Andrew Jackson Higgins was born in 1886 in Columbus, Nebraska, US. From the start he had a passion for boats and forestry, building his first boat in his mother’s basement at age twelve.

Determined, strong-willed and innovative, Higgins moved to the southern US in 1906 to work in the lumber industry until its decline when he realized that cut logs built into motor boats would fetch a higher price than the raw lumber.

In 1930, he started Higgins Industries, a New Orleans-based company, building boats that could operate in the shallow waters and swamps of Louisiana, US.

A decade later he modified the design to include a ramp on the bow that could be lowered to make the deployment of troops, vehicles and equipment easier – it revolutionized amphibious warfare. The new vessel, the Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel was capable of carrying 36 men and made it possible to rapidly land a well-equipped invasion force on a defended shore. It was commonly referred to as a “Higgins boat” and was used extensively by the Allied forces in the D-Day landings at Normandy in France on June 6, 1944.

US President Eisenhower who was the supreme commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces in World War II said, “without Higgins designed boats that could land over open beaches the whole strategy of the war would have to be rethought.”

Pictured: Andrew Higgins.

The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana is located in the city because by 1943 some 92% of the entire US Navy vessels were designed and built by Higgins Industries, New Orleans!