The LST, Workhorse of the Invasion
The LST, or landing ship, tank, was 327 feet long and 50 feet wide and was manned by a crew of seventy plus seven officers.
About a thousand were built during the entire war, at Evansville, Indiana, and floated down the Ohio to the Mississippi and New Orleans.
Seventy-five to one hundred were used for the invasion of Iwo Jima, according to William E. Jayne of Hobe Sound, Florida. “We were the dungaree Navy,” he said. “I was seventeen years old, in charge of all foodstuffs. I served on LSTs for two and a half years as a gunner and storekeeper. We spent ten days at Iwo Jima.” LSTs could carry up to 350 troops plus tracked landing vehicles, such as the amtracs, the Higgins boats, and the DUKWs (see page 255). They also carried pontoons for causeways, bulldozers, and Marston matting, a pierced steel planking that could be laid across the sand for traction.
With their relatively flat bottoms, they could pull right up to the beach, set a stern anchor, pump out the ballast, and open their bow doors so a vehicle theoretically could drive right out onto the sand. It should have been easy. With the steep, terrible sands and rugged surf on February 19, 1945, at Iwo, it wasn’t that simple.