12/11/2022 0 Comments Normandy ship construction![]() These ships were the lifeblood of the invasion’s success. Tanks, yes, but also support vehicles, half-tracks, ammunition, supplies, and large numbers of troops. Combined with other military advancements, such as paratroopers and the infamous Dual-drive Shermans, the LST allowed Allied forces to bring heavy equipment ashore quickly. LST ships (or Landing Ship, Tanks) became an essential part of the large-scale amphibious landing needed to establish a foothold in Europe. But for Operation Neptune, the military name for Normandy, a 45-acre shipyard in Evansville would make a larger contribution than any of the Midwest’s “cornfield shipyards”-171 LST ships. An Evansville factory supplied over a third of the 15,000 P-47s manufactured for World War II. EVANSVILLE SHIPYARD Indiana contributed more than troops to the “Great Crusade.” The state’s numerous munitions plants filled rifle magazines and bomb bays. ![]() ![]() The logistics, technology, and timing of the Normandy landings remained so challenging that Eisenhower wrote a statement accepting all blame for the assault’s failure even before D-Day. President Eisenhower, in his message to Allied forces before the landing, called it “the Great Crusade” and this can hardly be argued the specter of Nazi Germany was unequivocally evil. It is almost impossible to overstate the importance and audacity of D-Day.
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