UK’s last remaining D-Day landing craft will be receiving a much needed overhaul after receiving nearly £5million from The National Lottery and its Heritage Lottery Fund.
This overhaul will allow the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth to have an original landing craft tank (LCT) on display.
The D-Day Museum, an affiliate of The National Museum of the Royal Navy, is due to reopen in 2018 following a complete refurbishment also funded by the National Lottery. Offering a more in-depth narrative on the events that took place in ‘Operation Overlord’ on 6 June 1944, The D-Day Museum focuses on the Royal Navy.
Landing Craft Tank 7074 – one of 800 similar vessels charged with ferrying tanks across the Channel and directly on to foreign sand – will take pride of place in the city’s D-Day Museum as part of a multi-million revamp of the memorial/attraction for the invasion’s 75th anniversary.
With an agreement struck between the National Museum of the Royal Navy, who rescued the ship initially and Portsmouth City Council, who run the D-Day Museum, restoration work will begin before the vessel is moved to the Southsea seafront attraction, where historians will explain her role in the landings.
Nick Hewitt, Head of Exhibitions and Collections at The National Museum of the Royal Navy, said: “This puts 7074 in the city’s heart, engaging a potential 4.5 million annual users of Southsea Common with the story of the ship and her people; it puts her D-Day story – which uniquely links sea and land – in context for museum visitors and ensures she survives for future generations.”