Assault Craft Unit Two ACU-2 US Navy Landing Craft Patch

A turtle in a helmet, hauling a tank through the surf onto the beach, is about as plain a picture of the Assault Craft Unit Two job as anyone could stitch. ACU-2 is a Navy landing craft unit at Little Creek, Virginia, the outfit that carries vehicles, gear and people from amphibious ships to the shore. Its sister unit, Assault Craft Unit One, works out of Coronado on the West Coast. Its craft have done that run off Beirut, Grenada, Haiti and Kuwait. The turtle on this patch lives in both worlds, water and beach, and so do the sailors who drive the boats.

The unit traces back to the Beach Party Battalions organized after World War II, which formed Naval Beach Group TWO, and to Boat Unit TWO, added to the group in 1949. Boat Unit TWO ran LCM-6 landing craft, picked up LCM-8s in 1957 and Landing Craft Utility in 1959. That December it merged with Landing Craft Squadron TWO and took the name Assault Craft Unit TWO. Its sailors covered Cuban refugees in the Florida Straits in 1980, the PLO evacuation from Beirut in 1982 and Grenada in 1983. They supported the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, the restoration of democracy in Haiti in 1994 and Operation Allied Force in 1999, and the unit's record also lists Korea, Vietnam and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

This is a 4 by 4 inch round patch cut to the shape of a ship's wheel, with twelve black spoke handles standing out from the rim. A yellow ring carries ASSAULT CRAFT UNIT TWO in black block letters around the bottom. In the center, a green turtle in a white helmet carries an olive-drab tank over his head, wading through blue water and white surf onto a black shore. The wheel says Navy, the tank says what rides in the well deck, and the turtle says amphibious. The backing is iron-on, and it can also be sewn on.

Landing craft duty is small-crew Navy, with a handful of sailors running a working boat in the surf zone where tide, weather and a loaded deck all matter at once. ACU-2 crews have run LCUs, LCM-8s and Maritime Prepositioning Force utility boats under Naval Beach Group Two. Every amphibious landing depends on the last stretch from ship to sand, and that stretch belongs to units like this one. Sailors who served at ACU-2 remember the boat ramps at Little Creek, the long days on the water and the crews they shared them with. The turtle has been carrying the load for a long time.

Mount it in a shadow box next to a photo of your LCU coming up on the beach, or sew it on the jacket you wear to a Little Creek reunion. It is also a good gift for a craftmaster, an engineman or a boatswain's mate who rode the boats. Iron it on for display, or add a few stitches for anything that gets washed. Twelve spokes, one turtle, and a tank headed for the beach.