Sturgeon Bay, Wis. (October 30, 2024) – This Friday, November 1 at 11am, the Door County Maritime Museum will be dedicating a memorial plaque on the Sturgeon Bay West Waterfront behind the museum to the 23 US sailors and soldiers killed on the USS Westchester County. The Westchester County was built here in Sturgeon Bay at Christie Corporation.
On the night of November 1, 1968, Viet Cong swimmers placed mines on the hull of the ship while at anchor. The mine explosion killed 23 US servicemen and two South Vietnamese personnel, wounding dozens more and ripping large holes in the side of the ship. The November 1 mining attack on the USS Westchester County still stands as the Navy’s greatest single-incident combat loss of life during the Vietnam War.
On November 1, 2024 THREE memorial plaques to Westchester County will be dedicated: one in the ship’s home port of San Diego, one in Sturgeon Bay where the ship was built, and the last in Westchester County, New York – the ship’s namesake community. We will have sailors from Westchester County here for the dedication ceremony, and at least one will speak.
The ship’s memory is now protected by the USS Westchester County LST 1167 Association, an organization of servicemen and family members who have banded together to remember the vessel’s service and those who died upon its decks. The names of those lost in the explosion are immortalized in bronze on a plaque on the West Waterfront of Sturgeon Bay, behind the Door County Maritime Museum.
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