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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