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Andrew Jackson Higgins (28 August 1886 – 1 August 1952) was the founder and owner of 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, but later 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.〔Neushul, Peter. “Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Mass Production of World War II Landing Craft.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 39, no. 2 (Spring, 1998): 133-166. JSTOR, accessed April 6, 2015. 〕 At the time of the war, more than ninety-six percent of US Navy ships were "Higgins boats".〔Douglas, Brinkley. “The Man Who Won the War for Us.” American Heritage (May, 2000): 49. EBSCO, accessed April 6, 2015. 〕 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." Even Adolf Hitler recognized his heroic war efforts in ship production and bitterly dubbed him the "New Noah."〔Brinkley, Douglas, ''The Man Who Won the War for Us'', American Heritage, 20000101, Vol. 51, Issue 3〕〔Herman, Arthur. ''Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II,'' pp. 204-6, Random House, New York, NY. ISBN 978-1-4000-6964-4.〕 ==Early life and barge/boatbuilding== Andrew Higgins was born on 28 August 1886 in Columbus, Nebraska, the youngest child of John Gonegle Higgins and Annie Long (O'Conor) Higgins. His father was a Chicago attorney and newspaper reporter who had relocated to Nebraska, where he served as a local judge, but died after an accidental fall when Andrew Higgins was seven years old.〔Jerry E. Strahan, (Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats that Won World War II ), 1998, page 5〕 Higgins was raised in Omaha and completed three years at Creighton Prep High School before being expelled for brawling.〔 He also served in the Nebraska Army National Guard, attaining the rank of First Lieutenant, first in the Infantry, and later in the Engineers. He gained his first experience with boat building and moving troops on the water during militia maneuvers on the Platte River.〔James Ciment, Thaddeus Russell, editors, (The Home Front Encyclopedia: United States, Britain, and Canada in World War II ), Volume 1, 2007, page 618〕 He left Omaha in 1906 to enter the lumber business in Mobile, Alabama and worked at a variety of jobs in the lumber, shipping and boat building industries in a conscious effort to enhance his experience prior to starting his own company. Four years later, Higgins became manager of a German-owned lumber-importing firm in New Orleans. In 1922, he formed his own company, the Higgins Lumber and Export Co., importing hardwood from the Philippines, Central America, and Africa and exporting bald cypress and pine. In pursuing these ends he acquired a fleet of sailing ships—said to have been the largest under American registry at that time. To service this fleet, he established his own shipyard which built and repaired his cargomen as well as the tugs and barges needed to support them. As part of his work in boat building and design Higgins completed a program in naval architecture through the National University of Sciences in Chicago, an unaccredited correspondence school, which awarded him a bachelor of science degree.〔Strahan, page 11〕〔Ted Liuzza, Miami Daily News, (Boat Builder Makes Big Business of Small-Craft Construction ), April 26, 1942〕〔Peter Neushal, Louisiana History magazine, Andrew Jackson Higgins And the Mass Production of World War II Landing Craft], Spring 1998, page 142〕 In 1926, four years after founding the Higgins Lumber and Export Co., the industrialist and shipbuilder designed the Eureka boat, a shallow-draft craft for use by oil drillers and trappers in operations along the Gulf coast and in lower Mississippi River. With a propeller recessed into a semi-tunnel in the hull, the boat could be operated in shallow waters where flotsam and submerged obstacles would render more usual types of propellers almost useless. Higgins also designed a "spoonbill" bow for his craft, allowing it to be run up onto riverbanks and then to back off with ease. His boats proved to be record-beaters; and, within a decade, he had so perfected the design that they could attain high speed in shallow water and turn practically in their own length. Stiff competition, declining world trade, and the employment of tramp steamers to carry lumber cargoes combined to put Higgins' Lumber and Export Co. out of business. Nevertheless, the indefatigable Higgins kept his boatbuilding firm (established in 1930 as Higgins Industries) in business, constructing motorboats, tugs and barges, not only for private firms and individuals but also for the United States Coast Guard. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Andrew Higgins」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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