From Sea to Shore: Landing Craft

^{National Archives from Coast Guard}

^{Hundreds of drums of gasoline are brought ashore by Coast Guard landing craft to supply U.S. troops in the Philippines.}

World War II introduced a long string of firsts. One of these was the first modern amphibious war. The American Civil War included a few, very small‑scale landings from seagoing ships or river boats. The ordinary whale boat, rowed ashore by sailors, was sufficient to get soldiers or marines to the beach. It also sufficed in the Spanish‑American War, especially as most landings then were made where the enemy was not. In the many U.S. forays into Caribbean brush fires, including the Vera Cruz expedition in 1914, the overwhelming gun power of the U.S. Navy discouraged any attempt to bring troop‑carrying rowboats or motor boats under fire. The United States did have some specialized landing craft, including some rowboats mounting cannister‑firing cannon on the bow.

World War II was different. Japanese strategists envisioned a huge number of landings on Pacific islands and the southern shores of East Asia. They prepared for it by building scores of flat‑bottomed boats that could be run right up on the beach, or at least to where the water was shallow enough for men to wade ashore. Some of the boats could carry small tanks and light artillery. They had ramps to allow vehicles to be run right off the boat.

The Japanese used these boats all over the far (from the United States) end of the Pacific following their attack on Pearl Harbor. They landed on the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies in several places. In Malaya, Japanese troops outflanked stronger British forces continually by landing behind their lines.

They drove the British back to Singapore, then landed on that British fortress and added it to their explosively growing empire.

By May of 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor, Japan controlled French Indo‑China, Thailand (Siam at that time), Malaya, the Philippines, the Marianas, Wake Island, almost all of Burma, and all of the Dutch East except the southern shore of New Guinea. It controlled the northern shore of the other half of New Guinea, mandated to Australia. (The interior of New Guinea was controlled – as it always had been – by stone‑age head‑hunters.) The Japanese were attempting more landings – on southern New Guinea and the Solomon Islands – when the Pacific war suddenly began to change.

The first check to Japanese plans was the air‑sea Battle of the Coral Sea.

That was followed quickly by another air‑sea fight: the decisive Battle of Midway. After those two battles, America’s “island hopping” campaign began.

The U.S. Marine Corps, whose main function was landing troops from ships, had been experimenting with light, specialized landing craft since the 1930s. The Japanese sea‑borne Blitzkrieg shocked the United States and its ship‑building industry into concentrating on bigger and better landing craft.

The result was thousands of troop carriers, ranging from inflatable rubber boats for small‑scale surprises to ponderous LSTs (Landing Ship Tanks) – flat bottomed but sea‑worthy (although notably rough‑riding) ships that could carry up to 20 tanks. The LST would run right up to the shore; its bow would open up like a mammoth garage door; a ramp would run down and the tanks would roll up on the beach, firing as they moved. The LCT (Landing Craft Tank) was smaller than the LST and had a flat front, like a modern Boston Whaler. The front would drop down and become a ramp for the tank or tanks to run down.

The LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) was similar to the LCT, although, as its name indicates, it carried people but not tanks. It came in various sizes, the largest being able to hold 200 soldiers.

The largest of these boats were armed with machine guns or light automatic cannons. One type of LCT, however, the LCT (R) [Landing Craft Tank (Rocket)] carried only weapons – not troops or tanks. The largest had 1,080 five‑inch rockets mounted on its deck ready for firing. The rockets were fired in a continuous stream, a spectacular (and spectacularly deadly) fireworks display. Any but the strongest enemy fortifications were pulverized. The Japanese, however, routinely built bunkers that resisted anything but a direct hit from a 16‑inch naval gun. Bigger than the LCT (R) and less specialized was the LSM (Landing Ship Medium) which was armed with guns as well as rockets and could also carry troops.

Some landing craft were truly amphibious. One of these was the DUKW or Duck (nobody today is sure what the initials originally stood for). The Duck was a three‑quarter‑ton truck – an amazingly surefooted vehicle itself – surrounded by a boat hull. The Duck could take equipment, supplies or infantry from ship to beach and continue on to the firing line. A few Ducks are still running. One of them takes sightseers on the roads and waterways of Washington, D.C.

Even more impressive was the LVT (Landing Vehicle Tracked), better known as the Alligator. It was a modification of the original Alligator, a swamp rescue vehicle developed in 1935. The Alligator was an amphibious tank and the star of many U.S. Marine Corps landings in the Pacific. It was propelled by scores of small paddles on it tractor treads. Alligators performed a variety of chores.

Some carried infantry, some carried supplies, some acted as light tanks, and others as self‑propelled guns. Some were armored, some were equipped with turrets and the 37 mm gun of the M 3 light tank (Stuart tank to the British), and others carried a 75 mm howitzer. All of them, in spite of the guns and armor, were light enough to float and seaworthy enough to make a sometimes lengthy trip from an anchored troop ship to the beach of a Pacific atoll.

The expertise and weapons the United States had been developing in the Pacific were applied to the Mediterranean and Europe between the end of 1942 and 1944. The landings in Vichy French North Africa, being practically unopposed, presented no big problem. The landings on Sicily the next year, though, brought a demonstration of amphibious warfare technology new to the European continent. There had been sea landings there before, of course. The Germans had landed in several places in Norway in 1940, but given their overwhelming air superiority, they had no need for anything fancy. The British had been working on specialized landing craft for some time, but their raid on the French port of Dieppe in August 1942 was a disaster. More than half of the attacking force was killed or captured and they were never able to achieve their objective – taking and holding the port for a limited time.

June 6, 1944 saw The Big One – the D‑day landing in Normandy. In addition to the aerial bombardment and bombardment by both U.S. and British naval ships, the landing craft were supported by four LCGs (Landing Craft Gun) firing 4.7 inch guns and 17 LCT(R)s blasting the beach with rockets.

D day in Normandy saw the largest amphibious operation in history, made possible by the swarm of specialized landing craft that had been developed. It seems unlikely that a larger such operation will be needed in the foreseeable future.