HMS ''Bruiser'' was built as a
Landing Ship, Tank
Landing Ship, Tank (LST), or tank landing ship, is the naval designation for ships first developed during World War II (1939–1945) to support amphibious operations by carrying tanks, vehicles, cargo, and landing troops directly onto shore with ...
(LST(1)) at
Harland and Wolff
Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...
. Launched in October 1942 and commissioned the following March, she saw service as part of the
Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
invasion of Italy.
Design and development
''Bruiser'' was the second of the LST Mk.1 class ships which could carry 13
Churchill tank
The Tank, Infantry, Mk IV (A22) Churchill was a British infantry tank used in the Second World War, best known for its heavy armour, large longitudinal chassis with all-around tracks with multiple bogies, its ability to climb steep slopes, a ...
s, 27 other vehicles and 193 men. It had a high speed even when laden for the assault (about 18 knots) but did not have a shallow draught, which meant that a long bow ramp had to be added and this took up a lot of room inside the ship.
''Bruiser'' had only two sister ships, as plans to build more in the United States led instead to a
simpler though slower design capable of similar capacity but with a much shallower draught.
Service
''Bruiser'' took part in the Salerno landing
in 1943. In 1944, she was refitted as a
fighter direction ship, for use during the
Normandy landings
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...
in controlling fighter aircraft by
ground-controlled interception Ground-controlled interception (GCI) is an air defence tactic whereby one or more radar stations or other observational stations are linked to a command communications centre which guides interceptor aircraft to an airborne target. This tactic was p ...
. Later in 1944 she took British troops back into Athens in Greece.
''Bruiser'' was sold into merchant service in 1946.
Merchant service
''Bruiser'' was sold in 1946 for merchant service as ''Nilla''. In 1951 she was converted to a
cargo liner
A cargo liner, also known as a passenger-cargo ship or passenger-cargoman, is a type of merchant ship which carries general cargo and often passengers. They became common just after the middle of the 19th century, and eventually gave way to conta ...
and renamed ''Silverstar''. In 1957 she became ''Ciudad de Santa Fe'' and was broken up in Argentina in 1968.
See also
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruiser
Amphibious warfare vessels of the Royal Navy
World War II naval ships of the United Kingdom
Ships built in Belfast
1942 ships
Ships built by Harland and Wolff