landing craft picture

[mike mckinley]

hi all

for many years, we traveled the trails along the coast of the bay of fundy on dirt bikes. at a place known as Prince Of Wales, way out on the edge of the marsh, sat what we thought was an old barge. we never investigated it, and figured it for a rotten old hull, with no significance. years went by, and one day, on the news i hear about this group of americans who are interested in the old barge...which turns out to have been a landing craft used in ww11. the report stated that they thought it had been involved in the iwo jima landings. that was the last i had heard of it as far as the media was concerned. shortly after that it was either cut up, or hauled away, i'm not sure which.
as time went on, i learned that it had belonged to a family in the area, who were into all sorts of stuff of an industrial nature. for an example, they owned the Saint John Ship Yard, were into pulping, gravel pits, heavy machinery, marine transport, you name it. what is ironic, is that much of the equipment was war surplus, which they used to make their fortune. in a really ironic twist, my 12 cab c15a, was bought direct from surplus, by this family, and used as a plough at their private country residence. anyhow, my brother was in the area just before the craft was done away with, and took one picture of it, which i thought you may like to see. if i had only known then, what it really was
mike