USS LST-939 was a United States Navy LST-542-class tank landing ship in commission from 1944 to 1948.
LST-939 was laid down on 21 July 1944 at Bethlehem-Hingham Shipyard, Inc., Hingham, MA. and commissioned USS LST-939, 14 September 1944. During World War II USS LST-939 was assigned to the Asiatic-Pacific Theater and participated in the Asiatic-Pacific campaign, and the assault and occupation of Okinawa, Gunto from April through June of 1945.[1]
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During World War II, LST-939 was assigned to the Pacific Theater of Operations. LST-939 left New York Harbor in the fall of 1944 arriving in Havana Cuba and then transited the Panama Canal and went on to Pearl Harbor Hawaii. She was refueled in Pearl Harbor and went to Guadalcanal where it was attacked by a Japanese suicide swimmer caring several packages of explosives and two grenades.. The attack was successfully repelled. LST-939 departed and next beached at Dulag Leyte Gulf in the Philippines on February 4 1945 and then transited on to Guam.
LST 939 participated in the amphibious assault of the beach at Gunto in Okinawa, where it was attacked by a kamikaze. The kamikaze was successfully destroyed in mid air by anti aircraft fire (AA) but a piece of the plane struck the forward deck. On landing in the Okinawa amphibious assault one crew member standing above the front door was killed by an incoming exploding coastal defense artillery shell and the executive officer Lieutenant JG George Keat was temporarily blinded. The ship was later damaged the same day in a collision with LST 268 in the same amphibious assault. LST-939 is know to have transited through Saipan.
Following the war, LST-939 performed occupation operations in the waters surrounding the Home Islands of Japan She entered Japanese waters in the Port of Tokyo shortly after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. LST-939 continued to perform occupation duty in the Far East and saw service in China until mid-March 1946
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This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here. |
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