Recently I have become involved with another vessel MASB 27. (below)


MASB 27 was built as a coastal defence gunboat in 1941 by the British Power Boat Company at Hythe. She is of double diagonal construction in Honduras mahogany. She served in the Second World War as a Motor Anti-Submarine Boat, deployed also on air-sea rescue duties as well as clandestine operations off the Brittany coast. Prior to D-Day she was used for reconnaissance along the Normandy coastline, especially to take sand samples to check on beach load-bearing capacity. Then in June 1944 she was deployed in support of the US Army assault on Omaha Beach.


Owned by the charity D Day Revisited under the guidance of Mr John Phipps, she is currently undergoing restoration with a view on completion to joining the other craft covered in this article in the care of Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust.


Above is an LCVP (Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel) also part of the commercial fleet at PNBPT. She is F8 (an HMS Fearless vessel). Amphibious Assault ships HMS Fearless (F) and HMS Intrepid (T) carried four each in davits. RM Poole (P) kept the remainder in a training and rotational maintenance system. In 1983 immediately after the Falklands War I volunteered for further training from Mechanical and Electrical Engineer to Ad Hull (Shipwright) and my first posting was to Royal Marines Poole repairing and refitting these plywood landing craft following their active service in the beach landings having been launched from Fearless and Intrepid during the assault.


58 | The Report • September 2022 • Issue 101


Above is another Vessel RSL 1668 (Range Safety Launch) surveyed in 2020 and now undergoing refurbishment at PNBPT.


My thanks go to BMPT, PNBPT, and D Day Revisited for their permission to publish some of their researched history and photographs.


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