Landing Ship Medium – 45On a beautiful Friday afternoon, I headed towards a little visited training area aboard Camp Lejeune to check out the local Jacksonville semi-historical ship LSM-45. The ship has been in the local paper off and on over the last few years as its final fate ebbs and flows as the seasons change around it.
WW2 era muscle and 1980's Detriot MUSCLE!
The ship was transferred here to be a part of the new Marine Museaum of the Carolinas when that agency was planned to have a building built off the New River. However that plan fell apart due to local political issues regarding the proposed site. The proposed Museaum now will be land locked near the Beirut Memorial in front of Camp Johnson.
I headed out to see her myself after getting finished retaking my Range Safety officer class aboard mainside. Riding along in my Grand National during this late summer day was a nice treat, except I couldn't open her up on the backroads as you never know where a Military Police may be lurking. Soon I motored near the wharf were the LSM lay by herself. Other than a few people who were casting for shrimp down the way there were no other people to keep the old ship company.
The ship was shocking in bad shape, more than I imagined. It would take a act of extreme sacifice in money and effort to make the LSM shipshape. That was unforunate as one reason I was there was to take a looksee at the ship to ascertain the possiblity of requesting it for one of the bombing targets at Bombing Target area 11.
Up at the island as we call it, we have problems with getting hulks of ships out in the shallows for fixed wing aircraft and helos to shoot at with rockets and bombs. Something as large as the LSM and especially the fact that she's made of steel which takes the explosions better than newer decommision ships makes her a real jewel as a target ship.
It would be a great shame to blow up a old WW2 Pacific warhorse, but I guess she would have some life left training the new breed of warrior and save the goverment some target money while she's at it.
Posts
