Let me tell one story and it is about my very first tour. The ship had docked at its new home a week before and many of us went down and learned the tours from the "Gold Crew". These were the older guys that brought the ship over from Greece, after putting her in shape to make the journey. Click on the picture to read more about the ship. Anyway, I digress. It was the opening day for tours and I was asked to take the first tour through. It would also be my first tour. The first tour consisted of the mayor and his entourage along with the news media. I begged off with the "Shouldn't the first tour be done by a member of the Gold Crew?" excuse. I got the second tour. As it turned out, I should have taken the first one. The mayor and all, knew nothing about the ship and would never know if I made a mistake or not. The second group was made up of 12 World War Two Veterans who had all served on an LST together!. They would really know if I screwed up. My knees were wobbly.
I fessed up right in the beginning and told them that I had never served but that I loved history and if they found me saying the wrong thing, it would be a great honor for me if they would tell me so that I could learn the job better. They took pity on me, until the end of the tour.
These guys laughed alot and told me old stories, like who and how one of them stole the boots from a Japanese Officer prisoner of war. How the real Heads worked. The 325 had regular toilets but it also has, what they called squat toilets. This crew didn’t even have that. They had a trough with running sea water flowing down it and when they did their thing, it flowed right out to sea. They had the story where one of them build a paper boat and set it on fire and floated it down the trough under some unsuspecting crewmen who were not paying much attention. Well, it got their attention pretty quick.
I picked up a lot of stories from this very first tour which I used every time I gave a tour. They were not always so happy though, there were a few times when they got real serious. One was by a gun turret and they were all standing there looking down and talking low. I asked one what they were remembering and he said that this was where they laid out their friend Bill when he was killed in action.
They did get me in the end with a question that I did not know the answer for. We had these big ropes hanging along the side rails and they asked me what they were. I said ropes. They had a good laugh and told me that there were no ropes in the navy, just lines and hawsers and these were hawsers used for mooring or towing the ship. So I learned that lesson but after taking a few more steps, one of the guys pointed to the ships bell and said. “Ok Tom here’s a test. What is that thing hanging from the bell?”. I looked and it was too small to be a hawser so I said it had to be a line. They had another good laugh and told me that they forgot to tell me that there was always one rope on a ship and it was the bell rope.
If you are ever in Evansville. Go take the tour. You’ll love it.
"In order to become the master the politician poses as the servant."
— Charles De Gaulle
Click on the photo to see a little video I put together using photos and videos that I took while watching the D-Day reenactment that was put on by the LST 325 this year. Hope you enjoy.