USS LST-5

USS LST-5. Awarded Three Battle Stars for World War II Service. The British evacuation from Dunkirk, France, in 1940 made clear the need for ocean-going vessels capable of loading and landing large quantities of troops, cargo, and vehicles on an unimproved shore. The British Admiralty got busy and began design work on a seaworthy workhorse that would evolve into the Landing Ship, Tank (LST). In the early 1940s some 1,100 were laid down, including 1,000 in the United States, with the remainder in the United Kingdom and Canada. Their utility and value was affirmed throughout the war. , , In August of 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met off Argentia, Newfoundland. During that meeting, today known as the Atlantic Conference, the two men fashioned the Atlantic Charter to set out the overarching strategy for winning the war and securing postwar peace. The necessity for a wartime fleet of large capacity ships with the capability to embark and debark on shore was among the many matters the two leaders, both with rich experience with their respective navies, agreed upon in short order; thus, a delegation from the Admiralty met that November with a team from the United States Navy's Bureau of Ships to pursue the creation of such a vessel. To enable the British shipyards to continue their production of fighting ships, the Naval Bureau agreed to undertake the task of designing and producing, in volume, LSTs that the Admiralty could receive and employ under the provisions of Lend-Lease. , , The Naval Bureau's John C. Niedermair sketched the basic design for what became the LST. The ship had a large ballast tank that would be filled to operate at sea and pumped out to permit debarkation on the landing beach. That solution offered relative stability at sea as well as the flexibility of ship-to-beach operation. To free the LST from the shallows following a debarkation, the ship had a mechanical winch that drew it toward an anchor released at sea before landing. The Admiralty embraced Mr. Niedermair's sketch with enthusiasm early that same month and asked for the delivery of 200 LSTs as soon as they could be produced. , , Two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Congress authorized production of the LST, but it was not until 10 June 1942 that the keel of the first one was laid down at Newport News, Virginia. Production then proceeded in earnest, enabling the commissioning of twenty-three LSTs by year's end. USS LST-5, the specific subject of this tablet, typifies every LST with combat service in either the Pacific or European Theaters. Laid down at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 12 July 1942, the ship was ready to launch in less than three months but was not commissioned until 22 February 1943. LST-5 participated in the Sicilian occupation (July 1943), Salerno landings (September 1943), and the D-Day assault at Normandy (June 1944). In November of 1944, LST-5 sailed to Belfast, Northern Ireland for transfer to a British crew and further service in India and the Far East. Decommissioned after World War II, LST-5 was taken off the Navy list on 1 August 1947 and sold to the Tung Hwa Trading Company of Singapore as scrap. , , In honor of the valor, fidelity, and sacrifice of the officers and men of the 235 LSTS that served the five Normandy Beaches on D-Day. Given by a crew member of LST-5.