ANDREW JACKSON HIGGINS
Builder of over 90 percent of the U. S. Navy World War II Boats
Builder of over 90 percent of the U. S. Navy World War II Boats. Frequent expression when challenged by established boat and ship builders on his claims of how many and how fast he could build boats for the World War II Navy. Higgins and his lumber company had little experience at boat building, but he recruited and trained Blacks and women and delivered over 20,000 vessels to the Navy.
Andrew Jackson Higgins founded Higgins Industries, the New Orleans-based manufacturer of "Higgins boats" (LCVPs) during World War II. The company started out as a small boat-manufacturing business, and became one of the biggest industries in the world with upwards of eighty thousand workers and government contracts worth nearly three hundred fifty million dollars. General Dwight Eisenhower is quoted as saying, "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." Adolf Hitler recognized his heroic war efforts in ship production and bitterly dubbed him the "New Noah".
