WWII Ship, Among Other Things

Today, the 5th, we went to tour the WWII ship, LST-325.  We learned a TON about the ship, which was one of the boats to land at Normandy on D-Day.  It's a flat bottomed boat, they need 9 feet of water to maneuver it.  They can sail up to shore and on to beaches and to do that, they drop anchor way out and then when it's time to go, they reel themselves back to the anchor.  It has 8 guns that could shoot 120 rounds a minute.  There were 1051 of them built, nearly totally by women in the Midwest.  They made them so fast, they did not name them, just numbered.
This ship is the last LST warship that is still operational.

They scrapped many of them after the war and gave several to other countries.  The LST-325 served 38 years in the Greek Navy, longer than if served in the US.  So all through the ship are Greek signs and symbols, including a small painting of Achilles.  

These hooks and chains clipped into the pop-up X's in the floor to hold cargo still.  They could hold 20 tanks in the middle section, where we entered.  There was an elevator to the top level to move cargo up there.  It took 12 minutes each way, so in later models was replaced by a ramp, like the one on the Lego ship above.

The top right photo shows the ship on the beach at Normandy.

It's huge, 323 feet long.

We went in groups of 30, which I was pretty anal about getting set up just so. Then we got lumped in all together anyway, I wrote a check for $300 for the group, the guys at the desk had no idea what I was supposed to be paying.  It was a fiasco as far as getting ANY information ahead of time!  They had no clue how to deal with homeschoolers, how to charge us or anything, it took a couple of weeks of calls before they came to any decisions.  I've never had such a hassle setting up an event, but it all worked out.

The guy above was talking about the area he was sitting in, they had men all over the whole ship plus our own guide, all telling us information about the war, the ship, the men, the living conditions and so on.

It does not seem like this kitchen is big enough to feed all the men on board!  They still use it, too.

My father came along on the tour and I totally did not get a shot of him.  GAR

There were 24 bunks per room, they were about 5'2" long.  ACK

It was BLAZING hot and the ship is metal and I though we were going to cook our brains in there.

Afterward, we had lunch at Bob Gibson's with Amanda!  

I think this is as close to my name as I am going to get with the Coke promo this summer.

Ben took this one.

I am trying to finish The Goldfinch before it's due back, I got it from the library and they totes delete the file after exactly 2 weeks.  I have 54% of it read and 3 days left, ack!
I could not read on the way home, I need an anti-glare screen!!

There you go, my hair is fading back to brown instead of Goth Mom

We were supposed to go Wednesday and hang out with Park, but that got moved due to a flat on the van.
I went Thursday before dance and got new tires, OMG that was $$$.
We stopped in and checked on the house and animals, all was well.  I shot these morning glory as we were driving off, these are all out my van window.
Heard back from Gerri and she will be coming to check on things while we are on our trip coming up and Sammy says he can get the camper fixed in time, though it was all 4 corners and not just the one.   Let me retype that.  All four corner$.  $igh.  I hope we can eat every day while on our trip! LOL