LST-325 US Tank Landing Ship

[aukepalmhof]

The photo shows her as given by navsource as beached in Sicily on 10 July 1943, while an other source give her beached at Omaha Beach, Normandy on 7 June 1944, the other landingship in the foreground is the LCT-153. She is also depict on the stamp.

Built as LST-1 class Tank Landing Ship by Philadelphia Navy Yard, Philadelphia for the USA Navy.
10 August 1942 laid down.
27 October 1942 launched as the LST-325.
Displacement 1,625 ton light, 4,080 ton loaded. Dim. 96.9 x 15.2 x 4.29m. (draught)
Powered by two General Motors 12-567, 900 hp, twin shafts, two rudders, speed 12 knots.
Range by a speed of 9 knots, 24,000 mile.
Armament: 6 - 40mm. and 12 - 20mm guns
Crew 111.
Troop accommodation 16 officers and 147 enlisted men.
Cargo capacity between 1,600 and 1,900 tons.
01 February 1943 commissioned under command of Lieut. Ira Ehrensall.

After her shakedown voyage around Norfolk, Virginia she sailed to New York.
19 March 1943 she sailed from New York via Bermuda to Oran, Algeria, where she arrived on 13 April 1943.
She took part in the landing operations in Sicily and beached at Gela on 13th July 1943 where she unloaded her vehicles and troops of the 1st Armored Division.
Altogether she made six voyages between Tunis and Sicily with support equipment. On two return voyages she had Italian POW’s on board.
06 September 1943 she came under an air raid attack in Bizerte, Tunisia in which four crew members got wounded.
13 September 1943 she sailed as part of the Northern Attack Force for the invasion at Salerno, Italy, with on board part of the 40th Royal Tank Regiment.
When she entered the attack area she was attacked by a German plane in which four crewmen and four British soldiers were wounded.
Altogether she made three voyages between Tunis and the beachhead at Salerno.
12 November she sailed from Oran in convoy to the U.K., during the passage the convoy came under heavy attack of German dive bombers in which many ships were sunk.
1 Passenger on board the LST-325 was severely wounded by shrapnel.
25 November 1943 she arrived at Plymouth.
Then used until May 1944 in several training exercise on the Southern coast of England in preparation for the landings in France.
During this operation she was part of Force “B” and carried part of the 5th Special Engineer Brigade
Anchored 7 June off Omaha Beach and her troops and vehicles were unloaded on DUKW’s and LCM’s
She made in that time till April 1945 44 voyages between England and France.
28 December 1944 she rescued over 700 men from the troop transport EMPIRE JAVELIN that had been torpedoed off the French coast.
11 May 1945 in convoy she sailed from Belfast to the USA. One day out the convoy was running in a terrific storm in which the LST-325 sustained cracks in her maindeck, steel plates were welded over the cracks by the crew and the ship arrived safely in Norfolk, Virginia on 31 May 1945.
After arrival there she went to a shipyard in New Orleans were she was repaired and made ready for the war in the Pacific.
But before she could sail to the Pacific, Japan surrendered.
Late September she made a trip to Panama before she was ordered to proceed to Green Cove Springs, Florida where she was decommissioned on 2 July 1946.

LST-325 was commissioned again in 1951 for service in Military Sea Transport Service, Arctic Operations.
Took part in Operation SUNAC in the Labrador Sea, David Strait and Baffin Bay in 1951 – 52, the operation was the construction of radar outposts along the eastern Canada and Greenland coast.
1961 Decommissioned and she became part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet.

1963 Reactivated and in May 1964 transferred to the Greek Navy, renamed as SYROS (L-144).
Till December 1999 in service in the Greek Navy where after she was decommissioned.
2000 She was acquired by the USS Ship Memorial, Inc. and renamed again LST-325.
10 January 2001 she arrived in Mobile, Alabama where she became a museum and memorial ship.
After arrival she underwent restoration.
2005 Her homeport became Evansville, Indiana.
2012 In service.

Tanzania 1994 200sh sg2002, scott1275e

http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/16/160325.htm Wikipedia. http://www.lstmemorial.org/