A veteran landing ship was attracting the attention of preservation experts as she arrived at a Portsmouth shipyard.

HMS Stalker, the last of the Mk 3 generation of Landing Ship (Tanks) or LSTs from World War II, has reached Pounds Shipyard at Tipner in Portsmouth Harbour.

And her arrival has generated interest from associations keen to preserve her as the only survivor of her kind.

Dave Fricker, of the Maritime Preservation Society, said: “About 70 Mk 3s were built, all steam-powered and the ultimate Tank Landing Ships of World War II – of which only HMS Stalker survives.

“Hence her significance, and the degree of interest being shown in her by a wide variety of bodies – and also private individuals.”

The Maritime Preservation Society has notified the World Ship Trust, which has confirmed the ship’s eligibility for entry into the prestigious International Register of Historic Ships. Along with the LST/LCT Veterans Association, they are putting their efforts into saving the last large World War II Naval landing ship.

LST(3) 3515 was commissioned into the Royal Navy towards the end of World War II, and was renamed HMS Stalker in 1947.

In her service life she has provided submarine support in Ireland and Scotland, and since then has remained in Rosyth.

She was due to be scrapped, but was rescued by Pounds Shipyard and brought down to the South Coast, primarily to preserve her unique steam plant – the same machinery as was used in the Loch and Bay-class frigates of World War II.

The class was originally nicknamed the Winnette in honour of Winston Churchill, who identified the need for such specialised amphibious landing ships.

The earliest types were converted from oil tankers, but dedicated designs soon followed. The Mk 1 was too complex for mass-production, but the diesel-powered Mk 2 proved a great success, with many being built in the United States and being used as the mainstay of the D-Day landings in 1944.

The Mk 3, of which Stalker was an example, was a development of the Mk 2. The earlier mark had a displacement of 1,625 tons, and of the 115 launched between 1942 and 1943 in the States on lend-lease, 14 were lost and the rest returned to America after the war.

The Mk 3 displaced 2,256 tons, and many were built at UK yards, including Harland and Wolff in Belfast and on the Clyde, Vickers Armstrong on Tyneside and at Barrow, and Swan Hunter on the Tyne and Yarrow on the Clyde.

Stalker herself was built at the Yarrow yard at Esquimalt in British Columbia, Canada, at the end of 1944.