Andrew Jackson Higgins, designer and manufacturer of World War 11 landing craft known as “Higgins boats,” was born August 28, 1886, at Columbus, Nebraska. His parents were John Gonegle Higgins, a prominent lawyer and judge, and Annie Long O’Connor Higgins. Both parents are buried in Columbus. Higgins attended schools in Omaha and served in the Nebraska National Guard. In 1906 he moved to the South, entering the lumber and shipping business.
Andrew Jackson Higgins, a boat builder in New Orleans, is rightfully credited with the design of the boat that bears his name. A statue of him, along with a Higgins boat, is on display on Utah Beach.
“Andrew Higgins is the man who won the war for us,” former President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a 1964 interview with author Stephen Ambrose.
The military christened the vessel LCVP — which stands for landing craft, vehicle, personnel — as the official name of Higgins boats, used not just in the D-Day landings in Europe, but also in the war’s Pacific Campaigns and in the Korean War landings at Inchon.
Higgins crafted the flatbottom boat to navigate Louisiana’s bayous in shallow water, which made it perfect for getting to the beaches. However, Higgins’ boat had one major design flaw for amphibious landing purposes: It required troops to climb over the gunwales.
That flaw was fixed by Marine Corps 1st Lt. Victor “Brute” Krulak, who designed a bow ramp that could be lowered when the vessels reached the beach, allowing for speedy exit. He also ensured that an engine with sufficient horsepower would propel the vessel partway up the beach. After offloading the troops, the boat driver would reverse the engine and steer the boat back to the ship from whence it came.
The ideas for the design alteration came to Krulak when he was serving in China in the late 1930s. He observed Japanese Yangtze River landing vessels with ramps. The quick-thinking lieutenant made sketches of the vessels and took copious notes that would pay off when he briefed his commander, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith, on his ideas and showed him a model of the altered Higgins boat.
Eventually, the U.S. Navy adopted the Higgins boats with Krulak’s design incorporated.
A later variant of the Higgins boat were the LCMs, landing craft mechanized, that were commonly called Mike boats. They were used during the Vietnam War and are still in use. They were called Mike boats because the last letter of LCM is called mike in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Higgins died on August 1, 1952, and is buried at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans. In 1964 Dwight D. Eisenhower said Higgins was “the man who won the war for us.” In 2000 the National D-Day Museum opened in New Orleans, honoring Higgins and the city for their vital contributions to the war effort.
