I will never forget the day we hit the beach in the Shetland Islands in 78. We were onboard the LaMoure County, LST 1194.
We were inbad weather for the last 2 weeks, rockin and rolling all over the place, and we were so glad to get ashore!
Up at about 5 or so, embarked on a landing craft, a mid size one, we set out for the beach on the Ura Firth.
We set up on a mountain of peat, you cant see it from this pic, but we set up our radios and waited for the ships to give us control of the skies. (I was an Air Controller, MOS 7242, an Air Winger that went out in the field for EVERY grunt operation...but we slept in shelter halves or GP tents, not holes.)
So anways, after we set up our stuff, we were standing around waiting for the word to start operating, and we all were rocking back and forth just like we were on the boat!
No Kidding, all 8 or 9 of us standing there, swaying back and forth just like on the LST, as if the waves were rocking us, only we were on land!
It was late September or so, about 40°, raininng, and windy, about 10 - 20 MPH winds. Miserable weather.
We operated for about 18 hours, till midninght or so, when we got the word to break camp and head back to the ship. It was welcome news!
We broke camp, packed up, got on the landing craft, and then headed to the ship, to find out the waves were too big to let us marry up to the boat! In the landing craft, we were in swells that brought us higher than the deck of the LST at the crest of the wave!
The ship had to head into the inlet, the URa Firth, to let us marry up and get back on the ship.
I will never forget how we were so eager to get off the boat 24 hours before, and so eager and happy to get back on the boat again 24 hours later!
Those poles you see are frame sections for our frame tent that we humped up the hill to the top of the peat bog, about a 2.5 mile walk at most, full pack,no rifles!, just frame sections.