USS LCS-102

02/21/2026

in 1945, just two days after the initial landings off of Iwo Jima, the Japanese unleashed a furious kamikaze assault on the U.S. fleet offshore.

The es**rt carrier USS Bismarck Sea was struck by two kamikazes. With fires raging and ammunition exploding, she sank in 90 minutes, tragically taking 318 of her crew with her.

The veteran carrier USS Saratoga, which had served since the 1920s, was hit by five kamikazes. Though her crew fought valiantly to save her, the damage was so severe it ended her combat career. Several other ships were also hit in the coordinated attack.

A devastating day that highlights the extreme price paid for victory in the Pacific and the incredible courage of the sailors who faced this terrifying threat. We remember their sacrifice.

📸: A column of LCS(L) passes Mount Suribachi, on the southern end of Iwo Jima, during the pre-invasion bombardment, circa 17-19 February 1945. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command.

10/21/2025

LSM(R)-197 fires a barrage of rockets towards the beaches of Okinawa on 4 April 1945.

She was very busy at this time, operating around Okinawa from March until June of 1945. In addition to her intended role of shore bombardment, she also operated as a radar picket ship off Okinawa.

08/15/2025

A view from the pilot house as a United States Navy Landing Craft Infantry (Rocket) (LCI (R)) fires a barrage of 5" (127mm) rockets while covering Australian combat engineers ashore on Tarakan Island on 30 April 1945. The rockets helped surpress the Japanese defenders, allowing the engineers to prepare for the main invasion force that would begin landing the following day.

The LCI(R) was one of the smaller rocket equipped ships used at the time. Each LCI(R) carried six 5" rocket launchers, giving them less firepower. On the other hand, they were cheap and effective in large numbers.

08/11/2025

We have talked about many amazing warships over the years, some famous and others quite obscure. Not surprisingly, there are many comments wishing that certain warships were saved or express grief over their scrapping.

While there is nothing wrong with wishing more history was preserved, many tend to underestimate just how difficult it is to preserve something as large and intricate as a warship.

The process of even sparing a warship from the scrapyard is a major undertaking in itself. The cost of a warship is enormous, being anywhere from 10 million for a destroyer to over 100 million for a battleship, the equivalent of 200 million to over 1.6 billion in today's money. Once a warship has reached the end of its service life, the government that funded it is eager to regain some of that investment. This comes from the scrapping process, where warships are broken down for their high-quality materials and other components of worth.

With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that only countries with considerable wealth at their disposal could even entertain the thought of not scrapping decommissioned warships. This is why the United States was able to preserve so many warships in the years following the Second World War while others, such as the United Kingdom, were forced to scrap many of their most historic warships.

Even then, the battle to preserve a warship does not end with simply sparing it from the cutting torches.

The mere act of maintaining a ship is a tremendous struggle. Ships reside in an enviornment that actively tries to destroy them. The water they float in tries to eat through the hull from the outside, the moisture in the air corrodes them from the inside. Wind, weather, and even the people aboard them cause damage everywhere else.

When actively serving, this accumulated wear and tear is addressed through periodic refits. Depending on the amount of stress accumulated, ships could require these refits as often as every year. This is an expensive, time consuming process, one that is a challenge for even a federally funded navy to handle.

For a museum ship, this is all but impossible. While a museum ship does not take the same abuse as a functioning warship, it still has to contend with the elements and enviornment, leading to deterioration over time. However, a comprehensive repair session in a shipyard is often beyond the funding and capabilities of the entity handling the museumship. Instead, they are forced to rely on the hardwork and dedication of employees or, more often than not, volunteers. These individuals are responsible for a majority of the upkeep and maintenance of a museum ship.

Even with the largest and most dedicated workers, this is often still not enough. The gradual deterioration of a ship is relentless. For the most part, workers cannot halt this accumulated damage. Rather than repair a ship to a better condition, they have to settle for halting the deterioration to the best of their abilities, thereby extending the life of the museumship for as long as possible.

Larger and more comprehensive repairs are still needed of course. These are funded by a variety of methods such as ticket sales, private donations, and the occasional gift of federal funds. This funding is not guaranteed however. Museum ships are dependent on the public. The support of a museum ship is directly linked to its visibility and the number of visitors they receive. As a result, larger and more spectacular museum ships have an easier time in this regard compared to your smaller, less impressive museum ships.

The point of this story is that it is extremely difficult to preserve a warship and even harder to continue to care for it as a museum ship.

Rather than lament what has been lost, we should be thankful of what has been saved and do what we can to keep them around for as long as possible.There are many amazing museum ships out there, more than you realize.

Check out some of the ships below and follow them if you can. Even if you cannot visit them in person, expanding their follower base helps increase their visibility.

USS Wisconsin - Nauticus
USS Iowa - Pacific Battleship Center - Battleship USS Iowa
USS Missouri - Battleship Missouri Memorial
USS New Jersey - Battleship New Jersey
USS Alabama - USS ALABAMA Battleship Memorial Park
USS Massachusetts - Battleship Cove
USS North Carolina - USS NORTH CAROLINA Battleship Battleship
USS Texas - Battleship Texas Foundation

USS Lexington - USS Lexington Museum
USS Intrepid - Intrepid Museum
USS Yorktown - Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum
USS Midway - USS Midway Museum
USS Hornet - USS Hornet - Sea, Air and Space Museum

USS Salem - USS Salem
USS Olympia - Independence Seaport Museum
USS Little Rock - Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park

USS The Sullivans - Buffalo and Erie Naval and Military Park
USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr - USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr DD 850
USS Kid - USS KIDD Veterans Museum
USS Cassin Young - Boston National Historical Park
USS Edson - Edson
USS Laffey - Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum
USS Orleck - Jacksonville Naval Museum
USS Turner Joy - USS Turner Joy

USS Stewart - Seawolf Park
USS Slater - USS Slater

USCGC Taney - Historic Ships in Baltimore
USCGC Lilac - Lilac Preservation Project
USCGC Ingrahm - West Maritime Memorial Museum

USS Torsk - Historic Ships in Baltimore
USS Albacore - Albacore Park
USS Batfish - Muskogee War Memorial Park - Home of the USS Batfish
USS Becuna - Independence Seaport Museum
USS Blueback - Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI)
USS Cod - USS Cod Submarine Memorial
USS Bowfin - USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park
USS Dolphin - Maritime Museum of San Diego
USS Cobia - Wisconsin Maritime Museum
USS Cavalla - Galveston Naval Museum
USS Croaker - and Erie Naval and Military Park
USS Lionfish - Cove
USS Drum - ALABAMA Battleship Memorial Park
USS Requin - Science Center
USS Marlin - Freedom Park (Omaha, Nebraska)
USS Pampanito - San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
USS Nautilus - Submarine Force Museum Association, Home of the USS Nautilus
USS Razorback - Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum
USS Silversides - USS Silversides Submarine Museum
CSS Hunley - Friends of the Hunley

USS Constitution - USS Constitution
USS Constellation - Historic Ships of Baltimore
US Niagara - Erie Maritime Museum & U.S. Brig Niagara

SS John W. Brown - SS John W. Brown (Project Liberty Ship)
USS Aries - USS Aries
USS Cairo - Vicksburg National Military Park
CSS Neuse - CSS Neuse Civil War Museum
USS Hazard - Freedom Park (Omaha, Nebraska)
USS Hoga - Inland Maritime Museum
USS LST-393 -
USS LST-325 - USS LST 325 Ship Memorial
USS LCS(L)(3)-102 -
Nash - . Lee White Marine Museum
SS Jeremiah O' Brien - SS Jeremiah O'Brien, National Liberty Ship Memorial
SS Red Oak Victory - SS Red Oak Victory
SS Lane Victory - Lane Victory Maritime Center

07/18/2025

Clipping ammo on a 20mm Oerlikon gun. The magazine holds sixty rounds, with a top firing rate of about 450 rounds per minute. But, they go in a lot slower than they go out, one round at a time.

06/03/2025

05/18/2025

A LSM(R)-188 class ship fires off a barrage of rockets during the Second World War.

A single ship carried seventy-five Mark 36 launchers, each loaded with four rockets. It took roughly 2.5 hours to load all three-hundred rockets onto their launchers.

Each rocket carried a 45lb (20kg) high-explosive warhead. This enabled a single LSM(R) to fire a barrage with 13,500lbs or 6.75 tons of explosives.

In comparison it would take all four of the Iowa class battleships firing the equivalent of 2.5 broadsides each (or two ships firing two broadsides each while the other two fire three broadsides) to equal the initial barrage of a single LSM(R) so far as explosive power is concerned!

04/12/2025

We're all set for the 2025 Pancake Breakfast Season with a fantastic new electric gridle that will give us better consistency and throughput for pancakes. We love our old galley and the classic grill that we've used for years but reliability is becoming an issue, so we invested in this new equipment. Pancake Breakfastswill begin on Mothers Day, Sunday, May 11. Watch this page for ticket information or join our mailing list at www.bit.ly/ROVlist

01/31/2025

Military honors for WWII veteran, Gilbert Nadeau, 98, were on Monday. The WWII Navy veteran survived kamikaze attacks in the Pacific.