Wreck of USS LST-493

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

LST-493 was a LST-491 Class Tank Landing Ship built at the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Co. shipyard at Evansville, IN, laid down in August 1943 and commissioned into US Navy service in December of the same year. After threading her way down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the LST and her crew joined the US Atlantic Fleet at New Orleans and immediately began amphibious warfare training.

Departing the United States in convoy for England in early February 1944, LST-493 arrived at Plymouth where she and her crew resumed a busy schedule of training and maneuvers in preparation for the approaching invasion of Fortress Europe. After fully loading with men, material and vehicles, LST-493 joined the Normandy-bound floatilla of Naval craft on the night of June 5th, 1944 and finally made her landing at Gold Beach in the early afternoon of June 7th and began discharging her cargo. With her first wartime operation completed, LST-493 and her crew withdrew from Normandy back to England and began what would turn into nine straight months of cargo runs to various beachheads in France in support of Allied forces. The pace of her operations and the near-constant state of battle existing along the French coastline took its toll on the ship and her crew, and following a successful return from France to Portland LST-493 was ordered to Plymouth for voyage repairs and upkeep.

Departing Portland under the cover of darkness in the early morning hours of April 12th, 1945, LST-493 arrived off the Plymouth breakwater shortly after 0400hrs and slowly began to push through the darkness towards the harbor entrance. The lack of shoreside navigation lights and an ill-timed burnout of the LST's onboard radar system left her crew to dead reckon their position in relation to the harbor entrance and its breakwater, and by the time the ship came into view of the Breakwater Fort, she was well off course and heading for the Breakwater Light. Orders from shore for the ship to turn to Port came too late, and at 0441hrs LST-493 ran aground at this location while moving at 5 knots.

Though her design as an amphibious ship should have enabled the LST-493 to survive her run-in with the breakwater at low speed the emplacement of large concrete triangles called Dragons Teeth, set as an anti-landing craft obstacle in the event of German invasion, quickly tore into the ships hull. Unable to extracate herself using her own engines and with water beginning to enter her auxiliary spaces, LST-493's Captain called for aid from nearby tugs as her crew manned hand pumps in an effort to keep the ships engine spaces dewatered. Sixteen hours of considerable effort to free the stranded ship by numerous tugs followed, but by 2000hrs LST-493 was still stuck fast and steadily flooding from numerous holes in her hull. With the order to abandon ship passed at 2015hrs, LST-493's colors were struck and the ship left to the elements.

Left in her sad state for the next 20 months, LST-493 was badly battered by several winter storms before finally being sold for salvage in 1946. Largely broken up above the water level by scrappers, today LST-493's lower hull and many topside fittings torn off by the pounding surf remain onsite.

www.navsource.org/archives/10/16/160493.htm
www.wilmon.com/milwelcome1.html
www.submerged.co.uk/breakwater-landing.php