1920/30s USCG destroyers - The Rum War at Sea

[spence]

While the Navy was experimenting with carriers and practicing for the war that never happened the US Coast Guard was prosecuting a real war at sea against the "Rum-Runners" off the coast of thirsty America. Although there were no mass casualties there was substantial action involving operational strategies and tactics pursued by both sides in the conflict. The Navy lent the Coast Guard a dozen or so four-pipers (and older) DDs which the CG used into the thirties: valuable training of the Officers and Petty Officers for the World War to come.

http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/ ... erPage.pdf

[LargeSlowTarget]

Rum is good!

Related note: A certain Mr. Higgins of New Orleans made a fortune by selling fast boats to the Coast Guard - and even faster boats to the rum-runners [:D].

The design eventually culminated in the Higgins PT boat.

[JeffroK]

I think Mr Higgins invented the LCVP, not the PT Boat.
And they were used more by the Rum smugglers than the USCG.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Andrew Jackson Higgins designed racing motorboats, Prohibition-era rum running boats, and the fast patrol
boats which the Coast Guard used to pursue the rum runners. The Higgins boat was the landing craft used by
U.S. Marines in the Guadalcanal invasion. Higgins influenced the design of the well armed PT patrol boats of
Pacific war fame and several types of landing craft (Dunnigan and Nofi, The Pacific War).

In 1941 the Navy sponsored a competition ("Plywood Derby") between several PT boat designs from three manufacturers - Higgins, ELCO and Huckins.
In the end the Navy purchased PTs from all three.

[Symon]

IIRC (but I do have senior moments), the genesis of the 'Higgins boat' (the LVP not the LCVP) was from his designs for fast, beachable craft for the smuggling trade in the Gulf coast/bayou regions. A very interesting man. My kind of fellow. And, oh yeah, he did different designs for the cops and the 'leggers'. A lot like the car people in the mountains back then, tweakin a car one way to run 'shine' and another way for the 'locals' trying to catch them.

He didn't invent the PT or the LCVP, but both owe a lot to his particular blend of innovative genius and je ne sais quoi.

Getting technical, his forebody shape, and dynamic lateral resistance shapes and strakes, were indeed used by all manufacturers of PT boats. He was a supremely competent practical Naval Architect, among his other attributes.

Just IMHO. Ciao. JWE