Then and now: veterans 'On the Ball'

Will sail again on D-day ship



Stephen Nedoroscik of Millbury served aboard the LST-325 during the D-day invasion of Normandy, France. He was 17. (Globe Staff Photo / Jonathan Wiggs)


By Gloria Negri,
Globe Staff  
June 4, 2005

On June 7, 1944, Stephen Nedoroscik and his crewmates on the LST-325 anchored off the coast of Omaha Beach at Normandy, France, and began unloading men and material onto smaller craft as part of the massive D-day invasion that would mark the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe.Article Tools

After they emptied the ship, Nedoroscik, a 17-year-old seaman, boarded one of those craft and went ashore with the medics to begin loading the 325 with the dead and wounded. Under fire, Nedoroscik and the others brought fallen soldiers aboard the ship, where surgeons and medics worked to save their lives.''I was scared as hell," Nedoroscik recalled during an interview in his Millbury home.

Sixty-one years after D-day, the memory of that horrible and historic mission is still fresh for Nedoroscik, who, along with the surviving members of the LST-325's original crew of more than 100, will have a chance next week to sail again on the ship they nicknamed ''On the Ball."The 325 is to arrive in Boston Harbor on Wednesday. Sailed to Boston by a full crew from its temporary home in Mobile, Ala., the ship will be open for public tours in Charlestown until June 20.   GLOBE GRAPHIC: LST-325 tour

For crew members of the 325 coming in from across the country, the vessel's arrival in Boston is more than just a history lesson; it is a reunion of brothers.''I never met a finer group of men," said Lander Bumgarner, 82, of Maiden, N.C, who served as an aircraft spotter in the original crew and is coming with his son. ''I will never forget those guys and was proud to serve with them.

"Over the past 20 years, crew members of the LST-325 have attended annual reunions. Many of the original crew members take their children and grandchildren, so they can hear firsthand what it was like to serve in World War II. Children of deceased crew members are planning to come to Boston for the historic visit.Like many LSTs -- short for landing ship, tanks -- the 325 has a noble history.Between June 1944 and April 1945, it made 44 roundtrips between France and England.

It carried the injured and prisoners of war back to England and returned with troops, tanks, and other equipment. The ship also took part in the invasions of Sicily and Salerno, Italy.In his book about the 325, ''Mosier's Raiders," David Bronson of Kalamazoo, Mich. -- son of the late James Bronson, an original crew member -- recalls how on Dec. 28, 1944, the 325 helped rescue more than 700 men from the British troop transport Empire Javelin, which had been torpedoed off the coast of France. The crew and captain of the 325 were awarded a Bronze Star.

At his home in Millbury, Nedoroscik has an album of faded photographs of the ship and its gangly, young crew. He joined the crew early in May 1944 in Falmouth, England, where the Allies were preparing for the Normandy Invasion.''We were all loaded up sitting in the Falmouth River," he recalled. ''It was dark, and German planes came over. The first thing they hit was the oil depot.

We all lit up like a Christmas tree."A plane came right over them, he said, but they got lucky: The bomb bay doors were open, but the plane didn't drop one.Robert Lemieux of Leominster, 80, a member of the original crew, joined the Navy at 17 in 1942. He is taking his family to see his old ship next week.''They've heard my stories about it," he said. ''Now I want them to see it.

"The 325's visit to Boston is meant not only to honor the men who served and died aboard the flat-bottomed vessels that were considered the workhorses of the military, but also the men and women who built them, said Frank Earley of Plymouth, chairman of the committee welcoming the 325 and a past president of the Massachusetts chapter of the United States LST Association. Many LSTs were built at local shipyards, including Charlestown Navy Yard, Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, and Hingham Shipyard.

The Navy reactivated the 325 in the early 1960s and transferred it to the Greek Navy, where it remained until 1999. The next year, it was acquired by USS LST Ship Memorial Inc., and a crew of veterans sailed it to Mobile in January 2001.One of the more than 1,000 LSTs built between 1942 and 1945, the 325 is the only one still able to sail under its own power and in its original World War II configuration, Earley said.

''We were lucky never to have been hit," said crew member William Hanley, 83, of Lavallette, N.J., who is coming to Boston.Ron Colpus of Braintree, a master mariner for 38 years, sailed the 325 from Mobile. He said from the ship this week that the World War II Navy veterans serving as its crew are thrilled to be back on board an LST like the one on which they served.Nedoroscik has taken some of his 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren to Mobile to see the 325, but he's looking forward to sharing his past with his family when it docks in Boston, he said.'

'When we were checking our baggage at the airport on the way home, the young woman clerk asked me if I had been on the 325," he said. ''When I said I had been, she came from behind the counter and gave me a kiss. That's how I know it is still important to people.
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Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)