Conaway: Our ghosts are calling this Memorial Day
The Sam H. Werner Military Museum is in Monteagle, Tennessee. (Courtesy The Werner Museum)
Dan Conaway
Dan Conaway was a freelance columnist with The Daily Memphian from 2018 to 2025.
USS LCT (5)-242 (Landing Craft, Tank, Mark 5) was a workhorse U.S. Navy ship and a war hero.
She had a displacement of 586 tons, and she was 114 feet long with a beam of 32 feet, 8 inches and a cargo capacity of 150 tons.
To put that in perspective, she could carry nine M4 Sherman tanks or six Churchill tanks 700 nautical miles at 10 knots and deliver them to a beach under fire like umbrellas in Destin, Florida.
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