Volunteer’s Reproduced LCVP Landing Craft at World War II Museum

The National World War II Museum is a wonderful place and the volunteers that work their add a lot to it.  It is especially impressive when efforts of volunteers can bring a boat back to life and that is exactly what volunteers at the National World War II Museum did with the LCVP Amphibious Landing Craft  that is right inside the museum’s entrance.  This is one of the boats that was built in New Orleans  a company started by Andrew Jackson Higgins who is credited with creating two types of military craft, the high-speed PT boats which carried anti-aircraft machine guns, etc and the landing craft boats that were so important at the D-Day invasion.s boats on display.

It is a landing craft boat that is on display when entering the museum.  The boat is an amphibious LCVP Landing Craft which volunteer Jimmy Duckworth, who was in charge of the volunteer project said, was created from five or six boats worldwide.  “We took the ramp from a boat that was a World War II veteran’s dream.  He bought it at a surplus auction after World War II.  He had dreams of making it into a family yacht to make day trips. The boat died behind the house and it fell apart over the years. The son who worked with me in 2,000 said he was well into his 60’s and as a child he played on it and remembered hitting the beach on its ramp many times.”

The ramp is what made it possible for soldiers to land on the beaches and get on and off the boats easily.

Volunteer Kurt Garcia said that the boat was christened in a former shipyard and pointed out that the sides and back and bottom of the boat are all made from mahogany.

Besides this fullsize boat, visitors can also enjoy smaller models of this and a few other of Higgins boats in a display case inside the museum as well.  For more information, log onto https://www.nationalww2museum.org/.