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Higgins Industries

In the late 1930s, the U.S. military began developing small boats that could carry troops from ships to open beaches. Andrew Jackson Higgins of New Orleans, who had been manufacturing shallow-water work boats to support oil and gas exploration in the Louisiana bayous, adapted his Eureka Boat to meet the military’s specifications for a landing craft. Designated the Landing Craft Personnel (Large), or LCP(L), it was used in the invasions of Guadalcanal and North Africa in 1942. He was, according to Dwight D. Eisenhower, "the man who won the war for us."

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    The National WWII Museum has long highlighted the wartime contributions of Andrew Higgins and his company, Higgins Industries, in building thousands of landing craft that were vital to amphibious invasions. Now the institution is exploring a little-known role the New Orleans company played in the Manhattan Project as America raced to develop an nuclear weapon.

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