Image description: "Our boat taken at Morotai while staging for invasion of Borneo." (Personal collection of Norman Nigh.) The photo was taken sometime between May 4 and June 9, 1945. The rectangular structure to the left of the wheelhouse and crew is the living quarters Norm and his boat mates constructed while in New Guinea. Presumably they continued to utilize it while traveling on their "Mike" from Aitape, New Guinea to Morotai, a journey lasting over two weeks.
A "Love Charlie Mike," or a "Mike" (based on the alpha-numeric code for LCM, or Landing Craft, Mechanized, which is the craft's designated name), was at the center of Norman's world during the 593rd EBSR's nearly two years in the Southwest Pacific. The "Mike" was a revolutionary craft specifically designed for the amphibious landing needs of the Second World War. Norman's LCM was a 50 feet long, 14 feet wide, steel hulled, twin diesel engine-powered landing craft designed to deposit a 30-ton tank, 60,000 lbs. of cargo, or 60 troops directly onto a beach. Four soldier-seaman were assigned to each LCM- a coxswain, an engineman, and two crew. It could travel at speeds of up to 8 knots when loaded and 10 knots when empty. These were the craft that Norman and his fellow amphibious engineers used to deposit equipment, troops and supplies on beachheads and undertake shore and river patrols throughout New Guinuea and Borneo. Norm's LCM "Old 34" also served as sleeping quarters for much of his time in New Guinea.
Image description: Diagram of an LCM (source: ONI226 Allied Landing Craft and Ships, Division of Naval Intelligence)
The LCM, or tank-lighter (or "Mike") was the brainchild of Andrew Jackson Higgins, legendary boat builder and founder of Higgins Industries that revolutionized military boat design in the late 1930's and early 1940's. His craft enabled the Army, Navy and Marines to successfully engage in amphibious assault operations in both theaters of the war. Nebraska-born, Higgins emigrated to Louisiana as a young man to work in the lumber industry before launching his boat-building empire. Over the course of the war, Higgin's New Orleans-based operation churned out over 20,000 craft of varying types for the Allies. The LCM, as well as the smaller design on which it is based, the LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel) are frequently referred to as "Higgins Boats." General Eisenhower, whose D-Day operations relied heavily on Higgins-designed landing craft including LCMs recognized the boat-builder as "the man who won the war for us."
Image description: Andrew Jackson Higgins- the man behind the Mikes. (Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Higgins1000p4.jpeg)
By June 1943, the Army desperately needed LCMs for amphibious landing operations in the Southwest Pacific, but at 50 feet in length, the craft were too big to be shipped out on traditional military transport. Cargo ships' precious deck space- the only place a "Mike" could fit- were already given to higher-priority aircraft. To solve the problem, Higgins developed a method whereby an LCM would be completely built, then cut into 19 sections. Engines, hardware, and each of the 19 sections would be crated, transported by rail to California, then loaded onto Liberty ships, on which the pieces would travel across the Pacific in the cargo holds, where space was available. Upon reaching their respective destinations, the LCMs were then rebuilt.
Image description: LCMs under construction at a Higgins Industries plant in July 1942. (Image source: Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/item/2017694469/)
Norman's "Mike" was reassembled in Milne Bay on the eastern tip of New Guinea. The 563rd Engineer Boat Maintenance Battalion (of the 3rd Engineer Special Brigade) arrived in Milne Bay in September 1943 to set up the reassembly plant. Norman and the rest of the 3rd ESB followed, arriving in the area on February 2, 1944. At its capacity, the plant churned out 150 LCMs per month.
Image description: "Changing props and shafts on my boat in Madang." (Personal collection of Norman Nigh). The photo was taken at some point between April 24, 1944 and February 2, 1945, when Company C was based at Madang. The fellow squatting in front of the "Mike" is Norman's boat mate Robert Acklin of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Norman received his "Mike"- Number 34- sometime between February 2 (after his arrival on Goodenough Island) and April 17 (when he and his crew traveled to Saidor for their first combat mission). For this, members of the 593rd journeyed to Milne Bay to claim their crafts, which they then brought back to Goodenough Island. As mentioned above, LCMs typically had a crew of four- which included a coxswain, enginemen, and two crew members. Based on notes written on the back of his photos, Norman served as his LCM's coxswain. He would have been in charge of the boat and crew. Two other crew members that I can suss out from descriptions on the backs of his photos are Al (Alfred) Fikis of Chicago, Illinois, whom I believe was the engineman, and Robert Acklin of Pittsburgh, PA. I am not sure about the fourth crew member. In October 1945, after Japan's surrender, as Norman and his crew prepared to depart Borneo for the Philippines, the men bid their "Mike" farewell and turned it over to the Australian troops on Labuan Island.
Image description: "Hauling my boat out of water at Madang in N.G." (Personal collection of Norman Nigh)
References:
Dormaier, Alfred A. "Brief History of Company C" (U.S. Army War College, Historical Records Branch, 1945)
Paquette, Ernest W., Our Business is Beachheads: The 3rd ESB and 593rd EB&SR, (Self-Published, 1993)
Strahan, Jerry E., Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats that Won World War II (Louisiana State University Press, 1998)
Watson, Robert Meredith, Jr. Seahorse Soldiering: MacArthur's Amphibian Engineers from New Guinea to Nagoya (Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation, 2003)
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