Best Western Paducah Inn

Bring a little of it all

by carsonsmom42025

As much as you want or need. In winter, ALWAYS bring a heavy coat and a light coat, as well as gloves, socktoboggan, scarf, etc. Boots are optional since large amounts of snow are few and far between. In spring, you need a light and heavy jacket, long sleeves and short sleeves, shorts and pants, and that's pretty much the norm up till after April or May, depending on the year. In summer, the coolest clothes you can imagine and lots of them. It gets HOT and HUMID here and all you have to do is stick a toe out the door in order to work up a sweat. In fall you should bring pretty much the same as for spring but with a bit more warmer clothes. ANTIPERSPIRANT IN SUMMER!!! IT"S HOT HERE!!! And chapstick in winter! :) Anything you like! Ice scrapers are a must in winter months. Sunblock is a BIG MUST in summer! Bring your fishing pole and fish in the lake year round if you like!! There's lots of camp grounds too so bring the camper, RV or tent along with you too if you like!!

They come by land, sea, and air.

by tony248

"The Navy lands at Paducah."

If you have seen my homepage, you know I'm a hardware nut. Here is another large piece of hardware, LST-325. That's Landing Ship, Tank #325. This ship was saved from a Greek junk yard! The U.S. gave the ship to Greece after WWII and it was about to be scraped when a group of old U.S. sailors found it and managed to get both governments to donate the ship to the group formed to return the ship to the States and restore it. Their efforts were turned into a TV program.
The ship visited the Paducah riverfront for 5 days and I was lucky to have time off from work to see it. There's a lot of history in this old ship.

On the bow of the ship, you can see the doors that open to allow the tanks, trucks, cannon, etc. to be loaded and unloaded. The "spud" barge located between the ship and the shore allows for easy access to the top deck and space for concession areas.

A view of the after part of the ship. This is where you find the control center of the ship as well as the galley, part of the crew berthing area and launching equipment for the LCVT's.

I'm sorry to say that most of the pictures I took inside the ship were fuzzy. This is a clear one and shows the entrance to the engine room. You can see that the paint is in really bad shape and the metal is rusted. There has been a lot of work done to restore the ship but there is much left to do.

I hope you can make this out. This is the cargo hold looking from the stearn to the bow. Equipment would be backed into this area and then driven out the bow and onto the beach.

An old 3/4 ton Army truck. Lighter equipment like trucks and jeeps would be placed on the top deck. After the heavy stuff in the hold was unloaded, the equipment on the top deck would be moved onto the elevator at the bow and lowered to the level of the hold and then driven out onto the beach.

One of the volunteer guides with my wife. Most of the people working on the ship were old Navy vets that served on ships like this one. There were also several men and women who had joined the ships supporting organization in order to help restore the ship and support the fund raising efforts. It takes dedication to spend so much of your time on an effort like this, This trip up and down the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers was 72 days long with work to be done every day. A point to remember, if you have spare time and want to help preserve a part of history, find a preservation group like this that needs helping hands and join up. I talked to a couple that came from St. Louis to Paducah just to help with the concessions for a day. The concessions along with the ticket sales are primary ways to raise money to restore and operate the ship.

In the background, you can see two of the four Landing Craft Vehicle/Troop (LCVT) the ship carried. If needed the LCVT could ferry troops, equipment or supplies to the beach. This could be needed if the water was not deep enough for the LCT because of reefs or other obstructions.

A half-track amoured vehicle. The vehicles on the deck were examples of the equipment the ship carried topside. Tanks and other heavy equipment would be carried in the hold. The tarp is in place due to the on and off rain we were having.