I'm Dan Starks, founder of the National Museum of Military Vehicles. In this video, I'm going to do a little bit of a deeper dive into the Higgins boat that we have on display here in the museum than we usually do on a conventional tour of the museum. There just isn't enough time on a tour to cover highlights of so many things that we have here, much less to go into detail on specific vehicles. This boat has a wonderful history, a lot of good detail to share. The starting point for an amphibious for a discussion of the Higgins boat would be to talk about amphibious combat assaults in the first place. So prior to World War II, we had no experience for all practical purposes, very little experience with amphibious combat assaults. If you think about World War I, for example, when we sent the American Expeditionary Force over to Europe, they sailed on ocean liners, troop ships, civilian ocean liners. They got off those ocean-goering vessels at friendly French ports and marched up to the front lines. But in World War II, that wasn't an option for us. All of the ports that we otherwise would have used to land American troops were in enemy hands in the European theater of operations and in the Pacific theater of operations, not only was, is Japan itself a series of islands, but Japan had created a buffer zone of fortified islands that kept us from reaching Japan itself with the minor exception of the dew little rate. So in order to get at Japan, we had to start attacking outermost islands, taking them one at a time, getting closer and closer to Japan until we could reach Japan itself. That became known as our island hopping campaign. And almost all of those island attacks required us to get from an ocean-goering ship to a beach without the benefit of port or harbor facilities in combat conditions. So that's the challenge is how are we going to do it? We didn't have the boats to do it with. We didn't have the doctrine worked out on how to do it. So we had to really come up to speed very fast in order to take on Nazi Germany and take on Imperial Japan in the early phases of World War II. We have a variety of boats in this diorama that are each one of which are inventions that the United States came up with in the early phases of World War II to help us do these amphibious combat assaults. The most famous invention is the Higgins boat, an example of which I'm standing in front of. In 1937, Higgins filed a patent application on a unique hull design. Higgins was a boat builder in Louisiana, in Louisiana, in the New Orleans area. And because of that location, Higgins had reason to have a boat that could navigate the Louisiana bayou without getting stuck in the swamp without having the propeller filed by the weeds vegetation. And so to solve that problem, Higgins came up with the idea of having kind of a complex hull. And I'm going to pull out of my pocket here a spoon. And so this gives you a little bit of an idea. This is really the concept of the hull design Higgins patented. If you think of this as the forward part of the boat hull, it's convex. If you look at the aft part or the stern part of the hull, you see its concave. So this combination of convex and concave was really the beauty of Higgins' design. The convex portion of the hull pushed aside debris, kind of paved the way for the propeller to come along behind in the propeller then was up in this concave area, partly protected by a partial channel or tunnel. And so this combination then was really represented the beauty of these complex curves, represented the innovation that Higgins was able to patent with the application he filed in 1937. He has multiple uses for this boat, but the real home run for him would be if he could get a contract with the Navy and apply this special design for military purposes with just a large volume of boats that he could manufacture. So he negotiates with the Navy, initially Navy's not interested, but ultimately Higgins persuades the Navy that his design is better than anything that the Navy can come up with on its own and better than anything that any other contractors or contractor candidate are able to offer to the Navy. So Higgins gets a Navy contract to develop this special amphibious combat assault boat. This convex hull can beach on the sand and without, and the engine still is in good water to continue to then retract and back the boat off the beach after the assault troops have unloaded from the beach. In this first version, technically was referred to as an LCPL, landing craft personnel large. So that's what the Higgins boat started as. And what the design is different than what you see behind me here, that design had a conventional bow. And that design had machine gun positions on either side in the forward part of the boat on either side of the bow. So troops had to, when they unloaded from the LCPL, they had to climb over the side into the water and move through the water now to get up on the dry land. Because time went on, an improvement that Higgins made was to put a narrow ramp in between those two machine gun positions. And so then troops didn't have to go over the side. They had a bottleneck as they came from the interior of the boat to now hit this narrow ramp and offload through the bow of the boat. And that was really the state of the amphibious landing craft from Higgins Industries as World War II broke out. The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, so the Japanese attacked December 7, 1941. December 8, 1941 is just kind of interesting to me. It's the very next day after that Sunday attack, first business day after that, Higgins files another patent application. This patent application is for a different bow design. This patent application is for a ramp from the starboard side to the port side covered the entire bow. So no conventional bow, just a blunt end ramp that dropped. So that was the second patent application and the second patent Higgins added onto his unique holiday sign. That leads now to what came to be known not as a landing craft personnel, but as a landing craft vehicle and personnel, LCVP. There's not really an end in there. It's just landing craft, vehicle, personnel. And that now is what Eisenhower credited Higgins with as being really instrumental in the United States ability to establish effective beachheads and land anywhere a beach was available. Part of the advantage for the American military strategy was we didn't have to take ports. We didn't, the enemy couldn't concentrate their forces at ports that we were going to have to take in order to land. We could land anywhere there's a shoreline. So the enemy had to defend just miles and miles and miles of shoreline and spread their forces out and not knowing where we're going to attack. And then we could concentrate our forces at the point of attack. So it was a big deal whether this was against the Japanese or whether this was against Nazi Germany. With this design now refined, ultimately the United States manufactured more than 23,000 of these Higgins boats and that we never had enough of them. We just couldn't get enough of them. A lot of times if we're thinking of initiating a new assault, the first question was well, can we get the boats? And a lot of times the answer was, nope, they're being committed to some other campaign. But more than 23,000. So that brings us past the history of the Higgins boat and now to detail of the particular boat we have on display here in the museum. I'm going to start with the outside of the boat and then go into the boat and talk about some of the interior design features of the boat. I'm standing on the starboard side of our Higgins boat. And first thing I want to do is direct your attention to the markings on the boat. This is a big deal. This PA26 and the 15 are really historically significant. So the first thing is PA was the Navy abbreviation for a troop transport ship. As the war went on, PA became used not only for a troop transport ship but for an attack transport ship. So PA26 means that this boat was launched from troop transport ship or attack transport ship number 26. If you do the research on which boat was that, it turns out that's the USS Samuel Chase. The USS Samuel Chase was one of only three Arthur Middleton class troop transports. Each of those three were named after founding fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence including Samuel Chase. So the USS Samuel Chase was commissioned as an attack transport in mid-1942. So special about the Samuel Chase is it engaged in five amphibious combat assaults. It unloaded troops in five amphibious combat assaults during World War II. In our first campaign in North Africa, the USS Samuel Chase landed Higgins boats. The next amphibious assault in the European theater, assaulting Sicily, USS Chase landed Higgins boats at the assault on Solerno, USS Samuel Chase landed Higgins boats. D-Day Normandy, June 6, 1944. The USS Samuel Chase landed Higgins boats on Omaha Beach. And in fact, the particular note, the USS Samuel Chase unloaded troops from the Big Red One, the first infantry division on Omaha Beach. And there's a famous photograph of, this will come to mind for a number of you. There's a photograph of troops, first infantry division troops with the camera back toward the stern of the boat. And you just see the backs of these Americans in the water headed toward Omaha Beach. That Higgins boat came off the USS Samuel Chase. And then after the Normandy D-Day, USS Samuel Chase landed Higgins boats in the Southern France in August of 1944. After the fighting against Nazi Germany was over, USS Samuel Chase was reassigned to the Pacific Theater and participated in engagements in the Pacific Theater and landed troops in Japan, landed troops in China, was offshore Okinawa. Some of the after action, a little bit of combat still going on. After the main battle of Okinawa was declared over, the USS Samuel Chase participated in it. So that's a big deal. Who knows? You just walked past here and you think, Ho-hum, PA26, don't know what that means, I don't much care. Well, that means we're commemorating, we're honoring, we're paying a tribute to a boat that was that famous and that remarkable in the history of American freedom. Another special bonus here of recognizing the USS Samuel Chase is it was manned by the Coast Guard, not by the Navy. So we don't really give the Coast Guard enough credit here in the museum, really in any of our galleries. But here we can now really point out, yeah, the Coast Guard operated attack transports, the Coast Guard operated Higgins boats and this pays tribute to that part of our Coast Guard history. So that's the PA26 USS Samuel Chase. What's the 15-mead? Well, the USS Samuel Chase had a capacity for 33 Higgins boats. It carried 33 Higgins boats on dabbits along the sides of the ship. The USS Samuel Chase transported more than 1,300 assault troops. And so of the 33 Higgins boats, each one had a number. This is boat 15 out of 33. So that's what these markings mean. And it's kind of like a secret code that's now not a secret and it's just kind of fun to share with everybody. With that now, I'm going to go into the, I'm going to go in the interior of the Higgins boat and talk about some of the features in the interior of the boat. Here we are in the interior of the Higgins boat. We have, I'm going to call it three compartments. The largest compartment, the forward compartment is the space that assault troops would fill. Early loaded Higgins boat could hold 36 assault troops if they were loaded in a little bit like sardines, shoulder to shoulder, chest to back. So that would be the first loading of the Higgins boat. An alternative load that the Higgins boat could carry in this same space would be a small vehicle, a small motor vehicle like a Jeep, a Jeep and 12 assault troops. So a ramp, the width of the whole boat, the beauty of that is that permitted vehicles to come into the boat and unload from the boat smaller vehicles instead of just personnel leading to that name change of landing craft vehicle and personnel. It took a boat wide ramp to be able to do that. So that would be the second load. And if the Higgins boat was only carrying cargo, it could carry about 8,000 pounds of cargo. So all of that and no matter what those loads were, they would be in this forward largest compartment of the boat. What you see on the sides of the boat, everything here has got a purpose. So then on the port side of the boat are compartments for the life jackets. Life jackets for everybody that's going to be on the boat. On the starboard side of the boat, we have emergency tiller, emergency rudder, some spare parts for the boat. Well before I get to the next section of the boat, let me just talk about this bell. So back prior to the time of clocks, the Navy would keep track of the time. Not you know, not our Navy, this is back earlier times, but ships would keep track of time with our glasses. And our glasses would take 30 minutes for the sand to go from the upper chamber down to the lower chamber. And so whoever's on watch, part of the responsibilities of whoever's on watch is, each time that half hour glass emptied. The person would turn it over to get the next 30 minutes and record the end of that 30 minutes by ringing the bell. So this you would read in history about how many ships, bells, how many bells are wrong indicating what time it is. So that's where bells came into ship design in the first place. In 1900s, that wasn't the functionality of these bells anymore. Those however were maintained on ships for two reasons. I'll say three reasons, partly tradition. Partly to indicate the location of the ship or the boat in foggy conditions. Occasional ringing of the bell to let people know that you're there if they're in proximity. A third function of the bell was ceremonial. As VIPs might come out of the ship, you might acknowledge they're coming out of the ship by ringing the bell or other. I'm not really clear on all of the ceremonial occasions to ring the bell. But so that's what bells were for generally. Now when I look at the photographic record, I see bells just like this on World War II Higgins boats. I see it both ways. I see boats that don't have any bell. I've seen images of boats that do have a bell. And that's as much as I know about it for the function of the bell on a Higgins boat. I don't have a lot of information about it. But I do have information about what this bell is doing here. So the history of this particular boat is it was located in the UK here not so many years ago. But I want to acquire it with the arrangement with a shipyard in the Netherlands that because of the historic importance of this particular Higgins boat, of the Higgins boat generally to American and Netherlands history, the shipyard agreed to restore this to operating condition. As part of that restoration, the restoration team got access to this particular bell. And what's important about this bell is this participated in the British civilian boat lift transporting the British Expeditionary Force, the 300,000 British troops and a few French with them, the British Expeditionary Force trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk. So the British Navy transported some of those troops back to the UK, but it was a heroic, unprecedented civilian boat lift that carried the majority of those 300,000 troops from that trap on the beaches of Dunkirk back to the UK. And this bell was on one of those civilian boats. That boat is gone, but the family that owned that boat kept this bell because of its presence in the evacuation of the troops trapped on Dunkirk. And so to keep that story alive, the restoration team mounted this particular bell here to help prompt storytelling and memory of the British evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk. So that's what this bell is doing here. Now the other items here, you see a typical crew three or four. You've got the Coxon, you've got an engineer, you would have what was called a stern man, and you may or may not have a bow man. So three or four, I think four was more typical than three. And so here we show the driver, the Coxon, and we've got the wheel turning the rudder. Special feature here, when the ramp is raised, it blocks the view of the Coxon. And so one special feature of this wheel is it raises up. The wheel will rise, it's locked down here with the mannequin, it's not worth me raising it up, but it'll raise up so that the Coxon can get higher and see over the top of that ramp. That's one thing. We've got a couple of compasses here. This other control right to the right hand of the Coxon is the gear shifter and the accelerator. So that's this part of the controls. Now, let's move just a little bit further into the boat to look at a couple more features of the boat. I've moved further toward the stern of the boat, a little more aft, and here are some additional features worth pointing out. Now first would be these 30 caliber machine guns. The original design of the Higgins amphibious assault craft had these guns up at the bow. When a ramp was added, the ramp had to fit in between these two guns. But now with the full width ramp, there wasn't room for the machine guns. This is not an optimal location for the machine guns to put them back here toward the stern of the boat. You can see the disconnect here between the position of this machine gun and the Coxon, but it's the best they could do. So that's what these are here as a trade-off to be able to offload vehicles as well as personnel and as a trade-off for being able to offload personnel faster using a ramp that extends the entire width of the boat. Another item here is this apparatus. This is the winch for the ramp. One crew member would go up toward the bow, manually release a couple of locks adjoining the bow, and then another crew member could winch down and winch back up the ramp. The area of the boat I'm standing in front of here is the engine compartment. I'm going to just open it up here a little bit. The Higgins boat came with a Detroit diesel engine modified by Gray Marine. This particular engine is a Detroit diesel. I'm not sure if this is an original engine or if this is a later, very similar version, but it's fully functioning and the boat itself has navigated in the North Sea after it was restored by the shipyard in the Netherlands. Another item to maybe direct your attention to is this splash guard. So the purpose of the sea, you could remove it or put it in, but the purpose of the splash guard was once you've unloaded your troops or unloaded your vehicle or unloaded your cargo, you've got to back up. You've got to back up into the waves. And so this splash guard was designed to help keep water off the crew and off the engine compartment. I don't know how effective it was, but that's the purpose of that design. There are other items back here toward the stern. We've got a mounting position for an emergency teller. We have the fuel intakes to fuel up the boat. You'll see some air intakes designed to help disperse fuel fumes in that part of the boat. And Zolos, I think those are really the main things to talk about. Now an item that I should have mentioned a little bit earlier and didn't, but I mentioned it now and so no harm done, is this particular Higgins boat is a post World War II Higgins boat, this particular one. There are very few, just a handful of authentic World War II Higgins boats. The main difference between the post World War II Higgins boat and the authentic World War II Higgins boat is the material on the, forming the boat. So during World War II, although the ramp was steel and provided some protection against enemy fire right at the bow, the sides of the boat were wood. That was cheaper and it reduced the weight of the boat. And so for those, and there was higher priority for the steel, American steel, then to put it into Higgins boat. So all these compromises, the sides of the boat were wood. Now after World War II, we converted from constructing the sides of the boat from wood to constructing the sides from fiberglass. And this is a fiberglass version of the World War II boat. You see that this has been restored to look like it's a wooden authentic World War II Higgins boat. You see the wooden struts here braces along the sides. That's all just cosmetic to present this to be as close as possible to what an authentic World War II Higgins boat would look like. But we continue to use Higgins boats in the Korean War. We used them in the Vietnam War. And I'm not sure exactly what the date of manufacture on this boat was, but I do know that data manufacture on the propeller, it's August 8, 1945, right, at the tail end of World War II. So I suspect, because this propeller is what was on the boat when it was, this boat was accessed there in the UK, I suspect that this was manufactured soon after World War II. I don't know that for a fact. So those are, I think for boat features of the boat and boat design, I'm sure I've forgotten things that I wanted to bring to your attention. But at least I've covered all of the main points. So with that, I'm going to come out of the boat and talk a little bit about the human experience of conducting an amphibious combat assault in a Higgins boat. Let's move on now and talk about what was it like if you were one of these Americans or one of our allies conducting an amphibious combat assault in a Higgins boat. Now the first thing would be to talk a little bit about the tactics. Remember we needed to invent the boats. We also needed to invent the tactics. The tactics that we formed were, for example, come back to the USS Samuel Chase. USS Samuel Chase has more than 1,300 salt troops on it. We don't want that taken out by shore artillery. So it has anchored miles offshore out of the range of shore artillery. On D-Day Normandy, June 6, 1944, our attack transports were anchored 12 miles offshore. So you've got to get, first thing you got to do now, now that you're in position is you've got to get from the troop ship, from the attack transport, into the Higgins boat. Well, the tactic we evolved to do that was for the Navy or the Coast Guard to hang cargo nets over the side of the attack transport for troops to climb down that rope-like net into the little boats rising and falling in the swells, the deep water ocean swells, alongside the attack transport. So that's the first thing, is climb down that cargo net, load into the Higgins boat. Once the first boat is full, with its full complement of 36 salt troops, it pulls away from the cargo net and circles while the next boat loads and joins the circle while the next boat loads and joins the circle and so on until everybody is loaded up. Once all the Higgins boats are loaded, these circling boats form a line and now you have your first wave of Higgins boats navigating through 12 miles or so of ocean and ocean swells. As the Navy or Coast Guard gets into shallow water, usually not actually getting right up on dry sand but getting close enough as it's busy taking machine gun fire, taking artillery fire, that's a trade-off between how long you can expose yourself to the potential total destruction of the boat versus how close are you going to get the assault troops. When you're close enough, Navy or Coast Guard drops the ramp, everybody immediately rush forward in just a few minutes, the boat then retracks. Once it's far enough offshore, so it's not presenting an attractive broadside target, the boat would turn with a fairly tight turning radius, head back out to the ships to start to prepare to bring in the next wave of assault troops. So those are the tactics that we evolved. How human experience, so on the drawing table, this looks pretty straightforward. Get in the boat, get in the shallow water, get on the beach, repeat, repeat, repeat. Well, first thing to think about is the Navy tradition during World War II came to be on D-Day, it's going to be a tough day. Everybody is super stressed, you don't know when you're going to eat again, you've got to have a lot of energy for your assault and for your combat. So the Navy tradition was, well, it's going to be a long day, we'll start it off right with a special treat of staking eggs. That's the only time assault troops on an attack transport are going to get staking eggs is on D-Day. So everybody's happy, got a smile on their face, they're loading up on the staking eggs and they get into these little flat bottom boats, 10 or 12 miles offshore in deep ocean swells and they circle for several hours. And then after they've circled for several hours and everybody's ready to start approaching the beach, it's going to be 10 or 12 miles of deep water navigation before you get off the boat. So as you might imagine with a stomach full of staking eggs, shallow of relatively flat bottomed shallow draft boat, everybody or almost everybody would typically be able to really get seasick. So now you remember you've got 36 troops in here packed, shoulder to shoulder, chest to back. If you get seasick, where are you going to throw up? All you can do is throw up on the guy in front of you while the guy behind you is busy throwing up on you. Now the point is that you never see this in the Hollywood movies, but when you read the histories you see regularly everybody or almost everybody would get seasick and now think of the implications of that. Yeah, it's kind of gross, but that's not the real point. The point is if you've ever been seasick you know how weak and drained of energy you get from that seasickness. Now imagine being stuck in this boat multiple hours, seasick. You're past vomiting, you're dry heaving and just think about how drained you are when that ramp drops and you're going into combat with your life at stake and you're going into combat unloading into water that's going to be tough to walk through and you're going to be, however deep that water might be up to your chest, but you might be fortunate enough to have it be shallower, but that's going to be heavy going and you've got about 80 pounds of weapon ammunition combat gear on you. And you're in the worst possible physical shape totally drained from hours of seasickness. That's the first reality of what Americans went through when they participated in these amphibious combat assaults. Another reality that people don't think about is as soon as that ramp drops you've got 36 Americans packed shoulder to shoulder chest to back. That's a machine gunner's dream. You've got you can't miss. Can you imagine having that ramp drop and let's think about D-Day Normandy, let's think about the European theater of operations. The Germans had the fastest firing machine guns on the battlefield during World War II. They had MG42s that fired around 1200 rounds a minute. You see different data on how fast, but it's the fastest firing machine gun nicknamed Hitler's Buzzsaw just so fast. Can you imagine 1200 rounds a minute coming in to Americans just packed shoulder to shoulder, killing everybody without anybody taking a step and then hitting the Americans right behind and then the Americans right behind. It was not unusual. It had nothing to do with how brave your word had nothing to do with your training. It had nothing to do with your determination. It's just luck of the draw, serendipity. When that ramp on your boat drops are you unlucky enough to have one of those many machine guns that are part of the beach defense zeroed in on the bow of your boat. If you are unlucky enough, you're dead. There's just nothing you can do about it for all practical purposes. If you saw the movie Saving Private Ryan, there's an accurate depiction of this on the right hand side of the screen. You see the camera pulled back. You see a Higgins boat ramp drop. You see 36 Americans in the prime of the life. There's no sign of sea sickness. It looks like they start dancing. Not a single American took a step forward. They all got cut down by machine gun fire right to the last American without anybody taking a step, not having a chance. Now imagine that there's not a machine gun zeroed in on the bow or your boat zeroed in on the bow or the boat next to you. What about survivor's guilt? How come all of those guys were dead just like that and you're not just luck of the draw? That's a first reality of the human experience on a Higgins, a couple of realities, the sea sickness and the vulnerability to enemy fire packed in like that. We can't spread out. Can't evade. You just trapped. The only possibility of evading machine gun fire if it's coming into the bow or your boat is if you're toward the stern and you do what you're trained not to do. Keep in mind then the whole idea of training is to have you just do what you're trained not have to stop and decide what to do. What you're trained to do is rush forward. As soon as that ramp drops, rush forward as fast as you can right into the machine gun fire. But if something clicks in your head and you see what's going on and you're toward the stern and the machine gun hasn't reached you yet over the machine gun rounds haven't reached yet, the only possibility of evading that machine gun fire is to go over the side into the water. But these boats are 36 feet long and however deep the water is at the bow, it's deeper toward the stern. If you're over the side, you're going to sink right down to the bottom. No opportunity to tread water, no opportunity to swim. You've got your uniform, you've got your boots, you've got weapons, you've got ammunition, you've got about 80 pounds or so of additional weight besides your uniform and boots. And you're just going to sink right down to the bottom. Now what would often happen then is for those who would have that wherewithal to decide to go over the side, they just died by drowning instead of die by getting cut down by machine gun fire. We have personal history from a survivor who went through exactly the experience I'm describing. He's passed away now but this American saying was Frank Vargo, he survived the war he lived out his life just three hours drive from here in Idaho Falls. And Frank Vargo was among those assaulting Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. He was toward the stern of his particular load of 36 salt troops. And as everybody in front of him got cut down by machine gun fire, he went over the side immediately saying to the bottom of the English Channel in 9 feet of water. One of his sons took his dad's oral history, turned it into a book called the Prentice Soldier that you can get here at the museum and make it available at the museum. So what Frank did, he gets down to the bottom of the English Channel in 9 feet of water. He survived to tell his story saying that he pushed off with all his might and just barely got his mouth above the choppy surface of the English Channel long enough to take a partial gulp air before he sank right back down. And then he pushed off again, got another partial gulp air sank right back down. He said he advanced into shallow water like a human pogo stick. Imagine that series of traumas for one veteran. All his buddies are dead. He's got the, he's stuck on the bottom of the English Channel just desperately trying to stay conscious, desperately human pogo sticking to a point where finally his boots are on the sand and his heads up above the water. And he's the only target left for the machine gun that killed everybody else in his boat. Now what do you think that did to Frank Vargo's stress? And what did that do to his emotional injury? And he carried that with him for the rest of his life. Add to that, this is, you know, I've talked about just a couple of minutes of one American's combat experience. Well, Frank Vargo had seven months of that kind of trauma, combat trauma, combat experience. So he continued to fight almost every day after that landing on June 6, 1944 until he was severely wounded in the Battle of the Bulge in January of 1945 and missed the rest of the war. Now, think about this. What we do here at the museum, yeah, we're doing a little bit of a deep dive into some of the features of the Higgins boat. But what we're really doing is we're remembering and passing along the stories of veterans and their families. And what we're really doing is we're passing along stories to next generations about the history of American freedom. So here's an example of that. Here's an example of service and sacrifice by one American. And here's an example of the resulting service and sacrifice that was required of his entire family. Frank Vargo finally came home from World War II, extended numerous operations, extended recovery time from his major wounds in the Battle of the Bulge, trauma after trauma after trauma. He was not the same guy that went off to war with a smile on his face. And he had to deal with that the rest of his life. And his family, he had to hope that his family was going to deal with him with those adjustments and with those emotional wounds, emotional injury, and hang in there with him. So we honor the service and sacrifice not only of veterans, but of veterans families. And the Frank Vargo story is an excellent example of why. The Frank Vargo story is just one of many. If you come visit us here at the museum, we'll pass along other stories as well. One of my favorites is to remember the valor of the Marine Second Division landing on the beaches of Tarawa in November of 1943. In that instance, the Higgins boat design worked against the Marines. In that instance, the Higgins boats got hung up on a coral reef, extending 500 to 700 yards off shore from those beaches. And it really resulted in really heavy American casualties. Those Marines had to unload into deep water 500 to 700 yards offshore with all of that extra weight. And then they were no cover. They had to wait at a snail's pace through 500 to 700 yards of lagoon with enemy machine gun positions, literally every five yards along the water line there at Tarawa. So there's lots of stories like this that we keep alive and pass along. And I hope you come to the museum whenever it's convenient for a schedule. I would love to share everything that we have here with you. And thank you for visiting with me here for this little bit of...
