BY LAND, SEA AND AIR, USS COLONIAL CREW SAW IT ALL.

NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Vernon Kinchen (479) 264-2639 (m)

Fort Mitchell, KY/September 4, 2009—The USS Colonial, holding its annual reunion September 16-19 at the Drawbridge Inn, provided amphibious landings of troops during the Korean and Vietnam War but also was a floating test laboratory for air strikes during the 1950s.

In the summer of 1956, the Landing Ship Dock (LSD) was the test base for balloon-launched rockets. The Colonial also aided in the development of the vertical envelopment concept of amphibious assault employing helicopters. About 60 of the surviving Colonial servicemen, along with their spouses, are expected to attend the four-day reunion, reliving the moments of Colonial’s operations, which spanned 1945 to 1970.

Reunion organizer Vernon Kinchen says the ship landed the 3^rd Marine Division and their tanks in 1950 at the Battle on Inchon. The Colonial could take on 18 feet of water in the well deck after opening the stern gate. The ship also supported minesweeping operations and transported captured Korean prisoners.

Reunion attendees will visit several sites while here: Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington, Cincinnati Museum Center and will travel on a city tour. Their program will include a Friday night banquet before the reunion concludes Saturday night

The mission of the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau is that of an aggressive sales, marketing, service and informational organization whose primary responsibility is to positively impact the Northern Kentucky economy through conventions, meetings and visitor expenditures. The direct economic impact of visitors’ spending in Campbell, Kenton and Boone Counties in 2007 was $325 million.