Throughout the 1920s and 30s, Higgins had eked out a living supplying the developing oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico and the bayous of the Louisiana coast. But, he sold the concept to the only person that mattered in 1942, the President of the United States. He further compounded the difficulty with his bombastic take-no-prisoners approach to selling his design. Higgins was ill-appreciated by the Navy Bureau of Ships which suffered from a heavy dose of Not-Invented-Here. At this moment, an alcoholic Irishman named Andrew Jackson Higgins won the war. These plywood and paint craft would carry the Allied nation’s hopes and means of liberation to France and the ultimate destruction of the German Army and the achievement of General Eisenhower’s charge by the Combined Joint Chiefs of Staff. 100% of these craft on which rode the hopes of the Allied nations, were built in the immediate environs of New Orleans, Louisiana, though they carried the entire tapestry of our Nation, as well as the only hope of deliverance for an enslaved Europe. No craft carried more than 35 or less than 25, extraordinarily, heavily laden soldiers. The assault troops came from a myriad of Allied nations, but were predominately US, Canadian and British. These individual boarding events were repeated approximately 140,000 times. This was not a fun morning, but the enormity of the moment was recognized by all participants. Each would have to wait at the bottom and time his descent into the craft perfectly to avoid a broken leg, crushed pelvis, or drowning between the craft and the ship. Down the ladders clambered the heavily burdened troops that would open the Continent. The small craft, bobbing and pitching in the rough sea, attempted to align themselves with the larger ship hulls, attached only by a wide rope net ladder.

The boats had just been dropped overboard from the thousands of larger ships now occupying the Bay of Biscay as far as the eye and radar could see. Offshore, less than three miles out from the identified five Normandy beaches, more than 4,500 ships began to deposit their charges on small, plywood landing craft named Higgins boats. The Higgins Boat: Wood, Steel, and PurposeĠ430 on the morning of 6 June 1944 was dark, with scudding clouds, stiff winds, misting rain, and choppy seas.

Steel assault art