USS LST-767
Encyclopedia
USS LST-767 was an LST-542-class tank landing ship
Tank landing ship
Landing Ship, Tank was the military designation for naval vessels created during World War II to support amphibious operations by carrying significant quantities of vehicles, cargo, and landing troops directly onto an unimproved shore....
in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
. Like many of her class, she was not named and is properly referred to by her hull designation.
LST-767 was laid down on 19 July 1944 at Ambridge, Pa., by the American Bridge Co.; launched on 4 September 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Helen Stanhope; and commissioned on 30 September 1944, Lt. R. B. Seidman, USCGR, in command.
Service history
She was commissioned after voyaging down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, Louisiana, and passed through the Panama Canal to the Pacific Ocean in mid-November. She then went to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where in mid-December 1944 she took on board military passengers, the tank landing craft LCT-749, pontoon causeway sections and other materiel. Late in the year LST-767 left Hawaii for LeyteLeyte
Leyte is a province of the Philippines located in the Eastern Visayas region. Its capital is Tacloban City and occupies the northern three-quarters of the Leyte Island. Leyte is located west of Samar Island, north of Southern Leyte and south of Biliran...
, in the Philippine Islands, where she arrived at the beginning of February 1945. During the next two months the landing ship travelled south to New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
and the Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
, then returned north to Ulithi
Ulithi
Ulithi is an atoll in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, about 191 km east of Yap. It consists of 40 islets totalling , surrounding a lagoon about long and up to wide—at one of the largest in the world. It is administered by the state of Yap in the Federated States of...
, Caroline Islands
Caroline Islands
The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia in the eastern part of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end...
, and finally, in early April, to Okinawa, arriving a few days after U.S. forces commenced a long and bloody campaign against the island's Japanese defenders.
After launching LCT-749 and disembarking her passengers and their equipment, LST-767 left Okinawa and began several months of transportation service in the central, south and western Pacific. She was in the Solomon Islands when Japan's mid-August 1945 agreement agreed to surrender brought the great Pacific War to an end. During the last part of September LST-767 landed cargo on Okinawa, an undertaking that was interrupted by the need to put to sea to ride out an approaching typhoon. In the early morning darkness of 1 December 1945, while beached at Kana Wan, Okinawa, LST-767 was wrecked by another storm. When it was determined that salvage would be impossible for several months, she was ordered to be stripped and disposed of. LST-767 was placed out of commission in early March 1946 and stricken from the Navy list later in that month. Her hulk
Hulk (ship)
A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Although sometimes used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, the term most often refers to an old ship that has had its rigging or internal equipment removed, retaining only its flotational qualities...
was later sold, with final disposition taking place in May 1947.
LST-767 earned one battle star for World War II service.