Andrew Higgins was a man who swore. A lot. He was a hard-drinking, tough-talking boat builder from New Orleans who probably didn't realize he was about to save Western civilization with a piece of plywood and some mahogany. When we talk about the Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel, or the LCVP, we aren't just talking about a boat. We’re talking about the literal bridge between the ocean and the end of the Third Reich.
Eisenhower famously told Stephen Ambrose that Andrew Higgins was "the man who won the war for us." That's high praise. But if you look at the tech, it makes sense. Without a way to get tanks, Jeeps, and thousands of shivering, seasick teenagers onto a beach without a deep-water port, the Allied strategy was dead in the water.
The Design That Nobody Wanted at First
The Navy was skeptical. Honestly, they were more than skeptical; they were downright dismissive. They wanted their own designs, which were mostly heavy, over-engineered, and prone to getting stuck in the surf. Higgins had been building "Eureka" boats for trappers and oil drillers in the Louisiana bayous. These boats had a "tunnel stern" that protected the propeller from logs and gunk.
It worked.
The Navy eventually realized they couldn't land on a shallow beach with their traditional hulls. They needed something that could run aground, drop a ramp, and then—this is the crucial part—actually get back off the beach. The Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel was born out of a desperate need for simplicity. It was basically a floating shoebox.
It wasn't armored. Not really. The hull was made of wood. You read that right. Most of the LCVP was constructed from high-grade plywood. While that sounds flimsy, it made the boat incredibly light and easy to mass-produce in a city like New Orleans that had plenty of lumber but not enough steel. To give the guys inside a fighting chance, Higgins added some light steel plating to the sides and the ramp, but it wouldn't stop a direct hit from anything substantial. It was built for speed and volume, not for tanking shots.
How the LCVP Actually Worked in the Surf
If you’ve seen the opening of Saving Private Ryan, you have a decent idea of the chaos, but the physics of the Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel are even more intense. The boat used a 225-horsepower Gray Marine diesel engine. It wasn't fast. We’re talking about maybe 9 to 12 knots.
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Imagine 36 men crammed into a space roughly the size of a modern master bathroom. They’re carrying 60 pounds of gear. The flat bottom of the boat means it hits every single wave like a hammer striking an anvil. Everyone is vomiting. The smell of diesel exhaust, salt spray, and bile is thick.
The coxswain stands at the back, exposed. He’s steering this plywood box toward a beach where people are actively trying to kill him. The Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel was designed with a very shallow draft—only about 3 feet at the stern and even less at the bow. This allowed it to drive straight onto the sand.
Once the boat hit the beach, the coxswain would keep the engine in forward gear. This "pinning" technique kept the boat from being turned sideways by the waves, a disaster called "broaching." If you broached, you were a sitting duck and the boat was useless for the next wave of troops. The ramp dropped via a cable and winch system, the men ran out (hopefully into waist-deep water or less), and then the coxswain had to reverse the engine, pray the winch didn't jam, and back out into the chaos to go get more guys.
The Specifics of the Build
People often confuse the LCVP with the LCM (Landing Craft Mechanized). The LCM was bigger and could carry a tank. The Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel was the workhorse for the "little guys."
- Length: About 36 feet.
- Beam: 10 feet, 10 inches.
- Capacity: 36 troops, or a 6,000-pound vehicle, or 8,100 pounds of general cargo.
- Armament: Two .30 caliber machine guns, usually mounted near the stern. These were mostly for "suppressive fire," which is a polite way of saying they hoped to distract the guys on the dunes while the ramp dropped.
The sheer scale of production was insane. Higgins Industries went from a small outfit to employing over 30,000 people. They were turning out these boats like a bakery turns out loaves of bread. By the end of the war, over 23,000 LCVPs had been built. That is a staggering number for a vessel that was essentially considered disposable technology.
What Most People Get Wrong About the "Higgins Boat"
A common misconception is that the LCVP was used for every landing. It wasn't. In the Pacific, the military started leaning more on LVTs (Landing Vehicle Tracked) because of the coral reefs. A plywood LCVP hitting a jagged coral reef is a bad day for everyone involved. The reefs would tear the bottom out of a wooden boat before it got anywhere near the sand.
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However, in Europe? The Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel was king. At Normandy, it was the primary delivery system for the first waves.
Another myth is that the boats were deathtraps. While the casualties on D-Day were horrific, the boat itself was remarkably reliable. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. It got the men to the shore. The fact that the boat was made of wood also meant it was easier to repair in the field. A carpenter with some glue and a few planks could patch a bullet hole in a Higgins boat a lot faster than a welder could fix a steel hull.
The Logistics of a New Orleans Miracle
Higgins was a disruptor before that word was annoying. He hired black workers, women, the elderly, and people with disabilities long before it was standard practice. He paid them all the same wage based on their job. He didn't do it out of some modern sense of corporate social responsibility; he did it because he had thousands of Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel to build and he needed every pair of hands he could find.
The factory was a chaotic masterpiece. Parts were moving, engines were being dropped in, and the boats were being tested in the nearby lake. It was the epitome of American industrial might.
The boat also had a weirdly long afterlife. After World War II, many were sold as surplus. You could find old LCVPs being used as workboats, fishing vessels, or even small ferries for decades. Because they were so simple—just a hull, a ramp, and a reliable diesel engine—they were nearly impossible to kill.
Why the LCVP Matters in 2026
If you go to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans today, you can see a replica. It looks small. It looks vulnerable. But looking at it helps you understand the shift in military philosophy. Before the Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel, if you wanted to invade a country, you had to capture a port. You had to take a city with docks and cranes.
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Higgins changed that. He made the entire coastline a frontline. This forced the German high command to spread their defenses thin across thousands of miles of Atlantic wall because they didn't know where the plywood boxes would show up.
It was the ultimate democratization of naval warfare. It wasn't a billion-dollar battleship; it was a $12,000 wooden boat that changed the map of the world.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs and Tech Lovers
If you're looking to dive deeper into the world of amphibious warfare or the history of the Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel, don't just stick to the movies.
Visit the Sources
Check out the Jerry Strahan biography of Andrew Higgins. It’s gritty and covers the business side—the lawsuits, the fights with the Navy, and the sheer grit it took to get these boats made.
Understand the Mechanics
Look into the Gray Marine 6-71 engine. It’s a legendary piece of machinery. Learning how that engine functioned in a saltwater environment tells you a lot about 1940s engineering resilience.
Explore the Geography
If you’re ever in New Orleans, skip the tourist traps for a day and go to the lakefront where the original tests happened. Standing there, you realize the scale of the operation.
The Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel reminds us that sometimes the most sophisticated solution is the simplest one. You don't always need more armor; sometimes you just need a better ramp and a guy from Louisiana who refuses to take "no" for an answer.