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Jerry E. Strahan
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Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats that Won World War II (Eisenhower Center Studies on War and Peace) Paperback – Illustrated, October 1, 1998

by Jerry E. Strahan (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 108 ratings
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Andrew Jackson Higgins is perhaps the most forgotten hero of the Allied victory. He designed the LCVP (landing craft vehicle, personnel) that played such a vital role in the invasion of Normandy as well as the first effective tank landing craft. During the war, New Orleans–based Higgins Industries produced over twenty thousand boats, including lightning-fast PT boats and the twenty-seven-foot airborne lifeboat. Higgins dedicated himself to providing Allied soldiers with the finest landing craft in the world, and he fought the Bureau of Ships, the Washington bureaucracy, and the powerful eastern shipyards to succeed.

Jerry Strahan’s biography of Higgins reveals a colorful, controversial character―hard fisted, hard swearing, and hard drinking―who was an outsider to New Orleans’ elite social circles. He was also, however, a hardworking boatbuilder who became a major industrialist with a worldwide reputation―even Hitler was aware of Higgins, calling him “the new Noah.”

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  1. Print length
    400 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    LSU Press
  4. Publication date
    October 1, 1998
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780807123393
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0807123393
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats That Won World War II is an important book, and Jerry Strahan has performed an admirable service for the city, military, and maritime historians in detailing the engineering and manufacturing innovations of a forgotten pioneer. ― New Orleans Times-Picayune

Strahan’s well-written and lucid account of both the climb and the fall [of Higgins] makes illuminating reading―for businessmen as well as history buffs. ― Tampa Tribune

From the Back Cover

Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats That Won World War II, by Jerry E. Strahan, is the first biography of perhaps the most forgotten hero of the Allied victory. It was Higgins who designed the LCVP (landing craft vehicle, personnel) that played such a vital role in the invasion of Normandy, the landings in Guadalcanal, North Africa, and Leyte, and thousands of amphibious assaults throughout the Pacific. It was also Higgins who, after twenty years of failure by the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Ships, designed and constructed an effective tank landing craft in sixty-one hours - a feat that caused the bureau to despise him. In 1938, Higgins owned a single small boatyard in New Orleans employing fewer than seventy-five people. Through exceptional drive, vision, and genius, his holdings expanded until by late 1943 he owned seven plants and employed more than twenty thousand workers. Because of his reputation for designing and producing assault craft in record-breaking time, Higgins was awarded the largest shipbuilding and aircraft contracts in history. During the war, Higgins Industries produced 20,094 boats, ranging from the 36-foot LCVP to the lightning-fast PT boats; the rocket-firing landing craft support boats; the 56-foot tank landing craft; the 170-foot FS ships; and the 27-foot airborne lifeboat that was dropped from the belly of a B-17 bomber. Higgins dedicated himself to providing Allied soldiers with the finest landing craft in the world, and he fought the Bureau of Ships, the Washington bureaucracy, and the powerful eastern shipyards in order to succeed. Strahan's portrait of Higgins reveals a colorful character - a hard-fisted, hard-swearing, and hard-drinking man whose Irishbackground and Nebraska birthplace made him an outsider to New Orleans' elite social circles. Higgins was also hard working, quickly progressing from an unknown southern boatbuilder to a major industrialist with a worldwide reputation. He was featured in Life, Time, Newsweek, and Fortune magazines, and appeared frequently on the front pages of the country's major newspapers. Even Adolf Hitler was aware of Higgins, calling him the "new Noah". Through Higgins' example, we see the way technological innovations, politics, labor unions, changing military agendas, and personalities worked together - and sometimes at odds - for an Allied victory. Strahan has based his work on extensive personal interviews with family members, key employees, and other close acquaintances of Higgins, as well as on previously inaccessible Higgins Industries archives. The result is an extremely informative account of one of the key players, and industries, of World War II.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0807123390
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ LSU Press; Revised ed. edition (October 1, 1998)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780807123393
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0807123393
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 108 ratings

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Jerry E. Strahan

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
108 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Hoosier Hayseed
5.0 out of 5 stars This Man May Have Saved Our Country
Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2020
Verified Purchase
I never cease to be amazed at the stories of such incredible men as this one, who used their intelligence and common sense to do what they saw could be done, that no one else could see.
Andrew Higgins was a normal, average person, who had only an 11th grade education, but who had a natural talent for many things; especially for small boats, and the backwaters of Louisiana. His boats didn't draw much draft, and had to negotiate the swamps and bogs of logs and alligators, and accomplish their mission of hunting beavers, or logging, or whatever.
But he also had incredible determination, to stand up to authority, and make them aware that when it came to small boats, he actually knew more than they did - such as, for example, the entire US Navy!
And he was essentially one man, standing toe-to-toe against entrenched bureaucracy, and hundreds of people in charge of various departments of the Navy, who weren't about to let one person dictate to them.
Except he proved, by actual side-by-side comparisons, and with many powerful adversaries plotting against him, that the boats he designed were precisely what the Navy needed, only they just didn't know it yet.
He designed boats with a draft so shallow, they were able to literally run up onto the beach, and back off under their own power, without getting hung up.
It is a testament to how he was able, by his sheer determination and tenacity and intelligence, to emerge victorious, and invent and build boats by the thousands, to equip an Army (or Marines, or Navy) of men, to enable them to land on hostile islands, and fight their way inland, and defeat a swarm of armed, fanatical, Japanese, or Germans - whichever the case might be.
By doing what many people thought was virtually impossible, Higgins literally saved the world from Nazi-ism, and Japanese fanaticism, and preserved freedom, that we are able to consequently take for granted every day.
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George G. Kiefer
5.0 out of 5 stars Shades of Howard Roark
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2001
Verified Purchase
It is easy to see why Marine Corps Lt. Gen. "Howlin' Mad" Smith and Andrew Higgins were great friends. Both were dynamic men of genius who suffered the bungling of lesser men, often times, the same group of bunglers. But neither man would suffer in silence. Smith, along with other farsighted Marines, understood quite early the nature of the coming war in the Pacific. It would be a bloody contest of island hopping across the Pacific to the very shores of the Japanese home islands. The taking of those islands would necessarily require the landing of assault troops on defended beaches and the United States lacked proper amphibious craft for the task. There was a critical lack of troop transports, cargo transports and a satisfactory landing craft to bring both ashore had yet to be designed.
From the bayous and backwater swamps of Louisiana, boat builder and designer Andrew Higgins produced a boat far superior to other designs, the now famous Higgins Boat. Incredibly, the Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair (BCR), as early as 1934, preferred to ignore this boat. Even more incredible, in sixty-one hours he designed and built a tank lighter which far exceeded the design produced by the Bureau of Ships. Both craft were largely ignored in spite of their superior performance in multiple government tests. But the men who would use these craft first, the service men who formulated the "Tentative Landing Operations Manual" in 1934 became Higgins strongest allies and chief among them was H. M. Smith. The Marines saw the worth of the boats he designed and fought for them. They fought for the best landing craft which would carry their Marines ashore under enemy fire. But the battle against the Bureau of Ships would not be won until after widespread pettiness and favoritism was exposed by Higgins before the Truman Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program in 1942. One man, Andrew Higgins, took on the Washington and military bureaucrats, the leaders of the eastern shipping industry and won. In short order, he took on a vicious labor racket, profiteering from the war by so-called "labor suppliers". He beat them too.
Remarkably, in September of 1943 the American navy totaled 14,072 vessels. Of these, 12,964 or 92% were designed by Higgins industry. Higgins designed and built high-speed PT boats, antisubmarine boats, dispatch boats, freight supply boats and specialized patrol craft. He produced several types of landing craft, including the famous Higgins boat (LCVPs) and the tank lighter (LCMs).
Of Higgins, General Eisenhower stated in 1964, "He is the man who won the war for us."
Strahan has penned a fine tribute to a truly remarkable man. Strahan's strength, like his mentor, Steve Ambrose, is his prodigious research skills. One wonders what he would have produced had he stayed in history in stead of venturing off to run Lucky Dogs in New Orleans.
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Arthur C Witten
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2020
Verified Purchase
Interesting book giving an in depth look at the career of a forgotten behind-the-scenes hero of WW2. Very well-researched. For my preference, I'd have preferred more on Jackson's personal life. The book portrays Jackson as a larger than life figure, but a figure largely without a personal life, which is why I didn't rate the book with five stars.
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Top reviews from other countries

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JR
2.0 out of 5 stars Andrew Jackson Higgins
Reviewed in France on July 4, 2018
Verified Purchase
Très décevant. C'est certes la biographie d'un homme exceptionnel -il y en eut d'autres- dont les productions pourtant capitales autant que méconnues auraient mérité un peu plus d'attention à mon gré. Que resterait il aujourd'hui de la mémoire de A.J. Higgins sans ses productions?
Alors pourquoi les éluder ou se contenter d'un survol à 10000ft?
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Walkers Pre
5.0 out of 5 stars Andrew Jackson Higgins
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 29, 2016
Verified Purchase
Just arrived, very pleased & looking forward to learning more about this great man.
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Islander.
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2018
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All good, very happy with service.
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Ian
4.0 out of 5 stars Well-told tale of a remarkable man
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 7, 2010
Verified Purchase
Higgins was another of these remarkable men that war throws up. A hard-drinking Irish-American from Nebraska, he set up a factory in New Orleans that manufactured landing craft, with a design derived from rum-running boats that, obviously, were good at quick landings on beaches.

At one time his wooden LCVP "Higgins Boats" landing craft and PT torpedo boats were a quarter of the US Navy by number. This involved deforesting chunks of Florida.

He was also famous for employing blacks and even women at equal pay rates-the first in Florida. Of course, he was violently anti-union, so this may have been a device to keep wages down.

After the war, as these great characters seem to, he went bust.

This is the well-written story of what he did and who he was.
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Mr. Alan A. Herbert
5.0 out of 5 stars The Bost that won the Pacific War
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 8, 2016
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Great book
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