Here is a photo of the LSS Lorain County, a Desoto County Class LST. She was launched from Lorain, Ohio in 1957. Heck, I probably saw her being built although I was only 11. The street we lived on then ended at Colorado Ave which ran along the dry docks. The ships in dry dock were really close.
What are the two towers just aft of the bow?
Dennis
I think what you are looking at are exhaust vents for the main hold. When you fire up all of the tanks, they are going to produce one hellacious amount of exhaust that has to be gotten rid of.
I was curious about the structures attached to the hull, forward to aft. I’ve been told they are, for lack of the technical nomenclature, pontoon bridges. Makes sense.
Those are Dutchman docks. Just when you thought you knew all the Dutch slurs.
Dennis
Nice responses, guys. There’s a nifty mention of pontoon causeways in the WIKI entry on LSTs that says some beach conditions made aft grounding of the LST possible and by carrying the pontoons either a pontoon causeway or bridge could span the gap between the forward opening of the ship and the beach, or could be formed into rafts to accomplish the same goal. Nice picture.