- HMS LST 3002
HMS "LST 3002" was one of the first of her class of
tank landing ship (LST). She had a short but interesting career which demonstrated the robustness of the design and construction of her class of ship.She was built at
Swan Hunter 's yard on theTyne and commissioned in August 1945 after acceptance trials. She sailed from the Tyne through thePentland Firth to theGareloch , encountering and sinking a floating contact mine on the way. She took aboard stores atRoseneath and worked up off the Clyde during September. She sailed for the Far East independently.She left Suez at 0600 on
December 9 . After passing through theSuez Canal into theGulf of Suez with a cargo of Scammel tank transporters, she was rammed in calm conditions at 0028 onDecember 10 , by theVictory ship , SS "Poland Victory" (VC2-S-AP3), convert|120|mi|km south of Suez. She was struck just about midships causing a hole about convert|44|ft|m|abbr=on wide on the upper deck and convert|32|ft|m|abbr=on wide at the keel and cutting the LST almost in two, leaving just about convert|10|ft|m|abbr=on to hold her together. One of the ship's boats was damaged in the collision and the other seemed reluctant to yield to gravity. The crew of the LST abandoned ship, being taken aboard "Poland Victory" by rope ladder while she held position embedded in the LST. One crew member lost his life in the accident. He was Able Seaman Keith Larcombe and is buried in the Suez War Memorial Cemetery."LST 3002" was still afloat next morning and a skeleton crew re-boarded her. The rest of the crew were carried off by "Poland Victory". The
Algerine class minesweeper HMS "Maenad" attended until theRoyal Fleet Auxiliary ships "Prince Salvor" and "Salvage Duke" took the LST in tow slowly back toPort Taufiq (or Tewfik) arriving there of the afternoon ofDecember 12 . There, she wasdry dock ed in the smallshipyard for temporary repairs, the skeleton crew remaining on board.Repairs included fitting great
strongback girders straddling the hole and plating over the gap. Now seaworthy again, but still showing signs of injury, in July 1946 she sailed to Dockyard Creek,Valetta Harbour,Malta to complete the repairs in dry dock. Repairs completed in September 1946, she returned home, calling in atGibraltar on the way, paying offpennant flying boldly. She was decommissioned at Roseneath in November 1946. In April 1947, she was sold to theGreek Navy to becomeRHS Ali Akmon (L104). In 1947 she was sold to I Sariktzis ofPiraeus , Greece.This incident put the reputation of the LST (Large Slow Target) to be virtually unsinkable to a severe test. Much of the shock of the collision was taken by the tank transporters without which this LST would have been cut in two. Remarkably, the two parts of the partially severed vessel sailed comfortably together, thanks no doubt to the excellence of the design and construction, but also to the skill with which she had been ballasted.
External links
* [http://www.shipmodelco-op.com/lst.htm Model of LST 3002 ]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.