Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering
Also attached is an IWM picture of an LCG (M)
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This is LCG(M) 101, which took part in
Operation Infatuate II on 1 November 1944.
LCG(M) 101 was one of two support craft purposely designed to engage German beach defences at point-blank range with the 17-pdr anti-tank guns mounted in their two offset turrets. Gun platform stability was enhanced by 'flooding down' on the beach, by filling special tanks with sea water.
LCG(M) 101 beached at 0945hrs, and scored 15 direct hits on pillbox W267 to no effect, the 17-pdrs penetrating just halfway through its 10-foot-thick (3m) walls. Immobilized on the hostile shore, however, the craft made an easy target for German direct-fire weapons taking the beach in enfilade. Neither of the LCG(M)s committed at Walcheren survived their first operation. LCG(M) 102 was burnt out and lost with all 41 hands. Riddled with holes along her port side, LCG(M) 101 retracted from the beach using her kedge anchor, but sank stern first half a mile offshore at 1025hrs. Remarkably only two of her crew were lost, killed by machine-gun fire while working the kedge. All the rest were saved, thanks to the calm and discipline of her complement of sailors and marines.
The wreck of LCG(M) 101 still rests on the sea bed off the coast of Westkapelle:
https://wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?4261
Read more here:
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=140647
© IWM (A 26236)
A landing craft gun (medium) (almost certainly LCG (M) 101) crew fighting to save their shell ridden and sinking craft during the landing by Royal Marine commandos on the island of Walcheren at Westkapelle the most western point of the island, during the final phase of the battle to free the Belgian port of Antwerp.
© IWM (A 26233)
A landing craft gun (medium) (almost certainly LCG (M) 101) sinking with crew abandoning ship after she was hit by shore batteries during the landing by Royal Marine commandos on the island of Walcheren at Westkapelle, the most western point of the island. Smoke of the battle on shore is in the background. One of the LCG's 17 pounder gun turrets can be clearly seen; also note the man just about to strike the water and another preparing to jump, near the turret.
