This country is at war with Germany.

We shall go on to the end.

I remember the sheets of plane which came up and almost blinded us from our guns. In this episode of the podcast I'm looking at the work of LCIs, landing craft infantry.

These are not the smaller higgin boats we see storming the Normandy beaches in saving private Ryan, but large beaching craft

intended to transport and deliver fighting troops, typically a company of infantry or

Marines, to a hostile shore once a beach head was secured.

I'm Angus Wallach and joining me is Zach Morris.

In when the beaches trembled, Zach writes about his grandfather Stephen Gansberger,

who enlisted in the US Navy and served on LCIs during the war.

Zach is also the former editor-in-chief of LCITAM, the quarterly magazine newsletter of the

U.S.S. L.S. Landing Crafts, National Association. newsletter of the USS landing craft infantry national association.

Thanks for joining me. We're going to be discussing your grandfather

in his experiences with LCIs, but let's start with the LCI itself.

These are not Higgins boats as I mentioned the which are the LCVP

we see on saving private Orion storming the beaches of Normandy.

So what were they?

So first and foremost, the LCI stands for landing craft infantry.

And you're right, it is not a Higgins boat.

Higgins boats have grabbed a monopoly on the idea of landing craft in

World War II. They were a little bit bigger. They weren't too much bigger, but

they were about 159 feet long and they were flat-bottomed amphibious assault vessels.

And just a couple things to the audience,

...