Higgins boat : On December 8, 1941, just one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, American boat designer Andrew Higgins filed a patent for a landing craft that would later become known as the Higgins Boat. The design featured a retractable bow ramp that allowed troops, vehicles and supplies to drive straight onto enemy beaches instead of climbing over the sides of a boat under fire, as per a report.
The invention became the Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP), better known as the Higgins Boat, and was used to land Allied troops in North Africa, Italy, Normandy, islands across the Pacific and along the Rhine River, as per a United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) report.
