Training and First Posting To Landing Craft

In the fall we were notified that Detroit was ready for us. We were going to go for a two month course in the Detroit, Michigan in the US Naval Armoury. And we would be studying Grey Marine engines, which is what there were on the, like there were four Grey Marine engines on each one of the landing craft. And so we had a really high pressure, two month study in Detroit on the economics and the, well not the economics was dealing with parts, you know, be careful how you handle the parts sort of thing. But the running of the engines. In the meantime, when we're on the course, the United States shipyards were busy building landing craft. And from Detroit we went to Asbury Park, New Jersey and they had taken over, the navy had taken over a hotel there. And we were assigned different rooms. They were just small rooms, and we waited there for probably ten days until we were notified at different times, different guys, that their landing craft was ready. So we picked up our landing craft in Orange, New Jersey and we took her out for sea trials for about two or three days. Went up to Brooklyn Navy Yards, into New York, just got in. We had a look around New York for a day and then the fleet all gathered and we sailed down to Norfolk, Virginia, where we joined a convoy.

Interviewer: Before you leave continental North America Mr. McLean, can you describe the vessel that you were now crewman on?

Yeah. Well, they were, they were a landing craft with two ramps that went down port and starboard, three Oerli guns just for light fire, they were only good for aircraft really. Had a, had a beam of about twenty-eight feet, and about a hundred and twenty feet long. It would house twenty-eight crew members and it had a galley. Officers quarters and crews quarters, there were just two. And there were two forward holds for the military, when we took the army aboard, they were in the forward holds. And we could take on about a hundred and fifty soldiers at any one time.