![]() The board tested the boat, and promptly placed an order for 50 of Higgins’ design. Higgins’ team had completed the vessel, including design and construction, in 61 hours. When the board arrived three days later, a 45 foot tank lighter was ready for their inspection. The ramp design on the LCVP would not work, but within just half a day a solution was found and ready to implement. As builders got to work cutting down the existing hull, another team was locked in an office by Higgins and told they could leave only when they had worked out a solution for a ramp. Taking an existing towboat hull, the team pulled it into the side street (Felicity Street), blocking the street off to work. Higgins’ team got to work at their factory on Saint Charles Avenue. ‘The hell it can’t,’ Higgins shouted back, ‘you just be here in three days.’” ![]() In his book, Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats That Won World War II, Jerry Strahan recalled Higgins’ response to the request: “Higgins informed the board that when it arrived, instead of plans he would have a workable craft. ![]() ![]() Higgins was notified that the group would be visiting New Orleans to examine his ramped bow landing craft (LCVP) and would be looking for an initial design for a tank lighter. The design was to be shown to a mixed board of representatives from the US Navy and Marine Corps. In late May, Higgins was asked to develop just such a vessel. The design was refined several times before it seemed promising. Returning home, Higgins had his engineering department try their hand at a version of the vessel. During an April 1941 trip to Washington, DC Andrew Higgins saw a Bureau of Ships plan for a tank lighter, a large, ramped landing craft capable of landing a tank. The story of the LCM’s development is a quintessential Higgins story. But there is also a misconception when it comes to the ubiquitous “Higgins boat.” The term has become a catch-all for ramped landing craft, of which, Higgins produced two-the most-famous Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP) and the lesser-known, though no less important, Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM), sometimes referred to as a tank lighter.Īn LCM on Lake Pontchartrain in July 1944. The all-steel construction made the LCM stronger, capable of carrying a Sherman tank. ![]() One of the major associations that has become firmly entrenched in our collective memory of D-Day is the “Higgins boat.” An estimated 1,500 were used on June 6 to land troops and vehicles on French shores. It was the long-awaited invasion, a great Allied thrust upon which the hopes of millions of Europeans lay. On June 6, 1944, thousands of Allied troops landed across five beaches on the coast of Normandy, France. Boom beach landing craft heavy series#Louisianans were all in it together, and this series highlights when the Pelican State went to war. Civilians collected scraps, grew Victory gardens, and bought war bonds to build aircraft. Louisiana industry supplied the Allied war machine with vital materials such as oil, synthetic rubber, and ships of all sizes. There were over 30 military installations in the state, in addition to more than 40 prisoner of war camps. During World War II, roughly 280,000 men and women from Louisiana served in the armed forces. ![]()
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