Pittsburgh plays host to LST WWII ship
Sept. 2-8
WWII ship
The historic LST 325, a WWII ship, will dock in Pittsburgh, adjacent to Heinz Field, Sept. 2-8. The LST is one of the last of her kind and is the only working LST in the United States. By giving tours, the crew will educate on the role these ships played in our wars and honor those who built, sailed and served on them. Most of the shipyards that built LSTs were not in existence prior to the LST. Companies that built them had never built a ship of any kind, and the shipyard workers, many of whom were women, had never built a ship before.
Of the 1,051 LSTs that were built, 957 saw service in WWII and took part in every invasion in all theaters of the war. The British Navy was given 122 ships and the U.S. Coast Guard manned 76. Each of these ships, designed to be expendable, cost $1.4 million to build. The average age of the enlisted crew was 18 and the officers were 23. Forty of the 957 ships activated were lost to enemy action or lost due to bad weather. As with other naval ships, damaged LSTs were repaired and put back into service.
At war’s end, many were scrapped, some mothballed (and later used in Korea and Vietnam) and some loaned to our allies. The 60-year-old LST 325, manned by a crew of old time LST veterans (average age of 72) sailed this ship back from Greece to the United States in January of 2001.
These LSTs were so versatile they carried soldiers, tanks, trucks, artillery, weapons, ammunition, food, all kinds of supplies, bulldozers, cranes, locomotives and more. It even served as a hospital ship returning the wounded back to England from the beaches of Normandy. That is why the LST was labeled as “the ship that won the war.”
Admission is $10/adult or $20/family, $5 for kids ages 5-18 and free to children under 5.