
Andrew Higgins loved bourbon, cursed a lot and built the boats that won D-Day - danso
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/06/06/d-days-hero-andrew-higgins-loved-bourbon-cursed-a-lot-and-built-the-boat-that-won-wwii/
======
Animats
Higgins' boats are well known. Hundreds of thousands of WWII vets rode in
them, after all.

D-Day was a triumph of logistics and planning. Eisenhower, in overall charge,
was a logistics guy, which was exactly what was needed. D-Day was just the
beginning of the invasion. The purpose of D-Day was to establish beachheads
through which larger armies could be landed and then supported. The support
function was key. Without extensive logistic support, the heroics necessary to
force a hostile landing were pointless. The Dieppe and Dunkirk failures had
clearly established this. Eisenhower delayed D-Day until huge support
resources had been built up.

There were Higgins boats, in both infantry and tank sizes. There were Dual
Drive tanks, Sherman tanks which could float, sort of, for a short while.
(Many didn't make it to the beach, but those that did meant the troops had
armor on their side.) There were "Hobart's Funnies", tanks with strange
attachments to flail their way through minefields and barbed wire. There were
the Mulberry temporary ports, sections floated over and sunk to create jetties
to which cargo ships could dock and unload. Fuel pipelines were unrolled
across the English channel to carry fuel in bulk.

In the later stages of the invasion, more and more support resources were
ferried over and deployed. This included multiple mobile Coca-Cola bottling
plants and mobile bakeries.

Eisenhower wrote that the conquest of Europe pretty much followed his original
plan. Probably the greatest triumph of the waterfall method, ever.

~~~
digi_owl
> multiple mobile Coca-Cola bottling plants

seriously?

~~~
jbm
Coke men were given a lot of privileges during WW2. There is an entire section
of "For God, Country and Coca-Cola" which is about this. Coca-Cola basically
pledged to provide Coke for the soldiers everywhere they went. It was a
publicity triumph, and also helped make sure Coke could keep getting the sugar
they needed during ww2.

Source: I work at Coca-Cola (a bottler in Japan), but mostly this book:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203586.For_God_Country_a...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203586.For_God_Country_and_Coca_Cola)

------
js2
_Higgins was not native to the South, despite his love of bourbon._

That's because it's a delicious spirit. It's whiskey after all, the essence of
beer.

Speaking of which, I recently had a Sierra Nevada Barrel-Aged "Islay Fog". I
happen to have found it delicous, but regardless, its manufacture is quite
interesting if you think about it.

In case you aren't aware, American whiskey is aged in new oak barrels whose
insides have been charred. Those barrels are then sent to Scotland, where they
are used to age Scotch whisky. In the case of Scotch from the island of Islay,
the malted barley is toasted over a peat fire, which is what gives Islay
Scotches their distinctive smokey flavor.

So here we have an American beer that was aged in a barrel formerly used to
age Islay Scotch, formerly used to age Bourbon, imparting a peat flavor. A
barrel traveled twice across the Atlantic, and is probably at least a dozen
years old, and held three different alcohols, just so I could have a delicous
drink.

~~~
sbuttgereit
Hear, hear. I'm a bit of a Scotch anorak and I do love my beer & bourbon as
well.

The importance of the casks cannot be understated I believe; American
Oak/Bourbon casks are a wonderful, core part of the whisky experience, though
there are other types of casks that are used (sherry casks have been in vogue
of late, for example).

Your final point, which I construe ultimately to be about the nature of trade
that made the Bourbon, the Scotch, and the Beer, is well taken and is a true
wonder of trade's relationship to the enhancement of humanity (qua man). It
naturally also reminds me of George Thorogood and leaves me to ponder that his
song could all have been sourced from the same barrel. Hmm.....

~~~
thunderbong
I had never heard the word 'anorak' used that way before. Thank you for
enlightening me.

Anorak

1\. A kind of heavy jacket

2\. Someone considered boring because of their obsessive hobby or narrow
solitary interests

~~~
sbuttgereit
My understanding is that the second meaning (which my wife agrees with in
full) comes from train spotters in the UK who would wear their anoraks whilst
in the field.

Of course, Scotch being an obsessive hobby could also just be called
alcoholism... but that's a entirely different comment thread :-)

------
freshyill
Put a day aside (seriously, a FULL day) and visit the WWII museum next time
you're in New Orleans. I believe it's built on the location of the Higgins
Boat factory.

------
jackyinger
Anyone else notice that the press seems to be dredging HN for stories? I saw
this same basic story posted here a week or so ago from a different (non-
press) site. Forgive my inability to find a link to it.

~~~
dang
Maybe
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14392632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14392632)?
More likely WaPo got it from that site. At least I'd be surprised if they got
it from HN.

You're right that that was a better submission, though. Obscure, substantive,
curiosity-gratifying... the best.

------
stretchwithme
It will be robotic boats next time. They'll be small and numerous. The smaller
they are, the less likely they'll be attacked themselves and the more likely
they'll sink the opposing "battleboats".

~~~
aisofteng
Interesting speculation. What's it based on?

~~~
jonnathanson
"Zerg swarms" of smaller, less expensive, easily replaceable ships have
trounced our carrier battle groups in at least one high-profile war game we
conducted a few years ago. At the time, I think we assumed these were little
more than manned, modestly weaponized, high-speed cigarette boats.

It's reasonable to speculate that drone swarms will become a real thing,
probably very soon. Will they replace aircraft carriers? Not for decades,
unless we stumble into a war and get humiliated by an enemy swarm. (For what
it's worth, I think we've become so arrogant that another military humiliation
in our lifetimes is almost a certainty. But now I'm editorializing.)

But again, this seems so reasonable as to almost seem inevitable. When you no
longer have to worry about feeding, accommodating, and protecting human
sailors, it's pretty amazing how much smaller, faster, cheaper, and more
performant your ships can get.

~~~
paulddraper
Perhaps true for amphibious assaults, but like you said, it won't replace
aircraft carriers. Or submarines. Minimum size requirement on launching
airplanes with weapons and fuel. And minimum size on nuclear reactor and
ICBMs. Oh, and you'll want really nice artillery, so keep around the
battleships.

~~~
jfoutz
Maybe I'm missing the joke. There aren't any battleships in the navy anymore,
are there? Submarines will be around as long as they ensure MAD.

I worry carriers will be like ships of the line after the invention of iron
hulls. Huge investment instantly obsolete by new technology. The u.s. Is in a
great position to repeat the British empire's mistakes.

~~~
paulddraper
> There aren't any battleships in the navy anymore, are there?

That's correct. To your earlier point :), post-Cold War consensus is that the
traditional battleship should be replaced by destroyers with modern targeting
capabilities.

So the US Navy is somewhat in between ships for naval gunfire support.

The Zumwalt-class destroyers [1] were supposed to take over here but that's
been a bit of boondoggle.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-
class_destroyer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer)

------
MiddleEndian
Now these amphibious boats drive tourists around in cities like Boston and
Seattle, occasionally causing bad accidents because they're the only military
vehicles on the road.

------
tdburn
It's always fascinating to learn how things came about, especially how a war
machine is supplied, and how individuals can make such great impacts

------
_Codemonkeyism
Air superiority won D-Day.

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Which is the reason the US fought for air superiority first in any conflict
after WW2.

