MANITOWOC, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Finishing touches are underway for a new exhibit at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc.
“Turning the Tide: The Role of Manitowoc’s Landing Craft Tanks in World War Two” opens on Saturday.
“If you find a photograph, like a wide-angle photograph of Omaha Beach, D-Day, D-Day plus 1, plus 2, 3, on. You can’t find a photograph that doesn’t have an LCT in it,” said Steve Carter, Titusville, Florida.
An LCT is a Landing Craft Tank. It’s what Steve Carter’s dad, Luther E. Carter, was aboard on the early hours of June 6, 1944.
“My dad’s boat, when it went into Omaha Beach, had 14 Jeeps, with trailers, and two bulldozers. They were the engineers that were supposed to take care of the beach obstacles,” said Carter.
Carter survived the landing. And the history of those boats can be traced to The Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company.
“Manitowoc was asked to build them, this particular type of landing craft. And they became the lead yard for both the two classes that they built. So they created the plans, the training, all the supplies, and equipment needed to build the rest of the LCTs at other steel plants around the Midwest,” said Karen Duvalle, Wisconsin Maritime Museum Submarine Curator.
Duvalle says of the approximately 1,400 produced during the entire war, 13 of the Manitowoc Built LCTs participated in D-Day.
“This is something that not a lot of people know of. Manitowoc doesn’t get a lot of credit when you look up LCT information. There’s so many different types of landing craft, and I think sometimes LCTs get overlooked,” she said.
Carter says so far, he’s impressed.
“Oh, I like it. When we came here, I thought we’d get like a display case, with a storyboard behind it. I didn’t dream of this. Hopefully people who are interested can come down here and learn about the boats, and what they did, and the folks that manned them,” he said.
The exhibit opens on Saturday and is expected to be displayed as part of the permanent collection at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum.
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