The Higgins boat

The boat that won the war

Few World War II vessels have such an instantly recognizable appearance as the brick-like Higgins boat as it runs aground and lowers its ramp to disgorge infantry onto an enemy-held beach. Light, cheap, and extremely adept at what it was designed to do, the boat revolutionized landing operations. Landing craft are often overlooked in favor of hulking carriers, menacing battleships and stealthy submarines; this article will try to remedy that by focusing on the development and service of the humble yet immeasurably useful Higgins boat.

The United States Marine Corps were in dire need of a good landing craft in the early 1940s. With World War II already raging in Europe, American entry into the war was a very real possibility. Traditionally, landings were performed by naval forces first attacking an enemy port or coastal city, then landing troops directly there. Modern firepower was rapidly making such attacks unfeasible, as the disastrous Dieppe raid of 1942 would prove (Read our earlier article – The Dieppe Raid). It became necessary to land troops on lightly guarded beaches away from ports, but large transports couldn’t approach the shore without running aground, and the were was no small craft suitable for putting a large number of troops and supplies on the beach quickly and possibly in the face of enemy resistance. The Marine Corps found the available Navy designs unsatisfactory and started looking for a solution among civilian boat designers.
 
Enter Andrew Jackson Higgins (1886-1952), a Nebraska-born businessman and boatbuilder. As a young man, Higgins served in the Nebraska Army National Guard, where he got his first taste of boat building and troop transportation during military maneuvers.

Higgins got into the lumber trade in 1906, and founded his own export-import company in 1922 in New Orleans. His fleet of lumber cargo ships, described by some sources as the largest sailing fleet under U.S. registry at the time, imported hardwood from the Philippines, Africa and Central America. Higgins built his own shipyard to service and build his ships, as well as the barges and tugs servicing them in shallow waters. Higgins’s lumber company eventually went bankrupt in 1930 due to declining demand and competition from steamers, but his boatbuilding firm continued to operate under the name Higgins Industries, selling boats on the private market.

The LCP(L) was 36 ft 8 in (11 m) long, was armed with two machine guns, and could transport 25 to 36 troops (depending on whether it was in U.S. or British service) with a crew of 3 or 4. While the usual manner of boarding a small landing craft was to climb into it via a scramble net, the LCP(L) could also be boarded while still hanging from the davits (the ship’s cranes) and then lowered into the water, allowing for faster deployment. Its greatest difference from what eventually became known as the “Higgins boat” was its lack of a bow ramp. This forced soldiers to clamber over the boat’s bow and sides then jump down, which was a dangerous prospect in the face of enemy fire. Similarly, cargo had to be unloaded over the sides, making the process complicated.

Unwilling assistance to this problem came from Japan. The Japanese had been already using the ramp-bowed Daihatsu-class landing craft in the Second Sino-Japanese War since 1937, and neutral U.S. Navy and Marine observers took great interest in the design. Higgins was shown photos of the Japanese boat and asked to design something similar; he did so and built three prototypes at his own expense.  

$500 discount for the 80th anniversary D-Day celebrations and all our tours