USS LST-393 (Muskegon, Michigan)

 museum, military, ship, Landing Ship Tank (LST), United States Navy

Laid down in July 1942 at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co as the 393rd member of the LST-1 Class of Tank Landing Ships, USS LST-393 commissioned into US Navy service in December 1942 as a member of the US Atlantic Fleet.

Engaged immediately in amphibious type training, LST-393 and her crew spent much of the first half of 1943 honing their craft before departing for the European Theatre in convoy in May. Making her first amphibious landing in Sicily in July 1943, LST-393 remained in Mediterranean waters for the balance of the year, participating in the landings at Salerno in September and conducting resupply work to Allied beachheads.

Sailing for England in the late Winter of 1944, LST-393 and her crew resumed intensive training in preparation for their next major amphibious assault; Operation Overlord. Landing at the beachhead at Normandy in June 1944, both ship and crew became heavily involved in the Allied Invasion of France, bombarding Cherbourg in late June, transporting thousands of vehicles and troops to various beachheads and returning casualties and prisoners of war to England.

With the amphibious war in Europe all but completed by the Spring of 1944, LST-393 returned stateside and entered the shipyard at Newport News where she began an overhaul in preparation for duty with the planned Allied Invasion of Mainland Japan. Still in the yard at the cessation of hostilities, LST-393's war came to an abrupt but welcome end and after seeing service with the Allied "Magic Carpet" fleet she decommissioned into reserve at New Orleans in March 1946 with three Battle Stars to her credit.

Remaining idle for less than two years, the Veteran LST was purchased by the Sand Products Corp of Detroit, MI and brought to the Great Lakes for conversion into a vehicle ferry on Lake Michigan. Renamed M/V Highway 16, she began her new life in the commercial trades which would last almost thirty years before declining ridership and increasing maintenance costs led to her idling in 1973. Remaining largely neglected for several years, the Veteran ship caught the interest of the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum, who purchased the ship in 2002 for preservation. Finding that funds to maintain and restore the former LST were hard to come by, the museum eventually transferred ownership of LST-393 to the USS LST-393 Preservation Association in 2005, who have since dedicated considerable effort to restore the ship to her World War Two-era appearance as a museum ship.

Today, LST-393 is open seven days a week, May through September for visitation.

www.lst393.org/
www.hnsa.org/ships/lst393.htm
www.navsource.org/archives/10/16/160393.htm