5 minute read
“Bringing Home a Hero”
Ken Olson of Mendota stands near the LST 325.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Mendota native crews a true battle hero
It wasn’t his stint with the Navy during the Vietnam War. It wasn’t his love for water or being on a ship. Ken Olson wanted to join the LST 325 because of a book, “Bringing Home a Hero.”
“The ship was on loan to the Greek Navy. Greece had parked the ship and was going to scrap it,” Olson recalled from his reading. “There was a group in the United States that wanted to bring ships back and make museums out of them. They went over there and picked one ship out of three of them because they thought it was in the best shape.
“They took some parts off of one of the other ones and got it running. With a lot of luck, they were able to bring it back. I read the book, and that’s what got me interested in being a part of the LST 325, a true battle hero.”
LST stands for Landing Ship Tank, which was conceptualized by Winston Churchill when he sketched it on a napkin. The tank is designed to go to shore, open the door, and lower a ramp for tanks and other military vehicles to leave the ship. The LST 325 was used during D-Day (June
Story by Brandon LaChance
The LST 325, which was used on D-Day during World War II, started a journey on the Ohio River in 2021, but it had to end because of a Covid-19 outbreak. This fall, the LST 325 — the only WWII combat ship able to move through the water on its own power — will restart its Ohio River trip. Until then, visitors can board the ship at its museum dock in Evansville, Indiana.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Hero
FROM PAGE 9
6, 1944) as it brought supplies and troops and transported the wounded back to safety.
With the ship docked in Evansville, Indiana, Olson felt it was an honor to be part of the crew that spends two weeks a year – one in the spring and one in the fall – for maintenance purposes and part of the 40-man crew who cruises the LST 325 on special runs docking here and there along rivers such as the Ohio or the Mississippi.
“In 2021, we started a cruise from Evansville, Indiana, where the ship is homeported, toward Charleston, West Virginia, on the Ohio River,” said Olson, who mans the only WWII combat ship able to power itself across waters when he is on the LST 325. “In three days, we had 11,000 visitors, but we ended the trip early because of a Covid-19 outbreak. We are going to finish the cruise this fall. We wanted to take a trip down the Mississippi River, but we decided we needed to finish the Ohio River journey first.
“If you go to the museum in Evansville, you’ll get a guided tour. When we pull up to the ports and we let the public aboard, it’s self-guided, and we have a path sort of mapped out to help people get through and not get lost. We also tell them historical things and explain parts of the ship along the way.”
Olson, who has lived in Mendota for 30 years with his wife Ellen, enjoys the company while he is on the ship. In his five years aboard, he has heard sailor tales from all over the sea. He has conversed with non-military volunteers who simply enjoy being part of American history. Oh, and he likes to tell his own stories.
Olson joined the Navy in January of 1971 and left in April of 1975. His first tour took place on the AO-106 USS Navasota where he was for three years during two deployments to Southeast Asia during Vietnam. He was then transferred to Guam. He had a four-year obligation, but as a commissioned officer, the Navy was able to keep him for an extra three months.
“We received 12-month’s combat pay, but it was nothing like the guys that were on land or on the coast battling,” Olson remembers. “We just sailed up and down along the coast providing supplies. We carried ammunition, fuel, and food for the Destroyers and the ships that were providing support along the coast.
See HERO page 17
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