thedrifter
04-16-04, 02:25 PM
WWII ship set to begin final voyage
April 15,2004
TIMMI TOLER
DAILY NEWS STAFF
She's balanced, battened down and ready for her voyage to Jacksonville.
A World War II-era, medium-sized landing ship, on Friday is scheduled to leave Freedom Park in Omaha, Neb., and begin a monthlong journey to its new home at the Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas in Jacksonville.
Joe Houle, the museum's director, recently met with Freedom Park officials and members of The Amphibious Ship Museum, which donated the vessel, to hammer out final travel logistics and help prepare the ship for the voyage.
Part of that preparation included painting the 203-foot-long, 35-foot-wide red ship its original battleship-gray color. Houle took 50 gallons of paint, donated by Jacksonville's Home Depot, to Nebraska and worked with members of the Amphibious Ship Museum for nearly a week to get the vessel in shipshape.
"I learned that you don't get in their way," said Houle, a retired Marine Corps sergeant major, about working with the group of primarily World War II and Korean War veterans.
"Most of these people are in their 70s and 80s, but you'd never guess it by working with them."
Other work included balancing the ship, welding shut portholes and hellholes, removing part of the 40-foot steel mast and removing numerous artifacts from the ship.
Houle said he filled a cargo trailer with World War II-era items such as radios, military uniforms, flags, pictures, patches and weaponry, all of which have been donated to the Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas.
A tug boat will push the ship down the Mississippi and Ohio rivers through New Orleans to the coast of Louisiana.
From there, the ship was scheduled to travel through Florida waterways to Lake Okeechobee and then the Atlantic coast. However, "the water levels were too low" in Florida, Houle said.
Instead, the ship will travel around the Florida Keys, adding several days to the journey. It will make a brief stop in Charleston, S.C., get dressed and hook up with a new tug boat. When the ship reaches the North Carolina coast, "she'll be flying flags from bow to stern," said Houle.
The ship is tentatively scheduled to reach Camp Lejeune's Mile Hammock Bay, near New River Inlet, by mid-May, barring dilemmas or weather delays. The vessel will remain there until it is moved to its permanent home behind the future home of the Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas. The museum will be on three acres of New River waterfront on U.S. 17 near downtown Jacksonville.
Commissioned July 28, 1944, the ship, formally known as a landing ship medium-45, or LSM-45, is the last remaining ship in the United States still configured for its original purpose.
During the ship's era, the Navy used about 500 LSMs.
The LSM-45 coming to Jacksonville housed 54 enlisted men and four officers and was used to shuttle supplies, ammunition and equipment ashore just after the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.
Eleven years after it was decommissioned on March 27, 1947, the ship was transferred to the Greek Navy and renamed "Ipopliarkhos Grigoropoulos.
In 1998, The Amphibious Ship Museum refurbished the ship and moved it to Freedom Park.
The Amphibious Ship Museum, which is absorbing the cost of the voyage, will release the ship to the Marine Corps Museum when the LSM-45 reaches Mile Hammock Bay.
Houle said the ship is one of the largest donations the museum has ever received. While he is thrilled with the new piece, he understands the museum's gain is bittersweet for Freedom Park.
"They've been very helpful, but this is also a sad time for them knowing that it's leaving," said Houle. "But they know she's coming where she belongs - to the home of the world's largest amphibious base.
"She'll be more at home here, than anywhere else."
Contact Timmi Toler at ttoler@jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 258.
http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/Photo/041404_ship.jpg
Timmi Toler/Daily News
Exhibit coming: Museum director Joe Houle displays a model of the WWII landing ship.
http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=21784&Section=News
Ellie
April 15,2004
TIMMI TOLER
DAILY NEWS STAFF
She's balanced, battened down and ready for her voyage to Jacksonville.
A World War II-era, medium-sized landing ship, on Friday is scheduled to leave Freedom Park in Omaha, Neb., and begin a monthlong journey to its new home at the Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas in Jacksonville.
Joe Houle, the museum's director, recently met with Freedom Park officials and members of The Amphibious Ship Museum, which donated the vessel, to hammer out final travel logistics and help prepare the ship for the voyage.
Part of that preparation included painting the 203-foot-long, 35-foot-wide red ship its original battleship-gray color. Houle took 50 gallons of paint, donated by Jacksonville's Home Depot, to Nebraska and worked with members of the Amphibious Ship Museum for nearly a week to get the vessel in shipshape.
"I learned that you don't get in their way," said Houle, a retired Marine Corps sergeant major, about working with the group of primarily World War II and Korean War veterans.
"Most of these people are in their 70s and 80s, but you'd never guess it by working with them."
Other work included balancing the ship, welding shut portholes and hellholes, removing part of the 40-foot steel mast and removing numerous artifacts from the ship.
Houle said he filled a cargo trailer with World War II-era items such as radios, military uniforms, flags, pictures, patches and weaponry, all of which have been donated to the Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas.
A tug boat will push the ship down the Mississippi and Ohio rivers through New Orleans to the coast of Louisiana.
From there, the ship was scheduled to travel through Florida waterways to Lake Okeechobee and then the Atlantic coast. However, "the water levels were too low" in Florida, Houle said.
Instead, the ship will travel around the Florida Keys, adding several days to the journey. It will make a brief stop in Charleston, S.C., get dressed and hook up with a new tug boat. When the ship reaches the North Carolina coast, "she'll be flying flags from bow to stern," said Houle.
The ship is tentatively scheduled to reach Camp Lejeune's Mile Hammock Bay, near New River Inlet, by mid-May, barring dilemmas or weather delays. The vessel will remain there until it is moved to its permanent home behind the future home of the Marine Corps Museum of the Carolinas. The museum will be on three acres of New River waterfront on U.S. 17 near downtown Jacksonville.
Commissioned July 28, 1944, the ship, formally known as a landing ship medium-45, or LSM-45, is the last remaining ship in the United States still configured for its original purpose.
During the ship's era, the Navy used about 500 LSMs.
The LSM-45 coming to Jacksonville housed 54 enlisted men and four officers and was used to shuttle supplies, ammunition and equipment ashore just after the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.
Eleven years after it was decommissioned on March 27, 1947, the ship was transferred to the Greek Navy and renamed "Ipopliarkhos Grigoropoulos.
In 1998, The Amphibious Ship Museum refurbished the ship and moved it to Freedom Park.
The Amphibious Ship Museum, which is absorbing the cost of the voyage, will release the ship to the Marine Corps Museum when the LSM-45 reaches Mile Hammock Bay.
Houle said the ship is one of the largest donations the museum has ever received. While he is thrilled with the new piece, he understands the museum's gain is bittersweet for Freedom Park.
"They've been very helpful, but this is also a sad time for them knowing that it's leaving," said Houle. "But they know she's coming where she belongs - to the home of the world's largest amphibious base.
"She'll be more at home here, than anywhere else."
Contact Timmi Toler at ttoler@jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 258.
http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/Photo/041404_ship.jpg
Timmi Toler/Daily News
Exhibit coming: Museum director Joe Houle displays a model of the WWII landing ship.
http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=21784&Section=News
Ellie