page_title: Landing Craft Assault
section_title: Normandy landings
hierarchical_section_title: Landing Craft Assault / Service history / 1944 / Normandy landings
caption_attribution_description: Infantrymen in a Landing Craft Assault (LCA) going ashore from H.M.C.S. PRINCE HENRY off the Normandy beachhead, France, 6 June 1944
context_page_description: Landing Craft Assault was a landing craft used extensively in World War II. Its primary purpose was to ferry troops from transport ships to attack enemy-held shores. The craft derived from a prototype designed by John I. Thornycroft Ltd. of Woolston, Hampshire, UK. During the war it was manufactured throughout the United Kingdom in places as various as small boatyards and furniture manufacturers.
  Typically constructed of hardwood planking and selectively clad with armour plate, this shallow-draft, barge-like boat with a crew of four could ferry an infantry platoon of 31, with space to spare for five additional specialist troops, to shore at 7 knots. Men generally entered the boat by walking over a gangplank from the boat deck of a troop transport as the LCA hung from its davits. When loaded, the LCA was lowered into the water. Soldiers exited by the boat's bow ramp.
  The LCA was the most common British and Commonwealth landing craft of World War II, and the humblest vessel admitted to the books of the Royal Navy on D-Day.
context_section_description: On D-Day LCAs put troops ashore at Juno, Gold, and Sword Beaches. LCAs landed the US infantry formations on either flank of Omaha Beach and the Rangers who assaulted Pointe du Hoc. The westernmost landings on Utah Beach and the pre-dawn landing on Îles Saint-Marcouf were also carried in LCAs.
  The LCA type was confronted with many challenges on D-Day; some presented by the Neptune plan, some by the enemy defences, and others by the weather. The initial seaborne assault on the Normandy coast broke with previous Allied practice, in that it was made in daylight. The invasion could occur 6 June because the date satisfied certain preliminary requirements. Of particular concern to landing craft, H-Hour was fixed forty minutes after nautical twilight. H-Hour was also fixed for three hours before high-water mark. The tide in the English Channel rises from west to east (high water in Utah area occurs approximately 40 minutes before it occurs in the Sword area), and so some difference in H-Hour were planned among the assault areas in order to provide the initial assault landing craft the full advantage of a rising tide. Among the many variable concerns to be considered by the planners was whether to land below, among, or above the line of Element 'C' obstacles. The sea conditions at many places along the coast (6' waves and 2.7-knot (5.0 km/h) currents) were just at the outside operational limit of the LCA. The setting of the Transportation Area 11 miles (18 km) from shore presented an additional complication for LCAs operating in the Western Task Force Area in these condition.
caption: LCA going ashore from HMCS Prince Henry off the Normandy beachhead, France, 6 June 1944
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