10,000-Ton Veteran
"This signalman's uniform was issued to me by the U.S. Navy in 1942. All I grew was older," 82-year-old Loring L. Bigelow confides to passengers boarding the only operational World War II Victory ship left on the planet.
Berthed in San Pedro, the SS Lane Victory is one of 5,600 specially commissioned transport vessels built between 1941 and 1945. Government owned and civilian run, these floating pack horses sustained the Allied war effort in major invasions from Okinawa to Omaha Beach and suffered a greater casualty rate than any branch of service except the U.S. Marine Corps.
Dedicated to the nearly 7,000 merchant seamen and 1,800 U.S. Navy Armed Guards attachments lost during the Second World War, the fully restored, national historic landmark offers six annual day cruises as well as self-guided daily tours when the ship is moored.
A celebrity in its own right, the SS Lane Victory has appeared in films ranging from "Titanic" (it provided the ship's wake) to "The Thin Red Line."
"Kids love coming aboard," notes 86-year-old Joe Vernick, president emeritus of the U.S. Merchant Marine Veterans of World War II. "They like to move the wheels of the gunner's stations around and make believe they're operating it."
Boarding Ship Is Like Stepping Back in Time
They also delight in getting a close-up of a real PT boat engine and jeeps used in Vietnam, Korea and World War II. "We ask them not to go more than 55 mph," jokes 71-year-old Jim Baker of Hacienda Heights, who served in the Army Transportation Service during World War II.
Boarding the SS Lane Victory is, in fact, like stepping back in time. Its range of defensive gunnery (including a 12-mile-range rifle capable of sinking subs, and eight 20 mm anti-aircraft machine guns), signal bridge, engine room, berthing quarters and other spaces are identical to when the ship was first commissioned.
Named after Isaac Lane, a former slave who became a Methodist bishop and founder of a Tennessee college, the SS Lane Victory (which also served in Korea and Vietnam) was rescued from a Northern California-based ship graveyard in 1988 by a persistent trio of South Bay-based merchant mariners.
Volunteers--many of them World War II veterans--spent four years and thousands of hours restoring the 10,000-ton, 455-foot-long, rusted-out vessel. "It was a labor of love," Vernick recalls.
World War II Museum in Ship's Cargo Hold
