Friday, December 8, 2000

By Robert Burns
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Fearing for their safety, the Coast Guard is urging a group of World War II Navy veterans to scrap plans to sail a 58-year-old Navy ship across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to Alabama to become a floating museum.

The venture's leader rejected the advice and said the 32-man crew — average age 73 — plans to have the ship under way by Monday.

The vessel, a tank landing ship given to the Greek navy in 1963, has inadequate lifesaving equipment, and its main propulsion and steering systems are in questionable condition, the Coast Guard's Atlantic area commander, Vice Adm. John E. Shkor, wrote in a letter to Robert Jornlin, the ship's captain.

Shkor also questioned the aging crew's capacity to respond to emergencies during the 4,600-mile journey. One shipmate, identified in the ship's Web site log as Bill Hart, became seriously ill aboard ship and died after returning to the United States.

"Noting these conditions and the unfavorable weather in the Atlantic Ocean at this time of year, I must question the prudence of attempting this voyage and strongly recommend against it," Shkor wrote.

Milan Gunjak, president of the LST Association for former tank landing ship crewmen, said in an interview that he spoke by telephone Wednesday with Jornlin and that the group was determined to set sail by Monday from Gibraltar, regardless of the Coast Guard warning.

"It's full speed ahead," Gunjak said from his home in Oregon, Ohio. "To hell with the Coast Guard."

"I can understand this admiral's concern, but the man knows nothing about an LST," Gunjak said. "He doesn't understand how good a shape the ship is in."

Jornlin, 61, of Earlville, Ill., served during the Korean War aboard a tank landing ship — in Navy lingo a landing ship, tank, or LST. The other 30 members of the crew also served aboard such vessels, Gunjak said.

LST-325, which the Greeks renamed Syros, after an Aegean island near Mykonos, is 328 feet long and 50 feet wide, with landing boats to carry combat troops ashore. In the first LST convoy to reach the European Theater of Operations in March 1943, the ship participated in the invasions of Sicily, Salerno and finally Normandy, six days after D-Day.

The ship is undergoing engine repairs at Gibraltar and could be ready to set sail as early as Saturday, Gunjak said. The trip, which might include a stop in the Canary Islands, is likely to take about four weeks, he said.

Last week a Coast Guard marine safety officer inspected the ship at Gibraltar. Besides questioning the adequacy of the vessel's lifesaving equipment, the inspection also found it lacked an emergency electricity generator.

In his letter, described in a Coast Guard news release Wednesday, Shkor said that if the ship, designated LST-325, were a commercial vessel he could order safety repairs. But since it is not, he could only recommend that the ship be towed back or that it be repaired before sailing.

The crew is keeping a log of its return voyage and have posted it on the Internet. One entry from September says that while the ship was still in Greece, the idea of towing it back to the United States had come up.

"But that is the last thing we will consider," the crew wrote.

The project of restoring LST-325 and returning it to the United States to serve as floating museum in Mobile, Ala., has been several years in the making. It has been supported by Nicholas Burns, U.S. ambassador in Athens, Greece, as well as commercial sponsors such as BP Petroleum, which donated 52,000 gallons of fuel.

"This has never been done before, and probably will never be done again," Gunjak's wife, Linda, said in an interview.

LST-325 was commissioned in February 1943, decommissioned in 1946, put back into service in the Arctic in the 1950s, then lent to the Greek government in 1964. It was finally decommissioned last summer, and Congress passed a bill authorizing Greece to turn over the ship for use as a memorial. No money changed hands.

In November, the Navy veterans crossed the Mediterranean in 11 days from Athens to Gibraltar, despite two storms and some equipment problems. One of the men suffered heart problems in Greece and flew home, dying on arrival in the United States.

On the Net:
          LST Association: http://www.uslst.org
          Log of the  voyage: http://www.palosverdes.com/lst887/lst325.html
          Coast Guard release: http://www.uscg.mil/d5/news/2000/r153_00.html

Back to December's stories
Stories from November
Stories from October
Stories from August and September
Stories before August
Home