Rare wartime boat to be restored

Last Modified: 07 Aug 2008
Source: PA News

A vintage Second World War landing craft brought from the UK is to be restored and preserved by an American museum.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum moved the rare Higgins boat - believed to be one of only about a dozen of its kind left - to its Watercraft Centre in Beaufort, where restoration work costing about £25,000 will begin on Thursday.

"There are only four left in the US, including this one, so it's a very unique boat," museum spokeswoman Michelle McConnell said. "We have the opportunity to restore one of these, which is restoring history."

Few of the wooden boats remained after the war, and some were significantly modified. The Higgins boat travelled from England to Baltimore to Beaufort before it was transferred from the museum's expansion site at Gallants Channel.

Workers had to fabricate and weld a tongue and axle to move the 10-ton, 36ft boat a mile and a half through Beaufort, she said. The journey took 45 minutes.

The shallow-draft, barge-like boat could transfer troops directly from larger vessels to a beach, making amphibious assaults possible.

According to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Higgins boats were used in every major American amphibious operation in Europe and the Pacific, including D-Day in Normandy, and were deemed crucial to the success of those operations.

About 36,000 of the boats were manufactured during the war, but the museum believes its boat is among only a dozen still in existence.

"Chances are, given that it was in Europe, it was used by either British or American forces during the war, otherwise it wouldn't have been sent there," said Paul Fontenoy, the North Carolina museum's curator.

The boat will be restored as near as possible to its original condition. The first job is to deal with rust and rot. In about six to eight months, the vessel should be restored and returned to its owner, the First Division Museum in Wheaton, Illinois, where it will be on display.

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