The writer is unaware that the LCVP was made primarily of plywood.
There were certainly no LST’s in the first wave and I’m fairly sure none on June 6 at all.
LCVP?
I visited an old couple from church that lived in a nursing home. The woman was very chatty and the husband not so much. I said something about his navy tattoo and that he must have been in WWII to try to bring him into the conversation.
Wife kept talking: “Yep - Harry drove a Higgins boat in World War II”. I replied - “Oh - a landing craft!”
Harry’s first words in the conversation were “Not too many people know that.”
Wife: “Harry drove one on D-Day!”
I got up from my seat and walked over and shook his hand again and said what an honor it was to be with him. (I could barely keep my eyes from welling up thinking what he must have been through and the honor I felt.) I could see he didn’t want any more conversation about it so I asked about the pictures of the kids on the wall.
Harry perked up talking about their kids, the company he started after the war, etc.
Thanks for that detail about the plywood landing craft. My dad would have been on one of those, I guess. He was a navy ensign heading a demolition unit, getting off the boat first and going to blow up mines and obstacles on the beach so the troops could come ashore. After his unit did their clearance job, he rescued men who were foundering in the surf. He was awarded a Navy Cross.