Motor landing craft under construction, 1942
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In August 1941 the GWR began building the first of a large number of motor landing craft in the Carriage and Wagon shops at Swindon. No. 13, Wagon Frame Shop was where this work took place, and in this image one of the first batch of 12 landing craft can be seen under construction in February 1942. The bulkheads and frames are shown erected on a jig, while the hull bottom strakes are in the process of being fitted. Bulletproof cladding, the engines, propellers and other fittings would then have been added and the craft ready for launch in May 1942. At 40ft in length and with a 13ft 6in. beam, these craft were too wide to be moved by rail so had to be transported to the coast at Southampton by a tractor drawn road vehicle
Media ID 19869747
Date: 10th March 2014
Unique Reference Number: W2 064
Image Size: 2579 x 1696 Pixels
Filesize is 1.06MB
Associated Categories: Second World War
Keywords: 1940s, 1942, carriage shop, landing craft, manufacture, manufacturing, swindon, swindon works, wagon shop, war, world war 2, world war ii, ww2, wwii