with a host of other auxiliaries, destroyer escorts, and assorted landing craft. The enormous building program quickly gathered momentum. Such a high priority was assigned to the construction of LSTs that the previously laid keel of an aircraft carrier was hastily removed to make room for several LSTs to be built in her place. The keel of the first LST was laid down on 10 June 1942 at Newport News, Va., and the first standardized LSTs were floated out of their building dock in October. Twenty-three were in commission by the end of 1942. Lightly armored, they could steam cross the ocean with a full load on their own power, carrying infantry, tanks and supplies directly onto the beaches. Together with 2,000 other landing craft, the LSTs gave the troops a protected, quick way to make combat landings, beginning in summer 1943. D-Day The most famous amphibious assaults of the war, and of all time, were the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, in which British, Canadian, and US forces landed at Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches in the largest amphibious operation in history. The organizational planning of the landings (Operation Neptune) was in the hands of Admiral Bertram Ramsay. It covered the landing of the troops and their re-supply. Many innovative elements were included in the operation to ensure its success. Operation Pluto was a scheme developed by Arthur Hartley, chief engineer with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, to construct an undersea oil pipeline under the English Channel between England and France to provide logistical support to the landed armies. Allied forces on the European continent required a tremendous amount of fuel. Pipelines were considered necessary to relieve dependence on oil tankers, which could be slowed by bad weather, were susceptible to German submarines, and were also needed in the Pacific War. Geoffrey William Lloyd, the Minister for Petroleum gained the support of Admiral Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations for the operation. Two types of pipeline were developed. The first type was the flexible HAIS pipe with a () diameter lead core, weighing around 55 long tons per nautical mile (), was essentially a development by Siemens Brothers (in conjunction with the National Physical Laboratory) of their existing undersea telegraph cables, and known as HAIS (from Hartley-Anglo-Iranian-Siemens). The second type was a less flexible steel pipe of similar diameter, developed by engineers from the Iraq Petroleum Company and