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Post by Taildragger on Apr 22, 2024 23:43:55 GMT -5
Don't know if this will interest anybody else, but it did me.
That's partly because my dad skippered one of these (though an earlier version than the ones shown in this film). The differences between his and these was pretty minimal.
His ship was among the first flotilla of these little things that sailed for North Africa in February of 1943. These ships had been hurriedly cobbled together, initially to fit a Royal Navy requirement (probably for commando operations against the German-occuppied French coast) and had only been run through minimal sea trials along the U.S. east coast when they were dispatched to pass through the Straits Gibraltar en route to Bizerta, Tunisia. His flotilla basically served as a guinea pig to see just how sea worthy the design actually was. Tough assignment for a landlubber from Chicago like him.
In addition to the ship's 5 Oerlikon 20mm cannon, the crew was armed with Thompson sub-machineguns and .45-cal semi-auto sidearms. They were relatively safe from U-boat attack because their small size made them relatively inconsequential targets. Also because German torpedoes were probably set to run deeper than the LCI(L)'s extremely shallow draft. Ironically, they feared friendly fire from larger, USN surface ships more than U-boats, especially at night, because their silhouette resembled that of a U-boat conning tower.
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Post by WireDog on Apr 29, 2024 9:51:44 GMT -5
I'm sure the reality of being on one of those, plowing straight ahead into combat, was incredibly dangerous. Talk about being at the tip of the spear...
That old boy said that they didn't receive the recognition of the "Silent Submarines or the Dashing Destroyers". My dad was in the Coast Guard in WWII, accompanying convoys to Murmansk, and he said the same thing. The public perception of what things are like and the reality for those involved might be very different. Kudos to your Pop!
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Post by Taildragger on Apr 29, 2024 11:13:52 GMT -5
"My dad was in the Coast Guard in WWII, accompanying convoys to Murmansk, and he said the same thing."
I used to have a neighbor who who served as "sparks" (radio operator) on a Merchant Marine freighter that made "the Murmansk run" as he called it. He was a really tough old Oakie, but even he said without hesitation that it was a terrifying experience. If the ship got torpedoed or bombed and the order to "abandon ship" was given, your survival in that frigid water was measured in mere minutes before hypothermia set in.
"The public perception of what things are like and the reality for those involved might be very different. Kudos to your Pop!"
The "war stories" he told me and my brother when we were little were (understandably) almost all about the "good times" between landings: taking pictures of Roman ruins in occupied Italy, going to shows in London music halls while waiting for D-Day to kick off, etc.. Only later, when we were old enough to understand, did he open up a little about "the bad stuff": near bomb misses from Luftwaffe aircraft, the chaos and carnage on the landing beaches, seeing a big caterpillar tractor that was clearing beach obstacles take a direct hit from a German "88", etc.. The sea being stained red at the waterline was one of the images that stuck with me.
The Anzio and Normandy landings were the roughest, he said. At Normandy, his ship/crew and several others from that flotilla had been loaned to the Royal Navy, who was short of landing ships. They ferried British 2nd Army troops to "Sword" Beach. The prepared defenses there were less robust than at places like "Omaha", and much of it right on the beach had been neutralized by the time his ship made its first of 16 landings that day, but they were still receiving indirect fire from heavy mortars and large artillery emplaced further east. This was the case during the first few trips, until the beach head was relatively secured and troops were moving inland to engage the German forces there.
In the cold parlance of war planners, the LCI was deemed "expendable". Consequently (as the video states) the ships' armor was minimal and pretty much limited to the gun tubs and conn. Anything heavier than an MG 42 would probably have punched right through the hull and maybe even the armored parts if it was firing AP ammo. I've read accounts of Flak 38 (20mm) AP rounds punching in through one side of an LCI conn and exiting right out the other.
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Post by WireDog on Apr 29, 2024 14:30:03 GMT -5
One of my Dad’s best buddies was a Merchant Mariner who’d been on the Murmansk Run convoys. He lived down the street. They made friends after the war and were really tight, like brothers, having shared that particular facet of Hell.
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