Why was this Web site created?

October 1999: This presentation is a tribute to my father's service to his country in the Navy on an LST (Landing Ship, Tank) during the Second World War. Ralph Hostetler was raised in southwestern Pennsylvania in the small coal mining town of Melcroft. He graduated from Ramsay High School in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania in 1941 and went to Findlay College (now the University of Findlay) in Findlay, Ohio on a football scholarship. He was the first in his family to attend college. After his sophomore year he joined the Navy. The Navy sent him to a V-12 program at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio where he graduated a midshipman, completing 18 months of normal-paced schooling in half that time. He became an Ensign through a Q-12 program at Fort MacDonough, Plattsburg, New York. He further trained at Fort Pierce, Florida in underwater demolition and as a Small Boat Officer. He then was assigned to a division of four LCVPs or Higgin's boats on the newly-launched LST 1090. While waiting in New Orleans for the ship to come down the Mississippi River he turned 22.

In the spring of 1945 the war in Europe was nearly won, but the end in the Pacific theater was not in sight. The Japanese were expected to offer stiff, even fanatical defense of their home island. It seemed that the Navy, Marines and Army had a lot more fighting to do. Without the atomic bombs Harry Truman ordered dropped upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki there would have been hard fighting to make landings on the Japanese home islands. My father odds of surviving such assaults would not have been especially good. As it was, when LST 1090 exited the Panama Canal on May 14, 1945 the war would be over and won by mid-August.

The WW II service of LST 1090 was not a hard one by the standards of the day. There were mines, strafings and a submarine encounter, but the greatest hazard may have been a typhoon. Returning state side, the ship made a run of 6300 nautical miles from Sasebo, Japan to San Diego in twenty-seven days, January 3-29, 1946, in what was the longest non-stop LST run to that date. On the ship's last voyage of this war from San Diego, CA to Vancouver, WA where it was mothballed my father served as captain.

When I was a boy he would tell his children a few stories about his Navy days. It is now 56 years since the war's end and my father has passed away. The young men who served with him are certainly older men now. I am posting this in the hope that those who served with him will discover it and tell me their remembrances of their days on LST 1090. I would very much like to hear from you.

Thank you,
Brent Hostetler

Postscript (April 13, 2001): Since posting this 19 months ago I have been contacted by five of my father's WW II crewmates and by one member of the Korean War crew. I first heard from WW II crewman Edward Sulfika. Next was Don McElroy, First Lt. during WW II. In a long telephone conversation which I greatly appreciated he told me many good stories. Don MacLean, WW II Boat Coxswain, gave me details of WW II LCVP crew service. Roy Hockett, WW II Radarman, composed an early history of the crew in training. Recently I heard from John Matthews, the impossibly young-looking officer in the New Orleans photograph. John's recollections are an insightful and important contribution. During the Korean War William Hagwood served on the ship (it was given a name in this conflict, being called the "Russell County"). He gave me a full account of the ship's Korean service. He also graciously gave me a fine photograph of the ship underway.