Don't let the spacious interior of the LST-325 landing ship fool you. At one time, as many as three rows of Sherman tanks could fill this vessel, which was first built...and used...during World War II...as well as long afterward. Just after the war ended...it...and other landing ships like it... also returned Japanese troops to the Pacific.

"Most of their shipping was gone, and their troops were brought back by our LST's," said crew member Larry Knox. We also returned their slave labor to Korea and China."

This vessel's moment of history was that it was part of the D-Day invasion of Normandy...so effective that Winston Churchill said it and ships like it, won the war.

Today, the crew is voluntary, but most have had military service...and this summer, it has been on a tour of the nation's major rivers.

While hundreds of people lined the Ohio River to see this LST come in...many were veterans of wars where this ship...and others like it...were used.

"I was on an LST 44 years ago," said Vietnam veteran Mike Pingrey. "We transported our tanks to Da Nang and we loaded them on board an LST to do that."

But its major activity was in the ship's early years, when it transported tanks and troops during World War II. John Adams and his 94-year-old friend came from Canton, Ohio Wednesday to see this LST.

We made the initial landing in the Phillipine islands, with (General) McCarthur," Adams said. "We floated around for 60 days waiting for troops to come from the United States, Europe, Australia, to make a landing. It was kind of scary."

"I got back to the states...it must have been in April or May of 1945," said 94-year-old World War II veteran George Robart. And the next trip was Japan."

The LST 325 was decommissioned in 1999. That means that there are a lot of stories in its walls...and in the veterans who served within them.

The ship will be docked throughout the Ohio River Sternwheel Festival.

Public tours of the ship will begin Friday.