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This Higgins boat is a survivor of the Normandy D-Day invasion - June 6th, 1944. This Higgins boat comes from the First Division Museum.
These half wood - half steel LCVPs (Landing-craft vehicle personnel) were designed by Andrew Higgins who built wooden boats for the backwaters of Louisiana. Higgins knew the Navy would need thousands of small boats and was sure that steel would be in short supply, so he bought the entire 1939 crop of mahogany from the Philippines and stored it. At his own expense he built three test boats with this wood and demonstrated them to the Navy in 1941.
Eventually, 23,358 LCVPs were produced by a number of manufacturers during WWII. Higgins boats were used in 6 amphibious landings in the European theater including North Africa, the Italian Campaign and Normandy. And in the Pacific Theater they were used in 126 landings including the Battles of Tarawa, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
The Normandy invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning, a huge logistical effort, special feats of engineering, and probably most important, close cooperation among the armies, navies and air forces of all the participating Allied nations. The Higgins boats played an important role bringing troops, tanks, armored vehicles and supplies to the beaches. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of the war in Europe.
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The United States is one of the most diverse countries on earth, jam packed full of amazing sights from St. Patrick's cathedral in New York to Mount Hollywood California.The Northeast region is where it all started. Thirteen British colonies fought the American Revolution from here and won their independence in the first successful colonial rebellion in history. Take a look at these rolling hills carpeted with foliage along the Hudson river here, north of New York City.The American south is known for its polite people and slow pace of life. Probably they move slowly because it's so hot. Southerners tend not to trust people from "up north" because they talk too fast. Here's a cemetery in Georgia where you can find graves of soldiers from the Civil War.The West Coast is sort of like another country that exists to make the east coast jealous. California is full of nothing but grizzly old miners digging for gold, a few gangster rappers, and then actors. That is to say, the West Coast functions as the imagination of the US, like a weird little brother who teases everybody then gets famous for making freaky art.The central part of the country is flat farmland all the way over to the Rocky Mountains. Up in the northwest corner you can find creative people in places like Portland and Seattle, along with awesome snowboarding and good beer. Text by Steve Smith.
