Oldgateboatdriver
Army.ca Veteran
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Blackadder1916 said:And an appreciation of the factor played by weather (even marginal weather) in amphibious ops, probably more so than in most other "ground" ops. On the first day that we were "supposed" to land, we were only able to get two (of four) mike boats out of Cleveland's (LPD7) well deck before they called a halt. From what I heard later, nobody else (the battle group was spread across a few different US platform types) got any boats in the water and the couple of amtracks that did get off an LST managed to berescuedrecovered. The troops in the two boats from Cleveland bobbed around for a awhile, had some injuries, and eventually had to sail to Port Hardy to be flown back to the ship to try again the next day.
Found this that provides a civilian journalist's perspective.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1185&dat=19791010&id=y3UOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oYADAAAAIBAJ&pg=7035,4662031&hl=en
Yes, things can and do get dicey quite quickly when operating boats at sea, especially from a well. Funny thing is people who board large amphibious ships in harbour for the first few times usually have the reaction "Oh! it's a huge ship - good, that thing won't get affected by the weather". They get a greater respect for the power of water after their first storm. Hell, even US aircraft carriers have to hunker down some times.