Higgins, a Nebraska native who established himself as a successful lumber businessman in New Orleans, began building boats in the 1930s. “Higgins applied it to everything in his life: politics, dealing with unions, acquiring workers, producing fantastical things or huge amounts of things. “His genius was problem-solving,” says Joshua Schick, a curator at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, which opened a new D-Day exhibit last month featuring a full-scale recreation of a Higgins boat. “Andrew Higgins is the man who won the war for us,” he told author Stephen Ambrose in a 1964 interview.Īndrew Higgins' "Lighter for Mechanized Equipment," patented February 15, 1944 At least, that’s what President Dwight D. The vessel’s unique design coupled with the inventor’s dogged determination to succeed may very well have swung the balance of victory to within grasp of the Allies. Higgins’ creation had a dramatic impact on the outcome of the Normandy landings 75 years ago, as well as many other naval operations in World War II. Now these 36-foot LCVPs – also known as Higgins boats – were being manufactured in the thousands to help American soldiers, marines and seamen attack the enemy through amphibious assaults. Patent Office on Decem– the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Andrew Jackson Higgins had filed his idea with the U.S. Less than four months earlier, the patent was issued for those very boats. In the distance is the coast of Normandy. Tightly packed troops crouch inside their LCVP as it plows through a wave. D-Day and the Allied invasion of Europe had commenced. on June 6, 1944, and the first LCVPs – Landing Craft, Vehicle and Personnel – had just come ashore on Utah Beach at Normandy. Heavy iron ramps dropped into the surf and the men surged forward into the cold water toward an uncertain fate. Suddenly, they heard the sound of the keels grinding against sand and stone. Waves slapped hard against the plywood hulls while bullets pinged off the flat steel bows.įrightened men in uniform hunkered down beneath the gunwales to avoid the continuous enemy fire. The smell of diesel fumes and vomit was overwhelming as the small vessels lurched toward the beaches. Thousands of flat-bottomed boats plowed through rough seas under cold gray skies.
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