elsie item issue 65 - USS Landing Craft Infantry National Association

LCI Model Finds a New Home!John Ring Presents His Model of LCI 603 to Jack Miller, Staff Memberat the Southern New England Military MuseumOne of Carl Chapple’s beautiful models has a new home, and an LCIer has been remembered.John F. Ring, who served on LCI 603 and is now living in Prospect, CT, was the proud winner ofthe raffle for the model at our 2003 reunion in Washington, DC. He has enjoyed it through theyears but recently felt led to use it to honor a good friend and fellow LCIer who had passed away.His friend, John Wilkes, was a Gunner’s Mate, First Class who served on LCI(G) 452, taking partin the campaigns of Eniwetok, Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian, Palau, and Okinawa. He received fivebronze stars, the Philippine Liberation Medal , the American Victory Medal and the Asiatic Pacificmedal and earned the Expert Rifleman medal.The two Johns were close; and when John Wilkes passed away in 2006, John Ring rememberedthat he had often admired the model and wished that he had one like it.So it came about that on July 9th of this year, Ring presented the model in Wilke’s honor to theSouthern New England Military Museum. A fitting memorial for a good friend and shipmate.29