LCT 7074 Landfall at Birkenhead: risk of being scrapped

[Alex van de Wetering]

Paul,

I agree. It seems the Birkenhead collection has been moved closer to eachother, probably to enable the area around it to be developed.

Over the past few weeks I spent some time looking for landing craft survivors on the internet, LCA's, US LCT's, LST's and British LCT's. It seems that while I was conserned about LCT landfall, a few other "surviving" British LCT3's and 4's have been scrapped in my own country over the past few years.

Below are some examples, some barely modified, others hardly recognizable. I was surprised that some of them survived (and some still survive) in Holland, because we tend to "clean" our country, which saw several old army trucks disappear and even Sherman range targets being scrapped.



"De Kil" (LCT 3) scrapped only two or three months ago!!!!

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/1...sc000907po.jpg

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/9...sc000807dj.jpg
Pictures: "Hans" www.kustvaartforum.nl



"Rio 2/ Trio2" (LCT 3) scrapped in 2000 after stranding.
http://img478.imageshack.us/img478/1235/rio46mt.jpg
Picture: www.kustvaartforum.nl



"Bogy" (2 LCT 3's welded together!) After an accident when loading, which killed the captain. The ship was scrapped in Belgium somewhere around 2002.
http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/3...1541501ai6.jpg

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/7...1541502pz3.jpg
Pictures: "Piet Bieze" www.kustvaartforum.nl


"Jabo" seems to be stilll in business. I have only seen one picture, which makes it hard to determine, but I recon it is based on a LCT3.

Alex

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering

Over the past few weeks I spent some time looking for landing craft survivors on the internet, LCA's, US LCT's, LST's and British LCT's. It seems that while I was conserned about LCT landfall, a few other "surviving" British LCT3's and 4's have been scrapped in my own country over the past few years.

Alex, amazing info, never realised this.

Here's another to add to the Higgins survivor's list, it used to be located on a roundabout at Shoreham - see Whats The Last Thing You Expect To See On A Roundabout?

H.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Does anyone have any recent information regarding the fate of LCT 7074? Is it still there???? (Anyone interested in a trip across the channel, next June? )

It seems U-boat U-534 from the same Historic Warships collection has been adopted by Merseytravel. It has been cut in three sections and forms part of a new exhibition.

http://www.merseyferries.co.uk/u534/news.aspx

http://www.merseyferries.co.uk/image...u534-news1.jpg

Alex

[griffo220]

Hi Guys I'm new to MLU usually spend my idle time on G503 as I have a 1943 GPW but I saw this in my local rag & done a search & ended up here, so thought you may be interested.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liver...0252-25966368/

Best Regards

Dave

[Alex van de Wetering]

Hi Dave and welcome to MLU.

Thanks for your reply regarding LCT 7074......I also read something on it on HMVF.......shocking! Really shocking, let's hope it does get saved (again).

Last year I seriously looked at making a visit just to see the LCT....I guess because I always had an interest in D-day landing craft and the places where you can visit and experience actual WW2 landing craft is very limited. 7074 is unique in a way that the original camouflage and numbers are still visible and because the modifications made to the vessel after WW2 are pretty limited, compared to some other survivors.

Even last year at the 65th remembrance of D-day, only one WW2 craft was to be seen along the coast, an LCVP. While there are still some landing craft around, most of them are lingering in ponds....or rotting away in naval harbours. A real shame, because they played such an important role in the liberation of Europe......sadly some of them will soon be lost forever.

Alex

[griffo220]

Hi all sorry for the delay but I went to see the vessel last weekend & it is now totally submerged, you can only just see the funnel!

Oh dear it doesn't look good, how on earth would / could someone attempt at rescueing this vessel?

check this link

http://evans-experientialism.freeweb...om/lct7074.htm

I know there was another article in a local magazine & it was from the previous owner stating that he sold it to the birkenhead maritime museum which went bust so not too sure was the vessel's fate is?

Dave

[griffo220]

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/war-sea...ection-11.html