US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

464 Amphibians Came To Conquer
AT THE LANDING CRAFT LEVEL
The Landing Craft, Tank (LCT) of 1942–43 was 112 feet over-all, had a
32-foot beam, and a draft of a little over three feet. It was normally expected
to carry four 40-ton tanks or to load 150 to 180 tons or about 5,760 cubic
feet of cargo. Its actual speed, loaded and in a smooth sea, was a bit more
than six knots, although it had a designed speed of ten knots. These large
tank landing craft, which shipyards in the United States started to deliver
in large numbers in September and October of 1942, were the first of their
kind to be used offensively in the South Pacific.
The LCT had but one commissioned officer and 12 to 14 men aboard them
when they, arrived in the South Pacific. The LCTS were not commissioned
ships of the Navy, the one officer being designated as the Officer in Charge.
They had insufficient personnel to keep a ship’s log, much less a war diary,
and by and large they passed in and out of their service in the Navy leaving
no individual record, except in the memories of those who served in them or
had some service performed by them. Presumably, the LCT Flotilla and
LCT Group Commanders kept a log and a war diary, but if they did so, by
and large they have not survived to reach the normal repositories of such
documents.
The first mention of the LCT in Rear Admiral Turner’s Staff Log occurs
on 19 December 1942, when 6 LCT (5) were reported at Noumea loading
for Guadalcanal. Presumably the LCT arrived on station earlier that month.
Through the leadership efforts of Rear Admiral George H. Fort (1912),
his Chief of Staff, Captain Benton W. Decker (1920), and after arrival in
SOPAC his senior landing craft subordinate, Captain Grayson B. Carter
(1919), the Landing Craft Flotillas, PHIBFORSOPAC, were trained under
forced draft. After only 12 months of war, the landing craft were manned
to a marked extent with officers and men who had entered the Navy after
the attack on Pearl Harbor. To assist in the training, Commander Landing
Craft Flotillas in due time issued a comprehensive Doctrine full of instruc-
tions and information for the dozens of landing craft moving into the SOPAC
command during the January to June period in 1943.8 The LCT “Veterans”
of CLEANSLATE became the nuclei for this massive training effort.
As a matter of record, the first 12 LCTS to get their bottoms crinkled in
war operations in the South Pacific were 1.CT-58, 60, 62, 63, 156, 158, 159,
181, 322, 323, 367, 369, organized administratively as follows:
‘ Commander Landing Craft Flotillas, PHIBFORSOPAC Doctrine, May 1943.