80 years ago.
Two Gator (LST Mk 2) sister ships, built almost side-by-side in the same yard in Indiana (Jeffboat), were hard at work on opposite sides of the globe in two very different campaigns in the same week.
USS LST-66 disembarking troops while beached at Red Beach #2, Tanah Merah Bay, Dutch New Guinea (Hollandia Operation), 23 April 1944. (US National Archives Identifier 205584995, Local Identifier 26-G-2184, U.S. Coast Guard Photo # 2184. by Coast Guard photographer Struges)
USS LST-77 lands Fifth Army M-4 Sherman medium tanks on the Anzio Waterfront, Italy, on 27 April 1944. National Archives SC 189668
USS LST-66, under the command of LT. Howard E. White, USCGR, had been built by the Jeffersonville Boat & Machine Co., Jeffersonville, Indiana between August 1942 and April 1943. Sailing for the Pacific, she joined LST Flotilla Eleven where she landed troops and equipment during the Bismarck Archipelago operation (Cape Gloucester, Admiralty Islands), Eastern New Guinea (Saidor), Hollandia, Western New Guinea (Toem-Wakde-Sarmi, Biak, Noemfoor, Cape Sanaspoor, Morotai), Leyte, Luzon, Mindanao, and Balikpapan, earning eight battle stars and the Navy Unit Commendation. Decommissioned, on 26 March 1946 and struck soon after, she was sold for scrap in 1948.
USS LST-77, under the command of LT(jg) Anothy Kohout Jr., USNR, had been built by the Jeffersonville Boat & Machine Co., Jeffersonville, Indiana between February and July 1943. She sailed to Europe and fought off German attacks as part of the hard-luck Convoy UGS-37, landed troops and equipment at Anzio, and participated in the Dragoon Landings in Southern France– delivering troops to Grande Beach on 24 August 1944 and St Tropez the following week. Loaned to the Royal Navy in December 1944, she was sailed around the Adriatic as a part of the 11th Flotilla, carrying troops, partisans, and civilians until October 1945 when handed back over to the USN. She was stricken from the NVR in 1946 and sold the following year for scrap, having earned two battle stars.