They may not have been the prettiest ships in the fleet. However, Landing Ship Tanks performed invaluable service in World War II, particularly on D-Day.

The vessels (commonly known by their acronym, LSTs) were designed to land troops, supplies and tanks on enemy-held shores. The ships were never much to look at, but they served their purpose remarkably well.

In a 2019 article, naval historian Craig Symonds called the LSTs “unloved, unlovely, yet indispensable.” Symonds adds that their importance was so great that by 1942, the War Production Board made the LSTs “the highest priority in the American wartime construction program.”

LSTs were built with large doors in their bows to quickly unload men and equipment. The 1,800-ton ships were 328 feet in length, 50 feet in width, and could move in water as shallow as 7 feet, 6 inches. Their maximum speed was only around 10 knots, and were notoriously hard to navigate.

Six yards produced 70% of the LSTs, and a surprising number were built in Midwest shipyards, along rivers. These facilities were dubbed “Cornfield Navy” shipyards.

One example is the Prairie Shipyard at Seneca, along the Illinois River. The crush of workers swelled the little town of 1,200, as up to 27,000 workers flowed into Seneca during wartime.

Unskilled laborers at Seneca earned 83 cents an hour, while craftsmen made $1.20 hourly for six-day work weeks of 54 hours, with time and a half after 40 hours.

Other Midwest yards that built LSTs were in Evansville, Indiana; Jeffersonville, Indiana; Pittsburgh; and Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

An estimated 1,051 LSTs were constructed during the war, including around 670 in the Midwest and 157 at Seneca alone. Twenty-three of those were involved directly on D-Day.

As with other war equipment, time was of the utmost importance in LST construction. In 1943, four months were required from the time to lay an LST keel and her final fitting out. By the end of the war, that was down to two months.

Only two LSTs still exist today. One is LST-325, which is now based in Evansville, Indiana, as a museum ship to educate the public on the role of LSTs in WWII, Korea and Vietnam.

Constructed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, LST-325 launched on Oct. 27, 1942, and was commissioned the following Feb. 1. LST-325 first was stationed in Algeria before assignment to the invasions of Sicily and Salerno later in 1943. After a brief return to Algeria, LST-325 was part of a large convoy to England, which was attacked by German bombers with glider bombs.

From December 1943 to the following May, LST-325 participated in several training exercises along the southwestern coast of England.

It sailed from Falmouth on June 5, 1944, with portions of the 5th Special Engineer Brigade and was part of the backup forces for troops landing the next day at Omaha Beach in the D-Day offensive. On June 7, LST-325 anchored off Omaha and unloaded its men and vehicles.

Between June 1944 and the next April, LST-325 sailed 43 times between England and France. On Dec. 28, 1944, the ship aided in the rescue of 700 men from a troop transport that had been torpedoed off the French coast. On its return to the United States in May 1945, the ship was damaged in a severe storm and required repairs after its return stateside.

LST-325 was decommissioned on July 2, 1946. However, it was reactivated in 1951 for Military Sea Transport Service operations in the Arctic. The ship was again decommissioned in 1961 and joined the National Defense Reserve Fleet.

In 1963, the ship was again reactivated and transferred to the Greek Navy the following May. It remained part of the Greek fleet for 35 years until its final decommission in December 1999.

In 2000, LST-325 was purchased by The USS LST Ship Memorial Inc. for use as a museum facility. The ship then made a celebrated 6,500-mile sail from Crete to Mobile, Alabama, before eventually settling at Evansville.

There’s also LST-393, which likewise is a museum ship today. Based in Muskegon, Michigan, LST-393 was constructed at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. and launched on Nov. 11, 1942. She made 30 round trips to Normandy to haul equipment and supplies, as well as return trips with wounded Allies and German prisoners.

In all, LST-393 is credited with 75 trips to foreign shores with 51,817 nautical miles. She carried a total of 9,135 soldiers, 3,248 vehicles, 5,373 prisoners of war, and 817 casualties.

Decommissioned on March 1, 1946, LST-393 then served as a Lake Michigan merchant ferry for decades until being refurbished as a museum facility.

One LST connected to the area was LST-715, constructed at Jeffersonville, Indiana, and launched in July 1944. LST-715 was at Iwo Jima, as well as several campaigns in the Korean War.

In 1955, LST-715 was renamed the USS DeKalb County, in honor of the six United States counties with that name. The ship later served in the Military Sea Transportation Service and the National Defense Reserve Fleet before it was scrapped in 1984.