Alton.

The visits pay homage to the fact LSTs are an important part of Central Illinois history, said Mike Whicker, executive director of the USS LST Ship Memorial, which restored LST 325. Seneca was one of 17 places where a total of 1,015 LSTs were built.

Mann's wife, Donna, who was born in Henry, waved to the sailors onboard as they went under the bridge on their way to war.

LST 325 is the only LST that remains as far as the USS LST Ship Memorial knows. The ship has received about 50,000 visitors since it opened for tours at its permanent dock in Evansville, Ind., 18 months ago.

Ron Wolfgang, 68, Normal, whose brother Wilbur "Danny" Wolfgang, served as a medic on an LST, volunteers as a tour guide on LST 325 at its home dock. Wolfgang, who'll serve on the crew during the Illinois River cruise, said British Prime Minister Winston Churchill thought LSTs were critical to an overall strategy to invade the beaches of Europe rather than heavily fortified coastal cities.

Churchill was wrong, however, to think LSTs would be scuttled after just one use, Wolfgang said.

"They proved so versatile, they were kept," Wolfgang said. "Of all the ships in the Navy, Hitler feared LSTs the most, not because of their offensive power, but because of what they could deliver."

Back in the states, the fame of LSTs was enhanced when Mann's own LST appeared as background in an ad on the back of a famous Life Magazine that featured a pinup photo of Esther Williams on the cover.

Water was too shallow off the French coast at the start of the D-Day invasion to allow the LSTs to go all the way to the beach, so LSTs anchored at demarcation areas a mile offshore. The men headed to the heavily defended beaches were transferred to smaller landing craft.

Mann normally served as a machinist's mate on LST 266, the flagship of a convoy of 43 LSTs, which included LST 325. During general quarters, he manned a 20-mm gun.

Memories are clear, especially the images of the stream of men leaving and the wounded and the dead returning for transportation back to England. Once there, more troops boarded for the trip to deadly beaches that had code names like Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.

Crewmembers from the LST visited the wounded men crowded onboard for the trip back to England. They told them everything would be OK. They lit cigarettes or just listened to horrible tales of what it was like on the beach.

"The guys who were wounded the worst would apologize. It tore me up. It was just terrible," Mann said.

Mann still has shrapnel he collected from the deck of the LST after it was hit in a barrage as it landed on Gold beach. No one was badly hurt onboard, but the LST next to his was hit in the pilothouse, killing or wounding 20 men in an instant.

LST 325 still bears the patches repairing damage from the shelling it received that day, Wolfgang said.

Mann, who saw LST 325 last year in Indiana, wants to see it again in Peoria despite intense emotions he knows the visit will cause. He hopes many others will visit the ship, too, especially young people.

"It's history," said Mann, who shares his war stories and shrapnel souvenirs with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

"Sometimes they ask," he said.

Ron Wolfgang is an Army veteran of the Vietnam era who retired as a salesman for Newell Rubbermaid. He was only 10 when his brother was electrocuted while working at a lineman in the late 1940s.

Wolfgang decided to find out more about his brother's life than the bits and pieces he overheard when his brother and their father talked about the war. His quest eventually led him to LST 325.

"It's a part of American history, naval history," Wolfgang said. "You see battleships, planes in museums. But, this ship is still functional. We get Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and grade-school kids. (We tell them) this is the ship that took your grandfathers to war and fought for the freedom of the world."

Mann realizes that as each day passes, fewer people who served on LSTs with him are around to describe what they saw firsthand. Of an original crew of 116 on his LST, fewer than 10 were alive to attend the ship's last reunion, he said.

Only their ship remains.

If you go

What: The USS LST Ship Memorial cruise of the LST 325

Schedule: The LST docks Aug. 20-28 in Peoria, Aug. 30-Sept. 4 at Henry and Sept. 6-11 at Alton

Times: The ship is open for tours 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day

Cost: $10 per adult, $5 for children through high school, free for children 5 and younger. Family passes are $20.

For more information: Visit www.lstmemorial.org

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Take a look

This photo of the LST 325 shows how it looked when it first arrived in the United States before it was converted into a floating museum.

Edward Strobel, of Decatur, unloads a box from the LST 325 a day after the ship arrived in Alabama. The ship eventually was moved to Evansville, Ind., where it was restored before becoming a floating museum. (Pantagraph/CARLOS T. MIRANDA)

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