Landing Craft Infantry, (Large)

About this episode

This episode explores the development and impact of the Landing Craft Infantry, Large during World War II.

She is forty-eight metres long, flat-bottomed, and built without a keel. She crosses the Atlantic under her own power, carrying two hundred infantry to defended beaches her smaller cousins cannot reach. Her side ramps earn the grim nickname of "bullet magnets" from the soldiers who descend them under fire. Without the Landing Craft, Infantry, Large, there is no Sicily, no Salerno, no Anzio, no Normandy, no Iwo Jima, and no Okinawa at the scale the Allies achieve. This episode of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, tells the story of the seagoing infantry landing craft that fills the gap between the davit-launched assault craft and the great Landing Ship, Tank. From the desperate summer of 1940, when the British Army stands on the wrong side of the Channel without the means to return, the Royal Navy and the United States Bureau of Ships develop the vessel together. The first contracts are signed on June 3rd, 1942. The first hull is afloat by September of the same year. Ten American shipyards, from George Lawley and Son in Massachusetts to Albina Engine and Machine in Oregon, build nine hundred and twenty-three of them in less than three years. We follow the L-C-I-L through…

Topics covered

• Landing Craft Infantry
• World War II
• Military History
• Naval Warfare
• Allied Operations
• Seagoing Vessels

Keywords

• Landing Craft
• World War II
• infantry
• naval history
• military operations
• L-C-I-L
• combat

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Royal Navy, United States Bureau of Ships

Places: Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Okinawa

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