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Old 25-03-08, 22:02
Alex van de Wetering Alex van de Wetering is offline
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Location: Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
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Default LCT 7074 Landfall at Birkenhead: risk of being scrapped

I have been wanting to give Landing Craft Tank 7074 some attention on the forum, for a long time.

Although WW2 vehicles are more my cup of tea, landing craft and ships related to D-day have always had my interest. About two years ago I heard about the last Surviving British LCT mk3 that was at risk of being scrapped.

The craft in question is LCT7074, which landed at Gold beach and successfully delivered 9 of its 10 tanks. After making several re-supply runs in the weeks after D-day, the decision was made to convert the LCT into a repair ship. Before this conversion was completed the war ended. After the war the LCT survived as an exclusive club ship in Merseyside and renamed “clubship Landfall”.

At some stage the craft became part of the Historic Warships Birkenhead collection and found a spot in East Float awaiting restoration.

In early 2006 the Birkenhead museum was forced to close down, due to redevelopment of the area.

Although efforts are/were being made to save other ships from the Birkenhead collection, like U-boat U534, Falkland veteran HMS Plymouth and submarine HMS Onyx, there doesn’t seem to be too much interest to save the LCT. The Onyx seems to have been saved in the meantime, but the faiths of other items from the Birkenhead collection remain unknown.

Are there any MLU members that know more about the current situation in and around Birkenhead? Is the LCT still there?

As often is the case, any attempt of saving, moving and/or restoring these sort of objects could prove to be very expensive, but it would be a shame to see the LCT being scrapped.

Ideally it could form a nice base for a D-day related museum on the UK southcoast or in Normandy (maybe even in company of some of the LCA’s that seem to “survive” in the UK and were displayed on MLU before)



The LCT can clearly be recognized on Google Earth as the following pictures show, but you never know when those pictures were taken.


Alex

Other links on the subject:

http://evans-experientialism.freeweb...tocontents.htm

http://www.maritimebritain.co.uk/risklist.html


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