The father of the Higgins Boat

Amor Huff

(Note: In 2015, a replica of one of the famous Higgins boats was manufactured and sent to France, as part of a Higgins Boat Memorial, a gift to the people of France by the people of Columbus, NE in time for the annual D-Day memorial celebration at Utah Beach. This model of the Higgins boat will be a part of the permanent display at Utah Beach, honoring the men who stormed that beach in the Normandy Invasion in 1944, and Higgins himself. This is the story of that Nebraska man who built the boats, and a bit about a fellow from McCook who manned the Higgins Boats during World War II.)

For most of his last years Amor Huff, of McCook, and his wife attended the annual Higgins Boat Reunion in Columbus, Nebraska, where local high school students have spearheaded a Higgins Boat Memorial, in honor of one of the community's most illustrious sons, Andrew Jackson Higgins, and the boat he built. Amor had great memories of Mr. Higgins' boat and lingering admiration for the man who perfected it -- a boat that many say enabled the Allies to turn the tide to victory in World War II.

In September 1943, in the middle of World War II, when General MacArthur's forces captured Salamaua in New Guinea, the United States Navy totaled some 14,072 vessels, of which 12,964 vessels (92 percent of the entire US Naval Force), were designed by Higgins Industries, Inc., which was headed by Andrew Higgins, from his Corporate Headquarters in New Orleans.

Soldiers disembarking from a Higgins boat. (Public domain)

Higgins was an outspoken, rough-cut, hot-tempered Irishman, with an incredible imagination and the ability to turn wild ideas into reality. He hated bureaucratic red tape, loved bourbon, and tended to knock down anything that got in his way. To the Navy bigwigs in Washington, who favored the big Eastern shipbuilders, who built the aircraft carriers, destroyers, and other large ships, Higgins was an arrogant so and so -- that fellow who built those "little boats," and they regarded him as a royal pain in their side. To the Marine Corps, which desperately needed an effective assault craft, he was a savior.

Before the war Higgins was involved in the lumber importing and exporting business. To get to the hardwood trees deep in the Louisiana swamps and marshes, he designed a shallow-draft boat, made of wood, (the "Eureka") that could operate in only 18 inches of water, and could run through vegetation and over logs and debris without fouling its propeller. He began building these boats as a sideline to his lumber business. As part of his sales demonstration, Higgins often had the boats run right up, (and easily off again), on the Lake Ponchartrain seawall.

When World War II began the U.S. Marine Corps desperately needed a better Landing Craft than the one then in service, and ordered a version of the Eureka from Higgins Industries. This military version of the Eureka was constructed with a mahogany frame and Marine Plywood -- plus a steel loading/unloading ramp, which was raised and lowered as needed and served as the bow of the boat. It was 36' long and 12' wide, and was powered by a diesel motor, similar to that used by Greyhound buses of the day. It had a crew of four and could land a platoon of 36 men with their equipment, or a jeep and 12 men, extract itself quickly from the shore, turn around, and go back to get more troops and/or supplies.

The Allied commanders loved these little boats, which allowed them to plan their assaults on relatively less-defended coastline areas, rather than having to capture port cities with wharves, which were always heavily defended. Even Hitler acknowledged these little boats and their designer, calling Higgins "The New Noah."

Amor Huff, of McCook, was an 18-year old in 1944, assigned to an LST (Landing Ship, Tank). This was a unique vessel in the United States Navy. It was as long as a football field, and 50 feet in width, and carried an incredible cargo of troops, tanks, ammo, as well as six Higgins landing craft. The troops commonly referred to their vessel as LST, which they said stood for Large Slow Target, since it was so big and moved so slowly -- maximum speed 12 knots. The Atlantic crossing, from Norfolk, VA to Gibraltar took 20 days. Then the troops said that LST stood for Long Slow Trip.

The LSTs were lightly armed. They had one 3" cannon and a few 20 mm and 40mm anti-aircraft guns. Their slow speed and light armament made them very attractive targets for enemy subs and planes. When crossing oceans they traveled in a convoy, protected by destroyers. The LSTs had a very shallow draft, designed to go relatively close to shore to discharge their cargo and men, but that meant that they had to leave the protection of their Destroyer escorts, which had to stay in the deep water. This left the LSTs virtually defenseless to enemy fire.

Amor served as a signalman while at sea on the LST. But he also served as a member of the four-man crew for one of the LCVPs (Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel), commonly known as a Higgins Boat, so familiar to the public from films such as "The Longest Day" and "Saving Private Ryan." Though Amor and his LST crew missed the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 4, 1944, they were very much involved in the 2nd front invasion of Southern France a month later, bringing load after load of men and equipment from the Mother LST to the shore in their Higgins Boats. By the summer of 1945 they had made their way from Europe to the South Pacific, via the Panama Canal, Hawaii, and Okinawa. They were poised to take part in the invasion of Japan in August, 1945, when President Truman ordered the Atomic Bomb attacks on mainland Japan, which ended the war, and very probably saving Amor and who knows how many American (and Japanese) lives.

It was really the unique design of the Higgins boats that made the D-Day landings at Normandy possible, as well as the landings at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Peleliu, Leyte, Guam and hundreds of lesser-known assaults. The boat had a deep "Vee" hull forward, a reverse-curve section amidships, and two planning sections aft. This design allowed a semi-tunnel that protected the propeller and shaft, enabling the boat to run right up on to the beach without damaging the hull. Objects in the water would be pushed away from the boat at a point between the bow and amidships, allowing continuous high speed running, as floating objects seldom came near the propeller.

At the peak of World War II production, the eight Higgins plants in New Orleans employed 20,000 workers, and production exceeded 700 boats per month. Higgins Industries' total output for the Allies during World War II was 20,094 boats, a production record for which Higgins Industries several times over received the Army-Navy "E," the highest award that the armed forces could bestow upon a company.

It is difficult to overstate the contribution that Higgins made to the United States War Effort during World War II. Once, in a conversation with the great World War II historian, Stephen Ambrose, General Eisenhower made this statement, "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." Quite a tribute for a boat-builder who grew up 1500 miles from the nearest ocean, at Columbus, Nebraska!