1944-1955
(LST-57: displacement 4,080; length 328'0"; beam 40'0"; draft 11'2" (limiting); speed 11.6 knots; complement 119; troops 147; armament 8 40 millimeter; class LST-1)
The tank landing ship LST-57 was laid down on 24 October 1943 at Neville Island, Pa., by the Dravo Corp. and launched on 4 December 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Edward Mays. Placed in reduced commission on 1 January 1944 at her builder’s yard, she went to New Orleans, La., where she was commissioned on 15 January 1944, Lt. Chester E. Briggs, Jr., in command.
Following her fitting out at Pensacola, Fla., and shakedown training out of Panama City, Fla., LST-57 returned to New Orleans where she took on board the tank landing craft LCT-855 as deck cargo and a cargo of diesel fuel. Clearing the Crescent City on 25 February 1944, LST-57 proceeded independently to New York City. Spending five days there, during which time she embarked two Navy doctors and 40 corpsmen, the tank landing ship proceeded to Davisville, R.I., where the tank deck was loaded with 358 tons of pontoons: “no better a cargo for the sub-infested Atlantic,” observed the ship’s historian wryly. After an overnight stay at Boston, Mass., LST-57 joined a convoy bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Reaching her destination on 21 March 1944, the tank landing ship remained there until the 29th. Sailing thence with “slow convoy” SC-156, LST-57 began her voyage to the Old World, although for a time her crew wondered if they would ever get away from the New. Three events occurred before she even left Halifax harbor that presaged an eventful crossing. The wait for a frozen boat davit to thaw delayed recovery of one of the ship's landing craft, a tug ripped a hole in her port bow several feet above the waterline, and a steering casualty stopped her a few hundred feet from the antisubmarine nets causing the ship to block the convoy sortie until it could be corrected.
Once at sea, LST-57 and the convoy encountered dense fog that rendered visibility difficult for more than 48 hours, and another LST nearly collided with the ship. The fact that the other ship was known to be carrying ammunition “didn’t quiet anyone’s nerves,” as LST-57’s chronicler, recounts. No sooner had the fog cleared but an ice field was encountered. Two emergency changes of course to avoid the ice caused the convoy “to lose all semblance of order for several hours.”
Preoccupied by accidents and natural hazards, LST-57’s crewmen almost forgot the war until U-302 (Kapitänleutnant Herbert Sickel, commanding), on her eighth war patrol, rudely reminded them of it. At 0228 on 6 April 1944 that U-boat torpedoed two Norwegian merchantmen, the freighter Ruth I (Master Einar Haugland) and the tanker South America (Master Alf Ambjornsen) on LST-57’s port side. The tank landing ship went to general quarters but did not engage the enemy or participate in the rescue operation. While vessels more in proximity to the two Norwegian ships picked up survivors, one of the escorts, the River-class frigate HMS Swale (K.217) (Lt. Cmdr. John Jackson, RNVR) sank U-302, sending the Type VIIC boat to the bottom along with Kapitänleutnant Sickel and his crew (51 souls all told).
LST-57 reached Milford Haven; Wales, on 14 April 1944, only to be directed to proceed to Southampton immediately. She overtook a slow coastal convoy to that port and reached her destination on the 16th mooring at the Fawley oil dock, downstream from Southampton, to discharge the diesel oil cargo. Later, at Southampton the tank deck was unloaded and the LCT launched.
Over the next few weeks, LST-57 visited Plymouth, Falmouth; Dartmouth, Salcorhbe and Brixham, as planning for the invasion of the continent of Europe proceeded apace. On 2 June 1944, at Brixham, LST-57 took on board six tanks, several “Long Toms” (155-millimeter guns), and “a handful of Army quartermasters and a reserve . . . company of airborne infantry. It was a conglomeration,” noted the tank landing ship’s chronicler, “but the Army was careful in its loading and did not want to lose an LST full of one type of soldier.”
After bad weather forced the invasion force to postpone its scheduled departure on 4 June 1944, LST-57 started toward France the following day as part of a slow convoy. LST-57 discharged her initial cargo and passengers at Utah Beach in the U.S. sector of the Normandy beachhead. Over the ensuing months, she visited all five of the Allied beaches (Utah, Omaha, Juno, Gold, and Sword) delivering vital supplies and reinforcements from a variety of ports in southern England. After the Allied breakout at St. Lo late in July, the ship also carried supplies to the beach at St. Michael-en-Grieve on the Brittany peninsula. After November, LST-57 transported men and equipment from England to the French ports of Cherbourg, Rouen, and Le Havre and returned to England with Allied casualties and German prisoners of war.
On 16 April 1945, LST-57 stood out of Plymouth, England, on her way back to the United States. Steaming by way of Hampton Roads, Va., the tank landing ship reached Houston, Texas, in mid-May. She carried out substantial repairs at the Brown Shipbuilding Co. at Houston before proceeding to Gulfport, Miss., to load cargo. Then, following a brief repair period at Mobile Ala., LST-57 set sail for the Panama Canal on 2 July. After transiting the canal, she departed the west coast of Panama on 13 July. The tank landing ship touched briefly at Manzanillo, Mexico, before heading out across the Pacific Ocean.
LST-57 arrived in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, on 2 August 1945 but resumed her voyage west on the 9th. While en route from Hawaii to the Marshall Islands, she received word of the Japanese capitulation. The tank landing ship arrived at Eniwetok on 21 August but tarried there only three days before getting underway on the 24th. She discharged cargo at Guam and then returned to sea on her way to the Philippines. In September and October, LST-57 visited Leyte and San Fernando in the Philippines before setting out for Japan to support the postwar occupation. In November and December, she made a circuitous voyage from Hiro Wan, Japan, to Saipan and Peleliu, returning to Tokyo two days after Christmas, 27 December 1945.
Decommissioned on 24 January 1946, LST-57 was turned over to the Shipping Control Administrator, Japan (SCAJAP), for operation by a Japanese crew, under the identification number Q-028. Returned to the U.S. Navy in November 1950, LST-57 was assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet at Tacoma, Wash., on 9 November 1950. She remained in reserve into the mid-1950s.
The veteran of service in the invasion of the European continent and the occupation of the land of a vanquished foe was named Armstrong County (LST-57) (q.v.) on 1 July 1955.
LST-57 was awarded one battle star for her World War II service, for her participation in the invasion of Normandy (6-25 June 1944).
Robert J. Cressman
13 December 2023
