LST Mk.1 is a series of Landing Ship, Tank used during the World War II.
Maracaibo landing ships The British evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940 demonstrated to the Admiralty that the Allies needed relatively large, ocean-going ships that could handle shore-to-shore delivery of tanks and other vehicles in amphibious assaults upon the continent of Europe. As an interim measure, three 4,000 to 4,800-gross register ton "Lake tankers", built to pass over the restrictive bars of Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, were selected for conversion because of their shallow draft. Bow doors and ramps were added to these ships, which became the first tank landing ships, LST (1): , and . They later proved their worth during the invasion of Algeria in 1942, but their bluff bows made for inadequate speed and pointed out the need for an all-new design incorporating a sleeker hull.
Boxer class
The Boxer class was the first purpose-built LST design. This work was started before any of the converted Maracaibo class were in service, so there was no opportunity to learn from the effectiveness of that design. The urgency in building the Boxers was that the Maracaibos were considered to be too slow for operational requirements. As events turned out, the LST(2) had the same slow speed of , but given the much larger numbers of the LST(2), that had to be accepted.
The Boxer class was a scaled-down design from ideas penned by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In order that it could carry 13 Churchill infantry tanks, 27 other vehicles and nearly 200 men (in addition to the crew) at a speed of , it could not have a shallow draught sufficient for easy unloading. As a result, each of the three (, , and ) ordered in March 1941 had a very long ramp stowed behind the bow doors.
The ships were built at Harland and Wolff from 1941 and the first completed early in 1943. Work was delayed by the complexities of an entirely new type of design and German air raids on Belfast. Bruiser and Thruster took part in the Salerno landings. Later all three were intended to be converted to fighter direction ships in order to have ground-controlled interception of enemy aircraft during landing operations but only Boxer was converted and it took part in the Normandy landings.Slee, Geoff. "HMS Thruster". Combined Operations. Accessed 22 December 2024.
The U.S. were to build seven LST (1) but in light of the problems with the design and progress with the LST Mark II the plans were cancelled. Construction of the LST (1)s took until 1943 and the first US LST (2) was launched before them.
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