Landing Ship, Tank

About this episode

This episode tells the story of the Landing Ship, Tank and its crucial role in World War II operations.

She has no name. She carries only a number on her bow. She is slow, flat-bottomed, and unglamorous. Sailors call her a Large Slow Target. Yet without the Landing Ship, Tank, there is no Operation Torch, no Husky, no Avalanche, no Shingle, no Overlord, no Dragoon, no Iwo Jima, and no Okinawa. In this episode of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, host Michael Weyers tells the story of the vessel that solved a problem the Royal Navy had carried unsolved since the beaches of Gallipoli in 1915. How do you put a thirty-tonne tank ashore on a hostile coast where no port exists, no crane stands ready, and no pier reaches into the surf? The answer arrives, improbably, on the back of an envelope in a Washington office in November 1941. John C. Niedermair sketches the design in a couple of hours. From that sketch flows a programme that builds more than 1,051 ships in inland yards beside the Ohio and Illinois Rivers. The cornfield shipyards employ firms with no prior shipbuilding experience. Reservist crews learn their craft under fire, driving their bows onto hostile beaches in defiance of every instinct trained into a naval officer. This episode follows the L.S.T. from Churchill's…

People in this episode

Host: Michael Weyers

Topics covered

• Landing Ship Tank
• World War II
• Naval History
• Military Operations
• Shipbuilding

Keywords

• Landing Ship Tank
• World War II
• naval operations
• John C. Niedermair
• military history
• shipbuilding
• Operation Torch

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Royal Navy

Places: Ohio, Illinois, Normandy, Pacific

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