Excerpt taken from The North American Fleet in World War II Admiral Ernest J.King, addressing the important role of the landing craft for allied forces:
"(...) When we entered the war we had only a few thousand tons in units of landing, although the Navy has begun to experiment with small boats of this type in 1936. In 1942 we added to the inventory loaded a program of construction of landing craft and gave higher priority to him until you reach the desired quota.
Part of this work was for public and private shipyards that existed. New shipyards were built, many of them in the Mississippi Valley, where the steel companies and construction of bridges, which had never had any experience in building boats, made new and fully came into this type of production.
In the second half of 1942 was reached the production of about one quarter of a million tonnes in landing craft, and the first half of 1943 increased the amount enough for more than one third of a million tonnes.
This production included a variety of types, from small rubber boats to barges of more than one hundred meters in length for landing tanks. This class includes the small boats, fit to take only a few men, and boats up to 200 soldiers, tugs able to drag by coral reefs, barges to land vehicles and artillery, finally, all the types needed to land successfully on a hostile shore, one of the most difficult military operations. (...)
In May 1943 had driven the Germans from Tunis, and at that time our fighting strength was such that we could make some definite plans for a major offensive movement against the enemy in our own backyard. Elected to Sicily, as an immediate objective, is a planned amphibious operation, on the largest scale ever undertaken. "
The english version of this article will be available soon. In the meanwhile, the text above was the result of a Google translation from portuguese version to english.