elsie item issue 69 - USS Landing Craft Infantry

One never knows when “bread cast upon the
waters” comes back! Seven years ago we responded
to a request from Chris Mead, a modeler in
England, for LCI plans. We’ve asked Chris to tell us
a bit about this display and his work on the LCI in it.
LCIs are not forgotten in England!
Railroad modelers have constructed “Overlord,” a display
that has been years in the making.
One might think that a model railroad display is a
strange place to find a model of an LCI, but this is
indeed the case. “Overlord” is a UK based layout
designed to be exhibited at railroad shows that
depicts the preparations for D-day in and around the
Southampton docks during June 1944. It began in
1994 measuring just 12 feet from end to end, and has
proved so popular that after nearly fifteen years and 90
shows including trips to Belgium, the Netherlands and
even Germany, it is still going strong and now measures
over three times its original length.
One of the reasons to extend the layout was to display
a wider selection of the ships of the invasion
armada. Uppermost on the list were both the LCI &
LST. After contacting the USS LCI Veteran’s
Association in 2002, I received a letter from Jim
Talbert and John Cummer giving links to all the
images on the website and also copies of LCI plans.
Seven years later, the LCI is complete enough to be
included in “Overlord” and now sits on the layout as
an integral part of the display. Prompted by the need
to write an article on the layout for a magazine and
seeing the results of the accompanying professional
photographs (which are reproduced here by kind permission
of Chris Nevard and the Hornby Magazine) I
thought it only right and proper to contact Jim and
John again to show them the result of their kind
offer of information all that time ago.
Construction of the model began with enlarging the
plans from 1:96 to the scale used on the layout of
1:76 (this is the common scale for both military and
railroad models in the U.K.) which makes the finished
model about 2 feet in length. The material
used throughout is plastic sheet of varying thicknesses—40
thou for the hull and decks with 10 and
20 thou for the superstructure and conning tower.
The thinner gauge allowed the sheet to be rolled
around a a metal rod to produce the curves of the
cabin deck and conning tower.
Copious amounts of filler allowed the lines of the
bow to be shaped and also covered the many joints
and gaps between
the sheets! The rest
of the deck fittings
and armaments are
made from a combination
of more plastic
sheet for the
vents, lockers and
doors, metal rod and
tubing for the armaments,
wire for the
railings and a few
purchased fittings
such as the mooring
bollards and jolly
boat.
Although the LCI is
good enough for display
to the general
Model builder
Chris Mead
public, there is still plenty of detail to add, not least
the choice of an appropriate number. Fortunately my
recent correspondence with John Cummer has provided
the answer. He wrote:
‘This is of particular interest to me because my LCI,
the 502, was one of several craft put under British
control as a part of Assault Force George—and we
loaded from those very docks in Southampton. We
carried troops of the Durham Light Infantry and landed
them on Gold Beach at about 1030 hours on 6 June’.
“Overlord” has a number of exhibitions planned over
the last months this year and throughout 2010. With
any luck by the time the first of these comes around
the currently anonymous LCI will be sporting a white
conning tower with blue band and the number ‘502’
on the bows.
I hope I have done these small but important ships
and all those who served in them justice. If you have
any comments, please feel free to contact me at
christopher.mead1@ntlworld.com or through our
society’s website www.lwmrs.co.uk
This layout goes to shows throughout the year. The
next ones are: October 24–25—Warrington;
November 21–22—Southend-on-Sea; December
12–14—Wigan’ and January 16–17—Warwick (this
is my Society’s own show)
I hope some of your members can come along to
one of them, I would really enjoy meeting them.
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