Publisher’s Note: This story has been updated Friday morning to correct the content. Human error by the publisher. Some day I’ll get my angel wings but for right now, I’m only human. Thank you for your patience.
June 6, 1944 – D-Day – This year marks the 81st anniversary of D-Day; a day that marked the beginning of the end of Hitler’s Third Reich, the day Allied forces traversed the English Channel, landed on Normandy beaches in the north of France, and pushed and kicked their way to Berlin.
Code-named Operation Overlord this was the largest amphibious landing of a military force ever attempted. The US had used amphibious landings earlier in the war, Operation Torch in French North Africa, Operation Husky in Sicily, the un-named Allied landing on mainland Italy at Salerno, the Dieppe Raid in France, Operation Shingle at Anzio, Italy and operation Dragoon in southern France at Marseille, but nothing on this scale. Operation Overlord began at 0016 hours, or 16 minutes after midnight on the morning of June 6 when Allied troops, from the US, Great Britain, and Canada would parachute, walk, run, crawl, swim, or drive onto the Normandy beaches. Parachutists of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were the first to touch French soil, dropping just beyond the beaches, further inland, and behind the German lines. They were accompanied by gliders full of men and equipment, pulled to the area behind a larger aircraft, and at the right moment, released from their tow-line and slowly and silently glide behind Hitler’s Atlantic Wall and the Normandy Beaches.
The statistics for this operation were stunning, nearly 160,000 Allied troops came ashore at Normandy Beaches and over 23,000 paratroopers. On the American side, 8,230 men were killed, wounded missing or captured. The number of British killed, wounded, missing or captured was 2,700 and Canada was 1,074. Germany lost an estimated 4,000 to 9,000 soldiers. Over 7,000 ships of every size, shape and description were deployed to carry men and equipment from England across what was a rather rough English Channel. Many of the men started what would be the longest day of their life grotesquely seasick. By June 30, over 850,000 men, 148,000 vehicles, and 570,000 tons of supplies had landed. It was a feat of logistics that almost seemed miraculous.
Military brass, Britain since 1941 and the US since 1942 had been trying to figure how to best attack Germany. Long story short, they agreed on the basic premise of an amphibious landing along the north coast of France. This presented two fundamental problems, first, how to get enough Allied soldiers and equipment ashore quickly enough to overwhelm the Germans, knocking them back on their heels before they had a chance to know what hit them. And second, how to get enough supplies onto dry land, including armament, trucks, jeeps, ammunition, food and water. Planners calculated that, under existing circumstances, it would take seven weeks to get the forty-odd division of soldiers across the English Channel and onto the Normandy Beaches. Seven weeks would give every German soldier in Europe a chance to reinforce the beaches. Seven weeks was not an option. Plus, on every frontal attack that had been tried against the Germans so far, in Poland in 1939, in France in 1940, and in Russia in 1941, the Germans had out-flanked and out-maneuvered their opposition making the efforts very costly in terms of lives lost.
So, the question was, how to get a massive number of troops and an attendant amount of supplies on the beach and moving in-land in a hurry? In WWI, Allied troops only had to hop out of a trench and move on the German line across hard, flat ground. Here, the troops would have to cross the English Channel, a distance of almost 100 miles, disembark in a hurry, then begin moving across a beach. More precisely, transport ships would bring them across the English Channel, but they needed a way to get from the transports to the beach. The draft on a transport ship was too deep to get anywhere near the beach, and there were no deep-water ports available.
The US Marines had seen the possible need for a beach landing vessel given how the war was going in Europe. The knew what they needed, but the Navy Bureau of Ships had consistently failed to produce a craft that could effectively deliver Marines, their tanks and artillery on a beach. Part of this perhaps was arrogance. The Navy wanted to build large, ocean-going vessels – not “toys” that could be beached.
Enter Andrew Higgins – the man General Dwight Eisenhower would later say was “the man who won the war for us.” In the late 1930’s Higgins owned a small shipyard in New Orleans servicing the need of loggers and oil drillers in the Mississippi Delta. With the growing threat of war, the Marines and US Navy took an interest in Higgin’s creations. He had a shallow-draft boat called the “Eureka.” Higgins got the idea for shallow-draft boats when, living along the Missouri River he knew only flat-bottomed boats could navigate its shallow passages. “If it had not been for the Missouri River at Omaha there would have been no Higgins Industries of New Orleans turning out ships, planes, engines, guns and what have you for the army and navy. Looking at the Missouri shallows, its snags and driftwood, he says, led him to think up his first shallow-draft boat. Everything else came from that.”
The Marines and Navy liked the Eureka. It had a flat bottom and propellors positioned in a “tube” on the craft’s bottom to protect it from being fouled or broken-off while the craft was beached. The only problem was, troops would need to exit the boat over the side. This would not only be awkward for a soldier carrying a heavy pack and a rifle, but it would also be rather slow. When troops hit the beach, it was paramount to get them moving quickly as they would probably be under fire.
Higgins removed the bow of the Eureka, replacing it with a ramp which would be dropped at the water’s edge when troops could run off quickly. Higgins received a call from the Navy that they and the Marines would be coming to New Orleans to test the ramped boats and Higgins should also prepare to discuss a design for a craft capable of landing tanks. Higgins informed the Navy that instead of a plan he would have a workable craft. “It can’t be done,” the Navy told him; “The Hell it can’t,” replied Higgins, “you just be here in three days”. Higgins had the boat built in 61 hours. Both would be taken into service, and while the ramped “Eureka” would have the official designation of LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel) it would be known universally as the Higgins Boat.
Andrew Higgin’s creations came just in time. With his tireless energy, often working 16 hour days, Higgins seemingly overnight turned his small 50-man New Orleans boat building business into one of the largest boat builders in the world, building not only several models of landing craft but other boats as well. By September 1943, 12,964 of the American Navy’s 14,072 vessels had been designed by Higgins Industries. Hitler bitterly called Higgins “The new Noah”
Higgins was one of our nation’s first equal opportunity employers. Higgins employed anyone capable of performing the job, irrespective of gender or race, and everyone who performed the same job was given the same pay. Realizing the impact a worker lost due to sickness could have on productivity, Higgins established a company clinic where works could access health care free of charge.
If not for the Higgin’s landing craft, the Allies probably would have won the war, but victory would likely have looked very different. It might have lasted well into 1945, resulting in the atomic obliteration of Berlin. Amphibious landing operations were later executed on Pacific islands fighting the Japanese. But nothing on this scale of the Normandy landing.
Despite being the “savior of D-Day,” Andrew Higgins did not do well after the war. He may have had a great deal of ingenuity – but a businessman, he was not. After September, 1945, there was no longer a need for his landing craft. Higgins didn’t want to put his people on unemployment so he kept them working – and went bankrupt. Being an innovator, he proved to be a man ahead of his time. He tried moving into helicopters, then please motor and sail craft, tent-trailers and other leisure-time items – all of which would eventually be viable and saleable items, but not in 1946-47. Historian and famed author Stephen Ambrose noted, “…he was “brilliant at design, but lousy at marketing. – a master of production, but a terrible book-keeper.”
Given the changes in military technology, and the way troops are deployed today, there will probably never be another amphibious landing like 1944’s D-Day. Andrew Higgens, along with military leaders like General Dwight Eisenhower, General Omar Bradley, and British General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery and political leaders like Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill were truly men of their day. Andrew Higgins passed away on August 1, 1952.
You can reach Gary Ledoux at [email protected]