Landing Craft Mechanized (Higgins LCM)

The Higgins Landing Craft Mechanized, usually called the LCM or tank lighter and nicknamed the Mike boat, was the large steel landing craft that Higgins Industries designed as the heavier companion of the wooden LCVP. Andrew Higgins saw a Bureau of Ships plan for a tank lighter on a trip to Washington in April 1941. When a Navy and Marine Corps board came to New Orleans, his team cut down a towboat hull and had a 45 foot craft ready in 61 hours, and the board ordered 50. A steel ramp let it put a Sherman tank, or about sixty equipped men, straight onto a beach, and hundreds of LCMs crossed to Normandy under their own power on D-Day. Higgins applied for a patent on a lighter for mechanized equipment on 8 December 1941. The LCM designation also covers British and Navy Bureau designs, so this entry describes the Higgins version.