June 6, 1944
Widely remembered as D-Day all of these decades later, the Normandy landing operations proved to be a critical turning point in World War II. This Allied campaign was the largest seaborne invasion in world history and contributed significantly to the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany. A key means of transport for getting Allied troops onto Normandy’s beaches on that fateful day was a boat designed by industrialist Andrew Higgins and called Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP).
Those LCVPs, which are better known today as Higgins boats, were based on vessels created and used for traveling through swamps and marshes. The Higgins boats proved to be effective for the Allies during numerous World War II amphibious landings, including the one on D-Day. Each of these vessels could carry 36 infantrymen or 8,000 pounds (3,628.7 kilograms) of cargo. Infantrymen generally made their way on board a Higgins boat by climbing down a cargo net hung from the side of a troopship; these men would subsequently disembark from the Higgins boat by charging down that vessel’s bow ramp.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Forces, singled out the Higgins boat as a crucial factor for victory in the Normandy landings and other amphibious military operations during the war. He explained in a 1964 interview, “Andrew Higgins . . . is the man who won the war for us . . . If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different.” Even Adolf Hitler likewise — if much more grudgingly — acknowledged the role played by those boats in the victories over his own military forces. He bitterly called Higgins the “New Noah.”
(The accompanying photo shows American troops aboard a LCVP as it approaches a Normandy beach on June 6, 1944.)
Photo Credit: Public Domain
For more information on LCVPs (Higgins boats), please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCVP_(United_States)
Additional information on Andrew Higgins is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Higgins
Transportation History 