“They served everywhere — from the wind-swept coastlines of Northern France to the far-flung tropical shores of the Pacific — ultimately changing the very nature of amphibious warfare.”
ONE WOULD BE hard-pressed to come up with a piece of military hardware so closely associated with the Allied invasion of Normandy as the LCVP (landing craft, vehicle, personnel), also known as the “Higgins boat.”
Instantly recognizable by its droppable bow-ramp, thousands of these small, shallow-draught motor barges famously landed American GIs and Commonwealth troops on the beaches of France on June 6, 1944.
In fact, the entire Operation Overlord plan, and by extension the liberation of Europe itself, depended on vessels like the LCVPs. Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower admitted as much. “[Without them] we never could have landed over an open beach,” Ike said. “The whole strategy of the war would have been different.”
More than 23,000 Higgins boats were manufactured during the Second World War. The typical model was 36 feet long and nearly 11 feet in the beam. Powered by a 225-horsepower diesel engine, it could cruise at 12 knots (14 mph) and unload 36 fully armed combat troops or a 6,000-pound vehicle. Higgins boats were typically operated by a crew of four and armed with a pair of .30 caliber machine guns.
And they served everywhere — from the wind-swept coastlines of Northern France to the far-flung tropical shores of the Pacific — ultimately changing the very nature of amphibious warfare.
To mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, Here are some essential facts about the LCVP, the little boat that won the war.
It began as a bayou barge for bootleggers
Originally known as the Eureka boat, it was the brainchild of Andrew Jackson Higgins. The hard-drinking, eccentric New Orleans shipping magnate designed the craft in 1926 as a manoeuvrable, shallow-draught motor barge for hauling cargo through the Louisiana bayou. The Eureka boat’s ‘spoonbill’ bow allowed it to be driven right up onto a beach or riverbank to unload cargo, after which the pilot could throw the engine into reverse and effortlessly pull back into the water.
A groove in the underside of the hull partially enclosed the propeller, enabling the vessel to operate in little more than three feet of water without damaging the blades. Higgins expected his Eureka boat to be a big hit with Gulf of Mexico oil drillers, Mississippi trappers and even whiskey bootleggers. Large orders failed to materialize and he was very nearly forced out of business during the Depression, that is until the U.S. military took notice of his unconventional vessel.
Its famous bow ramp was a Japanese idea
The U.S. Marine Corps became particularly interested in the Eureka boat after an officer stationed as a military observer in China, Victor H. Krulak, witnessed the Japanese use small vessels like the Daihatsu-class landing craft during the 1937 Battle of Shanghai. Krulak noted that the boats’ droppable ramps enabled troops to quickly disembark from the bow, rather than having to clamber over the sides and splash into the surf.
The Corps asked Higgins, who was already selling small numbers of his Eureka boats to the Coast Guard and Army Engineers, to modify his design to include a similar drop-ramp. He built a handful of prototypes and demonstrated them. Despite fierce opposition from the Navy’s Bureau of Ships, the Marines were impressed and eventually placed orders for their own fleet of Eureka boats. More contracts would soon follow.
It was a ‘wooden wonder’
Despite being used for amphibious assaults, Higgins boats were surprisingly flimsy. In order to keep the vessels light, and to keep costs low, the sides and rear were typically made of plywood – not ideal material for stopping bullets. Although the steel ramp on the bow afforded the troops some protection against enemy fire, later models were modified to carry armour plating.
LCVPs saw action in all theatres of the war
The Higgins boat made its combat debut during the August, 1942 landings at Guadalcanal. Later that year, Allied forces used them for the invasion of North Africa — Operation Torch. In the years that followed, Higgins’ LCVPs would put armies ashore in the Mediterranean, the Pacific and, of course, Normandy, France on D-Day. The British acquired their own small fleet of the vessels, which they used to launch commando raids on the French coast in the lead-up to Overlord.
Higgins Industries broke new ground in production
By 1943, Higgins’ once small 75-employee shipbuilding business had ballooned to more than 20,000 workers. His eight manufacturing plants produced not just LCVPs, but a broad a range of landing craft, as well as PT Boats and even torpedo tubes. At the war’s peak, Higgins’ factories were cranking out 700 vessels a month. No other yards could match this prodigious output. And he wasn’t just a maverick ship-builder, he was ahead of his time as an industrialist, too. Despite running his operation in the heart of the segregationist South, his shop floors were fully integrated, with blacks, whites, men and women earning equal pay for the same work. Females and African-Americans were even promoted to supervisory roles, a practice that created enemies for the Nebraska-born tycoon among Louisiana’s elites.
Higgins boats changed the nature of amphibious warfare
Prior to the LCVP, large-scale seaborne invasions were more difficult to mount. They usually required the bombardment and capture of large ports and harbours, which were often heavily fortified and well-defended. But thanks to the availability of small landing craft like the Higgins boat, whole armies could instead be deposited on any stretch of shoreline with relative speed. To meet the threat of an invasion that could fall anywhere, enemy commanders suddenly needed to be spread their forces out across entire coastlines and fortify vast stretches of shore. “The Higgins boats broke the gridlock on the ship-to-shore movement,” said one Marine Corps historian. “It is impossible to overstate the tactical advantages this craft gave U.S. amphibious commanders in World War Two.” Others simply called the Higgins boat “the bridge to the beach.” Even Hitler was grudgingly impressed. After D-Day, he demanded to know how the Allies managed to land so many troops at Normandy in a single day. His generals reported the mammoth number of Higgins’ landing craft that were involved in the operation. “Truly this man is the new Noah,” the Führer reportedly remarked.
Higgins tried to expand beyond boats
As the war continued, Higgins attempted to diversify his ship-building enterprise. In 1942, he acquired an aviation company founded by Preston Tucker, who would later make history with his notoriously ill-fated 1948 Tucker sedan, and began manufacturing gun turrets. The following year, Higgins teamed up with visionary aerospace designer Enea Bossi to build helicopters. The result was a single prototype known at the EB-1. With the war’s end in 1945, Higgins Industries fell on hard times. As orders dropped off, production was scaled back to just a single plant. Higgins himself died of stomach ulcers in 1952. He was 65. His sons continued his shipbuilding business until 1959 when they finally sold it off.
The role of the LCVP was largely overlooked for years
Remarkably, Higgins tremendous contribution to the Allies was quickly forgotten after the war. Early popular histories of the Normandy invasion and Pacific war tended to ignore the huge role landing craft played in the conflict and the public seemed far more interested in more glamorous fighting machines of the era. It wasn’t until the late 1990s amid a resurgence of interest in the Second World War that the importance of Higgins and the LCVP became widely recognized. Books like Jerry E. Strahan’s Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats that Won World War Two, films like Saving Private Ryan and exhibits at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans sparked an interest in the boat and its designer’s impact.
You can still see Higgins boats today
A handful of Higgins boats survived the war, with many being restored in recent years. You can see one at Natick, Massachusetts’ International Museum of World War II as well as the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, England. Several others are in the process of being refurbished. Seaworthy replicas made of fibreglass have been constructed for Hollywood and can often be seen in movies about the Second World War, while reproductions are also museum pieces throughout the United States, the U.K. and Normandy, France.
SOURCES:
https://fee.org/articles/andrew-higgins-boat-builder-of-wwii/
https://www.nola.com/175years/2011/11/1944_higgins_industries_in_new.html
https://www.americanheritage.com/man-who-won-war-us
https://www.nola.com/175years/2011/11/1944_higgins_industries_in_new.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCVP_(United_States)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Higgins#World_War_II_industrialist
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/ww2/projects/fighting-vehicles/higgins-boat.htm
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-higgins-boat-wood-steel-and-purpose
Last summer visited utah beach in normandie, there also is a original higgins to see .
Maurice van der knaap
Bleiswijk
Holland
I would pile on to “The role of the LCVP was largely overlooked for years” with a glaring omission: Away All Boats which focuses on the role of the Higgins Boats and Attack Transport. But then, my Dad was a Coxwain (APA 50 Boat 13) and served under Dodson, who wrote the book. So, with Jeff Chandler glorifying it in the movies, the role of the boats weren’t exactly forgotten — but the Navy’s part of the great delivery and so forth often gets overlooked. How often have you heard about the Destroyers of D-Day who came closer than they should into shore to bring their guns to bear? But I digress. Your article is not complete without the acknowledgement of Away All Boats from the time. Not front page, but not forgotten.
Great addition and clarification, BJ. Thanks so much for that.
Interestingly Stephen E. Ambrose’s book on D-Day describes a U.S. destroyer closing perilously close to the shore in order to knock out some coastal defences. I think I read the book 20 years ago, but that part stayed with me. Can’t think of the name of the vessel.
The armour on either side of the troop compartment (1/4 “) and ramp made of 1/4” armour plate were part of the original design. The boat could not have worked if it wasn’t, since the whole boat was made of wood and plywood. The top weight greatly reduces stability, so if the boat had been designed without it, it would perform abysmally in anything but mirror like calm waters.
What was the longest journey it had ?