| Original caption: “Bizerte Harbor. These ships were the first to enter Bizerte in May of 1943.” 2 LST-1 Class Tank Landing Ships (LSTs) at anchor in Lac de Bizerte, Tunisia. 1 has a small boat in its davits. Note the exhaust stacks on the tank deck of both ships. Bomb damage is evident. LSTs began arriving in Bizerte in late May 1943. Almost immediately, as the port was cleared of wrecks and made operational, the buildup for the invasion of Sicily began. Within 48 hours after the fall of Tunis and Bizerta, the 1st wave of landing craft had departed from Arzeu to establish advanced amphibious bases and a training group under United States Navy Captain Rupert M. Zimmerli (June 9, 1898 – December 6, 1979), Commanding Officer, LST Flotilla 1. They found the Tunisian ports full of sunken hulks and many of their facilities destroyed, but salvage and repair crews cleared things up with their usual energy. As more berths became available, more landing craft were staged eastward. The capture of Bizerte on May 9 allowed Allied supply convoys and a stream of landing craft to come directly to the Tunis-Bizerte area. Within a week of Bizerte’s capture, a port party had the port open and was handling approximately a 1,000 tons of cargo per day. LST-197 was 1 of the 1st LSTs to enter Bizerte. “We needed to proceed with extreme caution as the Germans had scuttled many craft in the canal in an attempt to block our use,” United States Navy Motor Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Donald J. Hunt (November 15, 1926 – July 7, 2008), a 16-year-old crewman on LST-311, remembered. “With all the ballast tanks empty and drawing the least amount of draft, we just managed to clear all the sunken ships except the last, which was a small passenger ship. We slid, scraped, and bumped our way over the hull, but damaged our screws in the effort. Navy divers were sent down and set charges to blow enough of the sunken ship to allow the following LSTs clear passage through the channel.” Tunisian Support Unit, composed of LST-309, 349, 358, 360, and 379, all in LST Flotilla 1, arrived at Tunisia on June 5, 1943, and began unloading cargo. The next day, Captain Zimmerli transferred ashore as Commander, Advanced Amphibious Bases and Training Group, Tunisia. On June 20, 1943, Zimmerli was designated Commander Task Group 86.9, Joint Loading and Control, for the invasion of Sicily. USS LST-1 recorded in her ship’s history her 1st weeks at Bizerte. “Lying off Bizerte for the 1st night, we were welcomed by another air raid and a few fairly close bombs. The Luftwaffe paid close, if ineffectual, attention to Bizerte during these months. There was never a day that didn’t have its “Red Bizerte” warning, and never a night that didn’t outdo the day. We suffered a few more casualties, this time when a careless gunner on some nearby ship shot away our rigging and showered the conn with shrapnel, but the bombing was to no effect. 1 night, an enemy plane was hit not far from the ship, and the shore searchlights followed it down. A shout of triumph could be heard ringing over Bizerte Lake.” In North African ports, Allied troops began embarking for Operation Husky in early July. “About this time Lake Bizerte began to fill up with more ships than I had ever seen before,” Motor Machinist’s Mate Edward Vernon “Eddie” Chandler (June 5, 1925 – October 7, 2014) of LCT-430 remembered. “There were cruisers, destroyers, troopships, supply ships, and hundreds of landing craft. We knew something big was about to happen, but we didn’t know where or when.” Sometime in the 1st week of July 1943, Chandler said, “We loaded with tanks and their crews and moved across the lake to Bizerte. On the way, a crankshaft broke in one of our main engines. We went to Bizerte and spent the whole night installing a new one. In the morning, as soon as we finished our engine repair, we moved out and started forming up with a convoy. By late afternoon, there were columns of ships as far as the eye could see. We didn’t know it, but we were on our way to the invasion of Sicily.” These diesel twin-screw vessels measured 328 feet (a 100 meters) in length by 50 feet at the beam and were capable of transporting a deadweight load of 2,100 tons. The apparently irreconcilable demands of sufficient draft for seaworthiness on the high seas and shoal draft for coming up on a beach were achieved by employing the principle of diving tanks, as on a submarine. The loaded seagoing draft of an LST was 8 feet (2.43 meters) forward and 14 feet 4 inches (4.35 meters) aft. After blowing ballast on landing, this was reduced to 3 feet 1 inch (0.94 meters) forward and 9 1/2 feet (2.89 meters) aft. If the beach gradient was correct – and that was the catch – the LST could be beached close enough to shore to discharge tanks or vehicles by her bow ramp into shoal water. Another characteristic of the LST was its ability to transport as part of the deckload a fully laden Tank Landing Craft (LCT), the next smaller tank carrier in the family of seagoing landing vessels. United States Army Lieutenant René Bine, Junior (July 12, 1915 – August 20, 1988), with the 56th Evacuation Hospital, wrote to his parents in San Francisco. “In the afternoon, we piled into what is known as an LCT and were taken out to Lake Bizerte, where all the ships were anchored. On the ship, LST-386, I was assigned swell quarters — a bunk with an inner-spring mattress — a lower berth with no roommate at the time. The room had a desk, a shelf, hangers, and, what was more important, a fan. It was luxury itself. I had nothing to do on the ship except get acquainted with the Pharmacist’s Mate and the supplies already on board, and meet the officers and men. [My fellow officers] made themselves acquainted and settled in the crew’s quarters. They had canvas three-decker bunks on the troop compartment deck, where it got awfully hot during the daytime but wasn’t so awful at night.” As a central hub of pre-D-Day activity in Sicily, Lake Bizerte was a favorite target of the Luftwaffe. LST-345, designated the flagship of LST Division 2, Group 1, Flotilla 1, arrived in Bizerte in early July. United States Naval Reserve Lieutenant Junior Grade Nelson W. Campbell (September 4, 1922 – April 18, 2020), her navigating officer, who later wrote a memoir of the ship’s service, recalled, “In Lake Bizerte, we got air raids every night for three months. Ship damage is minor.” Motor Machinist’s Mate 1st Class Ellis Voskuil (May 31, 1921 – March 29, 2012) of LST-345 said the Germans 1st dropped flares to light up the ships at anchor in the harbor, which were sitting ducks for the bombers that came over. Allied warships threw up a curtain of anti-aircraft fire that Voskuil said was “so deafening it made your ears ring and sent shell fragments raining down on the ships’ decks. In addition, there was the threat of errant twenty millimeter (0.78 caliber) shells from our ships; they exploded only on impact and woe be unto the vessel that provided that impact.” Voskuil was LST-345’s oil king, or crew»u member in charge of fuel and lubricants, at the time, “and each morning one of his jobs was to put a list on the ship so the mass of shell debris could be easily swept and tossed over the side.” Although there was considerable congestion and overlap in the sharing of captured ports in Tunisia, in accordance with an Allied agreement, the Americans operated the ports of La Goulette in Tunis Bay, Bizerte, Ferryville, and those to the west. At the same time, the British took over Tunis itself and the eastward-facing ports of Sousse, Stax, and Gabes. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0991.jpg |
| Image Size | 940.85 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2916 x 2345 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Office of Strategic Services |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | May 11, 1943 |
| Location | |
| City | Bizerte |
| State or Province | Bizerte |
| Country | Tunisia |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-226-FPL-2599 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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