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Landing Ship, Infantry or LSI was a designation used for a number of types of vessels used to transport landing craft and troops in amphibious warfare during the Second World War. LSIs were operated by the Royal Navy, British Merchant Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Indian Navy, and Royal Australian Navy. They transported British Commonwealth and other Allied troops in sea assaults and invasions throughout the war.

Typically, a Landing Ship, Infantry would transport its cargo of infantry from its embarkation port to a point close to the coast to be invaded. This location (known as a "Transport Area" in US Navy Task Force, or "Lowering Position" in a Royal Navy Task Force) was approximately 6–11 miles off shore (11 miles was amphibious doctrine for the USN by mid-war, while the RN tended to accept the risks associated with drawing nearer shore). The troops would then transfer to landing craft, most commonly Landing Craft, Assault, for the journey to the beach. A small LSI would displace around 3,000 gross registered tons and could carry up to 800 troops. The largest LSI(L) could carry 1,800 troops and would need 20 or so landing craft for that number.

Origins
In the years immediately before war was declared, the Inter-Service Training and Development Centre, sought to identify ships suitable to carry Army and Royal Marine formations employed in amphibious assaults. These ships need to be fast and have davits capable of lowering the new Landing Craft Assault fully loaded with troops. Glengyle and her sisters, Glenearn, Glenroy, and Breconshire, then abuilding, were determined to be ideal for infantry landing ships. This class of four fast passenger and cargo liners were intended for the Far East trade route. The Admiralty acquired Glengyle shortly after her launch, and she was converted into a fast supply ship.

Design and conversion
LSIs were grouped according to their troop capacity and endurance. Initially, all were requisitioned merchant vessels that exchanged carrying lifeboats for landing craft. Glengyle was built by Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Dundee, for the Glen Line. The only vital alterations to the 18 knot “Glengyle” and her sisters, “Glenroy” and Glenearn”, were to assure davits strong enough to lower fully loaded LCAs, and to provide accommodation for the army units to be transported. During April and June 1940, she underwent further conversion into an LSI capable of transporting an embarked force of up to 34 officers and 663 other ranks and carrying 12 LCAs on Welin-McLachan davits and 1 LCM(1) stored in chocks on deck and launched by 30-ton derricks. She was accepted into service on 10 September and, on 31 January 1941, Glengyle sailed around Africa to the Mediterranean.

Smaller LSI were generally converted cross-channel ferries, a similar ship of that size or a converted passenger ship. Conversion was accomplished by adding davits for the landing craft plus some defensive armament, such as QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval guns, and anti-aircraft guns, such as the 20 mm Oerlikon cannon.

In Canada in the spring of 1943, work was under way on the conversion of HMCS Prince David and HMCS Prince Henry to Landing Ship Infantry (Medium) LSI (M). They were reconfigured to carry 550 infantrymen transported in six LCAs and two LCM(1)s, and have large sick-bay facilities for the anticipated casualties. Their old 6 in guns were replaced with two twin 4 inch mountings, two single bofors, and ten oerlikons. The rebuilding, which took place at Esquimalt and Vancouver, was completed in December 1943 and shortly after re-commissioning, she left for the U.K. via Cristobal and New York, under Captain T.D. Kelly RCNR, (her final commanding officer) who had supervised the fitting-out of both ships.

In Australia in mid-1942, HMAS Manoora was marked for conversion into the Royal Australian Navy's first Landing Ship, Infantry at Garden Island Dockyard. Her armed merchant cruiser armament was removed and replaced with a single 12-pounder gun, six 40 mm Bofors, and eight 20 mm Oerlikons. The Walrus amphibian was removed, and the ship was modified to carry landing craft: 17 LCVPs, and two LCM(3)s. Manoora was initially able to accomadate 850 soldiers, but later modifications increased this to 1,250. The ship was recommissioned on 2 February 1943 with the pennant number C77, and after spending six months on amphibious warfare training in Port Phillip, was deployed to New Guinea.

Manning the Landing Ship, Infantry
Some of the LSIs were commissioned into the Royal Navy, received navy crews, and flew the White Ensign, while most retained their civilian crews and flew the Red Ensign. Royal Navy LSIs had Royal Navy landing craft flotillas assigned to them until 1943, when a proportion of landing craft flotillas were manned by Royal Marine crews. Merchant Navy LSIs would have Royal Navy gunners for the anti-aircraft equipment, and Royal Navy officers and ratings operating the ship’s flotilla of landing craft. Generally, these divisions of personnel did not cooperate or share in each others’ work responsibilities.

LSIs in Royal Canadian Navy service were crewed by Canadians and, by late 1943 on, were assigned RCN landing craft flotillas. The crews intermingled, lent a hand as needed in one another’s work, and messed together.

Ships

 * TSS Ben-my-Chree – Isle of Man Steam Packet Company passenger ferry. Served at Pointe du Hoc with 2nd US Rangers, 6 June 1944
 * Duke of York
 * HMS El Hind – LSI(L), destroyed by fire, April 1944
 * Empire Arquebus
 * HMS Empire Battleaxe
 * SS Empire Broadsword – LSI(L)
 * Empire Cutlass was a 7,177 GRT Type C1-S-AY1 infantry landing ship, which was built by Consolidated Steel Corporation, Wilmington, California. Laid down as Cape Compass and completed in November 1943 as Empire Cutlass for MoWT. Damaged by a mine on 21 November 1944 off the Digne Light, Le Havre, towed to port and repaired. To Royal Navy in January 1945 as HMS Sansovino. Returned in June to MoWT and reverted to Empire Cutlass. To USMC in 1947, proposed sale to China in 1948 postponed due to communist revolution. Laid up in the James River, Virginia. Sold in 1960 to China Merchants Steam Navigation Co Ltd, Taiwan and renamed Hai Ou. Scrapped in 1970 at Kaohsiung.
 * SS Empire Javelin – LSI(L)
 * HMS Empire Spearhead
 * HMS Glengyle – LSI(L), 10,000 tons, 700 troops
 * Glenearn LSI(L)
 * Glenroy LSI(L)
 * HMS Invicta
 * HMAS Kanimbla (1936)
 * Karanja – LSI(L), sunk off Algeria, 1942
 * HMAS Manoora (1935)
 * HMS Monowai – formerly an ocean-going passenger ship
 * HMS Nemesis – former Belgian ferry SS Princesse Marie-José, also served as HMS Baldur
 * HMS Prince Charles
 * HMCS Prince David – LSI(M), 500 troops
 * HMS Prince Henry – LSI(M)
 * HMS Prince Leopold – LSI(S), former Belgian cross channel ferry, torpedoed in 1944 by GERMAN SUBMARINE U-621
 * HMS Princess Astrid – LSI(S)
 * HMS Princess Beatrix – LSI(M)
 * HMS Princess Josephine Charlotte – LSI(S)
 * HMS Prins Albert (1941)
 * HMS Queen Emma – LSI(M)
 * HMS Rocksand (F184) – formerly Empire Anvil
 * HMS Royal Scotsman – LSI(H), former passenger ferry operating in the Irish Sea
 * HMS Royal Ulsterman
 * HMS Sainfoin (F183) – formerly Empire Crossbow
 * SS Sobieski with LCP(L)s
 * HMAS Westralia (1939)