A World War II Landing Ship Ties Up on Old Hickory Lake

For one week at the end of September, a piece of D-Day history sat in the water at Sanders Ferry Park. LST-325, a World War II landing ship, was docked on Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville through Sept. 29, giving visitors a chance to walk decks that once carried troops, vehicles, and tanks onto beaches more than 80 years ago.

This was not a replica. NewsChannel 5 reported that the ship is the real vessel, built during the war to deliver men and machines straight onto the shore. One of its most striking features is the front ramp, which, the station said, once put 20 Sherman tanks onto the beach. “And you’re literally walking up the same ramp those 20 Sherman tanks came down,” cruise director Ken Rupp told the station. “It takes you right back to the beaches of Normandy.”

Rupp said the visit meant a great deal to veterans and their families — a chance to remember, and to share the story with people who were not there. Below deck, rows of bunks in troop berthing offered a quieter kind of awe. The ship spent decades in military service before former sailors worked to bring it home from Greece, a return that required negotiations and, Rupp said, an act of Congress.

The ship has since continued its cruise. For anyone who missed the Hendersonville stop, the memory is still close: a gray wartime hull on the same lake we fish, ski, and watch from the Village bluff, tying Hadley’s Bend, however briefly, to the beaches of 1944.

Source: NewsChannel 5.