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The Boats of Pier 51

Hi Joe, Tom and Gunny, Something for Christmas lol, lol. Tom, the boats are not loaded for landing just for transportation to the mother ship or another area of dock. The crate would just be hoisted out as would the trucks. Alaternatively, the crate would be open and the contents distributed to the vehicles and the packing slung over the side. Either way it shouldn't be an issue. My thanks to skipper for the layout and intro. Cheers guys and happy hols. Al

Thanks for the clarification Alan. But it has got me wondering... If, for arguments sake they'd loaded a Sherman or similar (would they have loaded a tank into an LCM in an English port!), would they have had to hoist the LCM and tank onto the mother ship? Or would that have had to be sailed across the channel in the LCM. Tom

Hi Tom, To the best of my knowledge, as far as the RN were concerned all tanks on D Day were landed from LCTs. The weather was too rough to have used LCMs, and they had already been developing LCTs for some years. Some did land tanks from LCMs in Italy where the sea was calmer, the tanks were lowered into the LCMs so working in reverse if the mother ship couldn't get close enought to shore to load directly then vehicles would have been ferried out, hoisted aboard and then the boats raised. I don't believe, although I could be wrong that vehicles were transported in the LCMs when they were hoisted on the mother ship, the weight I imagine would have been too great and made the whole thing unstable. I could be wrong but all photographic evidence would suggest that boats were raised/lowered empty and then lorries or tanks or whatever raied or lowered in to them. Perhaps someone could throw more light on that, but from what I've read and seen that would seem to have been the sequence. By D Day smaller vehicles like jeeps and Bren carriers may have been landed but the conditions were rough during the landings so hoisting out large vehicles and trying to load them into LCMs would have been a non runner. Even loading a jeep or Bren would have required a lot of skill and a lot of luck, given the weather. All the tanks were fitted with deep wading gear so that they could debus from the LCTs. In Italy/Sicilly with calmer seas and before deep wading gear had been organised properly then if the ships couldn't get close enough vehicles were ferried ashore from LCMs. I believe the same was true in the Pacific. Hope that helps, but if anyone has further information please don't hesitate to share it. Exactly what weight the boat hoists could lift I don't know, but an LCM is not light so lifting a tank or truck wouldn't have been a probelm at least from the weight point of view. Cheers Al

Hi Alan It's me who should Thank You for your submission and patience for taking so long to publish it! For this I apologise - the intro, it's just my duty Cheers, Skipper

Morning Skipper, No need to apologise. It's good to have you back at the helm. I hadn't realised that you had returned until I posted. Hope the zip files were easier to handle than the first lorry load of pics I sent last year lol, lol. Merry Christmas. Cheers Al

Happy Christmas folks. What's up Tom? DId you get my response to your question? Hope that helps. Cheers Al

Al, Tell the nit pickers to get a life,sit back and just enjoy your great pice of ART. I'm not one of the expert modelers (scale) who want to be abel to count every bolt or rivet, just a 68 yr old who does it for the pure pleasure of the hobby. Only question, what scale are you working in? Thanks for great work, cant wait for finished piece.

Hi Tim, Glad you enjoyed the boats. They are 1/35 scale Tim, so the dio s a bit of a monster lol, lol. Cheers Al

Who's nitpickin'? I'll chomp 'em. Kenny

Hi Kenny, Thanks mate - looking forward to seeing more of your LCP (R) CC. Cheers AL