Wreck of USS LST-448

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, Landing Ship Tank (LST), United States Navy

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Laid down in July 1942 at the Kaiser Incorporated Shipbuilding Yard at Vancouver Washington, USS LST-448 was the 448th member of the LST-1 Class of Tank Landing Ships built for the US Navy and commissioned into service with the US Pacific Fleet in December 1942. Standing out for Hawaiian waters in convoy shortly after completing her shakedown cruise, LST-448 and her crew engaged in Amphibious Exercises in the Hawaiian Islands for much of early 1943 before loading war materials and departing for Australia.

Forming into the Allied Amphibious Forces Command in the Southern Solomons, LST-448 and her crew began regular convoy runs between the Solomons and Australia, taking part in both routine resupply landings and hostile shore landings as Allied forces consolidated their control of the myriad islands around Guadalcanal and the frontline at New Georgia. In Australian waters when the first Allied forces went ashore at the distant Vella Lavella Island in August 1943, LST-448 and her crew eventually received orders to assist with the capture of the island, and after loading a contingent of Royal New Zealand Army regulars at Guadalcanal she stood out in convoy for Vella Lavella on September 29th, 1943.

Arriving at her designated landing beach of Maravari during the morning high tide of October 1st, LST-448 beached and began unloading her supplies of men and material, her AA gun crews and their shoreside counterparts of the New Zealand Army keeping a wary eye out for Japanese aircraft. Stranded by the outgoing tide as her crew continued to unload her, LST-448 was left in highly vulnerable position which presented a flight of Japanese Dive Bombers with the exact target they were looking for. Meeting strident resistance from the heavy AA battery aboard LST-448 and from shoreside guns, the Japanese aircraft nevertheless dropped several accurate bombs onto the immobile ship, striking her forward with two bombs that killed or wounded 36 of her crew and 16 New Zealand Army soldiers while near-misses alongside the vessel caused further damage.

Severely damaged and set aflame by the attack, LST-448 was likely spared a watery end by her stranded position on the beach, which also allowed both shipboard and shoreside parties to engage in firefighting efforts on the enormous and well-fed fire consuming much of the forward end of the ship. Rocked by several detonations from her cargo of fully-fueled vehicles and munitions during the afternoon and night of October 1st, LST-448’s damage control parties and crew eventually succeeded in extinguishing the fire and began patchwork repairs to the numerous holes burned or blown into their vessel.

Rendered sound enough to be refloated on the 5th of October, LST-448 was pulled off the beach at Maravari and placed under tow by the USS Bobolink (AT-131) back towards Guadalcanal with a volunteer crew aboard ship monitoring her pumps. Later that evening crew aboard the Bobolink noted that their tow was beginning to exert a greater strain on the towline, an observation that was followed moments later by a terse signal-lamp message from the crew aboard LST-448 stating that they were abandoning ship. Releasing her towline, the Bobolink was circling back towards the raft-bound crew of LST-448 when the battered ship gave out and sank bow-first at this location on October 6th, 1943.

For her and her crew’s actions during the attack which would eventually claim the ship, LST-448 and her crew were awarded the Navy Unit Commendation and their second and final Battle Star for World War Two service.

www.navsource.org/archives/10/16/160448.htm