World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

This article refers to the entire LST-class; it is not about an individual vessel.

ww2dbaseThe LST, short for "Landing Ship, Tank", came about after the Dunkirk evacuation demonstrated a dire need for large seafaring transports for large vehicles. The first attempt at building such ships was done by converting three tankers from Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela with bay doors; they were used during the Operation Torch landings in Algeria in 1942. Meanwhile, experts from both Britain and United States' navies gathered requirements. In 1941, the name LST was born with preliminary specifications. Within a few days, John Niedermair of the US Navy Bureau of Ships completed the first sketch of the design. It called for a large ballast system that could be filled with sea water to give the ship a deep draft for seafaring, or emptied so that the ship could sail very close to beaches to unload its cargo. The design was accepted by the US Navy, then was sent for approval with the Royal Navy on 5 Nov 1941. Almost immediately, the Royal Navy accepted the design and asked for 200 to be built for Britain under the Lend-Lease program. The first LST keel was laid down at Newport News, Virginia, United States, and the first production LST set sail four months later in Oct 1942. From the very first moment, the construction program for LSTs took a very high priority. In some instances, even heavy industry plants inland such as steel yards were converted for LST construction.

ww2dbaseThe first action that saw LSTs in service was the Solomon Islands Campaign in Jun 1943, and almost immediately they were used in the Sicily landings in the Mediterranean. Although slow and unwieldy, they were tough enough to absorb a tremendous amount of damage. In fact, despite being a valuable target for carrying large amounts of cargo, only 26 were lost in action; of the 26, only 13 were actually sunk by enemy fire. While almost every landing operation employed LSTs, they were also versatile enough to serve in other roles. Some were converted to become repair ships, others into floating barracks for 200 officers and men, while 38 LSTs were converted into hospital ships. In Jun 1944, converted LST hospital ships brought 41,035 wounded men from the Normandy beaches in the first couple days of the invasion.

ww2dbaseAfter the war, hundreds of LSTs were scrapped or sunk, a few were sold to civilian organizations, and most of the remainder were mothballed. 1,051 LSTs were constructed during WW2, 670 of which were built by 5 major inland locations, with the largest being Evansville, Indiana, United States. Of the LSTs exported from the US, Britain was the largest customer with 113 LSTs in service during WW2.

LST-class Landing Ship Interactive Map

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LST-class Landing Ship Operational Timeline

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32.  David Stubblebine says:
24 Mar 2013 12:42:48 AM

Jenny:

You are almost certainly referring to AKA-8, USS Algorab.

46.  David Stubblebine says:
4 Jun 2014 08:52:47 PM

To #45:
It looks like LST-23 to me.

47.  David Stubblebine says:
5 Jun 2014 08:49:32 PM

Re: #45 & #46:
What's more, I don't think the linked image shows an LST at all. I think this is an LCT, LCT-23.

60.  David Stubblebine says:
12 Jul 2015 06:58:13 PM

Jean:
In 1945, LST-790 helped land Marines on Iwo Jima and then Okinawa. During WWII, LST-790 was manned by US Coast Guard personnel (not unusual) so this means the Muster Rolls were maintained by the Coast Guard and not the Navy. According to the Coast Guard website, those rolls are now maintained by the National Archives & Records Administration (NARA), same as the Navy records. The Navy Muster Rolls are available at Fold3.com but not the Coast Guard. I do not know where they can be found online but getting records from NARA is not as hard as it sounds – it is just not swift. See: http://www.archives.gov/research/military/ww2/ww2-participation.pdf

80.  David Stubblebine says:
25 Mar 2017 11:32:55 AM

Jinx Fogle (above):
There were nearly 1,200 LSTs built, which is a huge number for any class of US Navy commissioned vessel. As such, many went without names and were officially known only by their hull numbers. But to say that none had names would be incorrect. The naming custom for the LSTs that had names was to name them for counties across America, so if LST-288 bore the name Clinton, it was more likely Clinton County but I can find no record for that. Just before being decommissioned in 1955, LST-288 was named USS Berkshire County which probably would not have happened if there had been another name in her history. Unofficial naming remains a distinct possibility as such things were done, often for a crewmember killed while serving aboard.

84.  David Stubblebine says:
17 Apr 2017 11:44:36 AM

Lou McMurray (above):
By the time an LST was ready to leave, it was usually had quite a bit less tonnage aboard than when it arrived and if that wasn’t enough, then the reduced weight plus high tide would be enough that they just reversed off the beach to deeper water.

87.  David Stubblebine says:
13 Oct 2017 08:12:46 AM

To Sean Q (above):
A fairly complete collection of Muster Rolls for LST-524, and indeed many of the LSTs, appears at the website Fold3.com. This is a subscription site that offers a free trial period that may be enough for you to get what you want. Remember, though, that these are Navy Muster Rolls and only account for Navy enlisted personnel. Officers, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen were accounted for using other forms submitted through other channels.