Popularly known as Black Beetles, X-Lighters revolutionised how British and Dominion troops were carried onto hostile shores. This forerunner to modern landing craft is profiled by John Ash
In every amphibious beach landing the imperative is to get the assault waves ashore and inland as quickly as possible. Large-scale landings have always been intricate, complicated and risky. This was the case millennia ago when the Athenians tried to take Syracuse in 415 BCE and when the Persians mounted an assault on Marathon in 490 BCE. Both proved unsuccessful.
The first such operation in modern times was Gallipoli in 1915. The hastily planned and botched fiasco in the Dardanelles suffered heavily due to an underestimation of the opposition’s capabilities. The build-up squandered surprise and afforded the Ottomans the chance to prepare further defences, while the British and French mistakenly believed superior numbers would brush the defenders aside. When Allied troops clambered ashore on several beaches on April 25, they found stiff resistance. Further north, a force of Brits, Australians and New Zealanders encountered similarly tough defences.
For centuries, ship’s boats or flat-bottom barges had been used to…
