80-G-46566: Lieutenant Harold R. Fleck, USNR, poses against a photograph of his ship USS LST 386, as he recalls how the giant landing craft underweight the experiments which made it the first “junior aircraft carrier.” The event took place in North Africa. A light flight runway had been installed aboard the LST, “the plane took off like a bird leaving a tree,” Lieutenant Fleck says. He described the first combat use of the LST as a “carrier” during the Sicilian landings at Licata as a “matter of routine.” Released September 19, 1944. U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. (2016/06/07).