Recently I received an e-mail from a new honorary member whose husband passed away not too long ago. She explained to me that her husband never talked about the Navy very much. She wanted to what" LSD" stood for and I replied with an detailed explanation.

Up until then I guess I just always took it for granted that all of our visitors knew all about LSD's and what LSD stood for. I said to myself, "hey you knucklehead, wake up and smell the coffee"! I was under the assumption that all of our visitors were "crusty old sea going salts" who had spent some time "rocking & rolling" on an LSD, never assume anything!
I hadn't taken into to account that many of our visitors are family members of Sailors that served on an LSD, such as, wives, widows, sons & daughters, grand children and even friends of the crew members that never served in the Navy or any other branch of the service.

Over the years our visitors have included many people who were just surfing the web and came to the site out of curiosity, even had one visitor sign the TT deck log who was a "Mongolian Goat Herder" from the "Gobi Desert", did I expect him to know what an LSD was all about, he hadn't seen any water in many years and suppose I did!

---Anyway, I decided to create a page or two for those nice people who are not quite that knowledgeable about the Amphibious Navy. Hope after you view these pages you have a better understanding of what LSD's are all about.

Chuck Westbrook, Webmaster...

WHAT DOES LSD STAND FOR?

LSD STANDS FOR, LANDING SHIP DOCK.

This is a type of ship that was conceived during World War II as a ship that could sail to the site of an amphibious landing, carry and launch assault boats directly from a well-deck in the rear of the vessel. To do this, the ship floods several tanks in the stern (rear) of the ship and ballasts the ship down, this floods the deck, and allows the boats aboard to come and go... The newest assault boats the Navy has are called LCAC's. That stands for Landing Craft Air Cushion. These are actually large hover-craft that can drive into the well-deck even when not flooded. They can also drive up on to the beachhead to deliver troops upon it with dry feet, unlike the old days where they had to wade through the surf under fire. The LCAC's can even carry a couple of M-1 Abrams Tanks while riding on their cushion of air!

LSD-26 ARMAMENT

1 5"/38 DP gun mount
2 twin 40mm gun mounts
2 quad 40mm gun mounts
16 single 20mm gun mounts

PAGE 2 OF LSD INFORMATION

---