USS LST-393

Moored along Muskegon’s waterfront, USS LST-393 presents one of the rare remaining examples of the LST-1–class tank landing ships that underpinned Allied amphibious warfare. Built at Newport News and commissioned in December 1942, the vessel operated in the European Theater, earning three battle stars for her role in the Sicilian occupation, the Salerno landings, and the Normandy invasion. Records credit LST-393 with dozens of ocean crossings, carrying thousands of soldiers, vehicles, and prisoners of war, and repeatedly grounding and refloating on contested beaches as intended by her rugged design. She is also notable as one of the few LSTs fitted with the Brodie landing system, enabling a small liaison aircraft to operate from a cable rigged along her port side. After the war, conversion to the car ferry Highway 16, with bow doors welded shut and her tank deck turned to commercial service, illustrates how surplus naval architecture was repurposed in peacetime. Today’s veterans museum preserves these layered identities, allowing study of wartime engineering, amphibious logistics, and the long, improvised afterlife of a hard-used combat ship.