Andrew Higgins
|birth_place =
Columbus, Nebraska
|occupation = Owner of
Higgins Industries, boatbuilder
|spouse = Angele ''Colsson'' Higgins (1889-1965)
| children = 6
|death_date =
|death_place =
New Orleans,
Louisiana
|education =
Creighton Prep High School
}}
Andrew Jackson Higgins (28 August 1886 – 1 August 1952) was an American businessman and boatbuilder who founded
Higgins Industries, the
New Orleans-based manufacturer of "
Higgins boats" (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel, or LCVPs) during
World War II. The company started out as a small boat-manufacturing business, and 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. 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."
Adolf Hitler recognized Higgins war efforts in ship production and bitterly dubbed him the "New
Noah".
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