Higgins Boat Company PT Boat Badge REPRODUCTION
Higgins Industries was owned by Andrew Higgins based in New Orleans, Louisiana that is most famous for the design and production of the Higgins boat, an amphibious landing craft referred to as LCVP (landing craft, vehicles, personnel), which was used extensively during the Allied D-Day Invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Higgins expanded rapidly to meet the U.S. Government's requirements during World War II, going from a single plant employing fewer than 75 people before the War to seven plants employing more than 20,000 workers by 1943. Higgins employed the first fully integrated working force of women and men, African Americans and whites in New Orleans. In 1964, Dwight D. Eisenhower said to historian Stephen Ambrose: "Andrew Higgins is the man who won the war for us. If Higgins had not designed and built those landing craft, we never would have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different." In addition to the LCVP landing craft, Higgins Ind