The Jobbing Historian

The Spanish Odyssey of LCT 332 – a Flight P Postscript   On 18 th  November the British Naval Attaché in Madrid wired the Admiralty. ‘IMMEDIATE An L.C.T. with engine broken down has come near Gijon. 3 officers and 16 ratings in hand for Naval Authorities. Will report further details when available and also press for repairs and release.’  Mark 3 Landing Craft [Tank]. Imperial War Museum The Flight P Convoy’s problems are dealt with elsewhere  the-flight-p-convoy-disaster .  During the transfer of 25 Landing Craft [Tanks] from Gibraltar to the United Kingdom, four LCTs would sink before reaching Falmouth. The fifth would begin a journey of approximately 550 miles which, in one sense, wouldn’t end till 1947. The Convoy left Gibraltar on 5 th  November 1943 and, despite mechanical mishaps, sailed across an almost flat calm sea.   Lieutenant Derek Luke RNVR [1], commander of LCT 332, own troubles began when a cylinder head cracked in the starbo...

The Flight P Convoy Disaster – the largest loss of LCTs before D-Day LCT 354 on Newford Rocks, St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly The Convoy Departs On 5 th November 1943 the corvette, HMS Bluebell [1], the trawler ‘Man of War’ [2] and tug ‘Empire Rupert' [3] left Gibraltar.   Their objective was to escort twenty-five Landing Craft [Tank] and one Landing Craft [Gun] to Milford Haven. Ten days later only one of those craft would have arrived undamaged and then not in Wales, but Cornwall. 20% of the LCTs would have been lost. It was the single largest loss of landing craft to that point – and would only be outdone by D-Day itself. The story of the Flight P Convoy is the story of the where the abundance of the Allies would meet the overstretch of commitments in the late 1943.   The extension of the Allied War effort to the invasion of Sicily and then Italy itself had drawn resources to the Mediterranean – where many of the members of Flight P had been transferred in April of that...