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USNS Andrew J. Higgins (T-AO 190)

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USNS ANDREW J. HIGGINS was the fourth ship in the HENRY J. KAISER - class of fleet oilers specially built for the Military Sealift Command (MSC). After commissioning, ANDREW J. HIGGINS served under the command of the MSC until she was deactivated on May 6, 1996. ANDREW J. HIGGINS was part of the Atlantic Fleet and was the first ship in her class to be deactivated. Subsequently laid up as part of the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, Benicia, Calif., the ANDREW J. HIGGINS was transfered to Chile and renamed ALMIRANTE MONTT on May 19, 2009. Prior to the transfer, the ship underwent an overhaul and refit at Mobile, Ala., before recommissioned as a Chilean Navy ship on February 10, 2010.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USNS ANDREW J. HIGGINS. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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About the Ship's Namesake:

Andrew Jackson Higgins, born on 28 August 1886 in Columbus, Nebraska, left his native town in 1906 to enter the lumber business in Mobile, Ala. Four years later, Higgins became manager of a German-owned lumber-importing firm in New Orleans. In 1922, he formed his own company, the Higgins Lumber and Export Co., importing hardwood from the Philippines, Central America, and Africa and exporting cypress and southern pine. In pursuing these ends he acquired a fleet of sailing ships, said to have been the largest under American registry at that time. To service this fleet, he established his own shipyard which built and repaired his cargomen as well as the tugs and barges needed to support them.

In 1926, four years after founding the Higgins Lumber and Export Co., the industrialist and shipbuilder designed the Eureka boat, a shallow-draft craft for use by oil drillers and trappers in operations along the Gulf coast and in lower Mississippi River. With a propeller recessed into a semi-tunnel in the hull, the boat could be operated in shallow waters where flotsam and submerged obstacles would render more usual types of propellers almost useless. Higgins also designed a "spoonbill" bow for his craft, allowing it to be run up onto riverbanks and then to back off with ease. His boats proved to be record-beaters; and, within a decade, he had so perfected the design that they could attain high speed in shallow water and turn practically in their own length.

Stiff competition, declining world trade, and the employment of tramp steamers to carry lumber cargoes combined to put Higgins' Lumber and Export Co. out of business. Nevertheless, the indefatigable Higgins, who laughed at adversity and whose vocabulary did not include the word "impossible", kept his boatbuilding firm (established in 1930 as Higgins Industries) in business, constructing motorboats, tugs and barges, not only for private firms and individuals but also for the Coast Guard.

Fortuitously, the Marine Corps, always interested in finding better ways to get men across a beach in an amphibious landing and frustrated that the Bureau of Construction and Repair could not meet its requirements, began to express interest in Higgins' boat. When tested in 1938 by the Navy and Marine Corps, Higgins' Eureka boat surpassed the performance of the Navy-design boat and was tested by the services during fleet landing exercises in February 1939. Satisfactory in most respects, the boat's major drawback appeared to be that equipment had to be unloaded, and men disembarked, over the sides, thus exposing them to enemy fire in a combat situation.

The Japanese, however, had been using ramp-bowed landing boats in the Sino Japanese War since the summer of 1937, boats that had come under intense scrutiny by the Navy and Marine Corps observers at Shanghai in particular. When shown a picture of one of those craft, Higgins soon thereafter got in touch with his chief engineer, and, after describing the Japanese design over the telephone, told the engineer to have a mock-up built for his inspection upon his return to New Orleans.

Within one month, tests of the ramp-bow Eureka boat in Lake Ponchartrain showed conclusively that successful operation of such a boat was feasible. From these humble beginnings came what became known as the LCVP (landing craft, vehicle, personnel), or simply, the "Higgins Boat". A larger version, originally classified as a "tank lighter" came on its heels, the precursor of the LCM (landing craft, mechanized).

During World War II, Higgins' industrial plants turned out a variety of equipment for the Navy: landing craft, motor torpedo boats (PT), torpedo tubes, gun turrets, and smoke generators. The inventor and holder of some 30 patents pertinent to amphibious landing craft and vehicles, Andrew J. Higgins died in New Orleans on 1 August 1952.

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Accidents aboard USNS ANDREW J. HIGGINS:

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USNS ANDREW J. HIGGINS History:

USNS ANDREW J. HIGGINS took shape at Avondale Shipyards on the Mississippi, where her keel was laid on November 21, 1985. She was launched on January 17, 1987, and delivered to Military Sealift Command later that year. The oiler entered MSC service with a civilian crew on October 22, 1987. Assigned to MSC's Pacific contingent, she began the typical rhythm of a KAISER-class duty oiler - pier periods around the U.S. West Coast punctuated by underway replenishment qualifications with destroyers, cruisers and carriers and periodic trans-Pacific deployments.

The ship's first major geopolitical tasking came with the sudden expansion of U.S. naval presence after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. A dated Navy image shows ANDREW J. HIGGINS in the Gulf of Oman on August 1, 1990, en route to the Persian Gulf at the opening of Operation Desert Shield. Through the second half of 1990 she joined the logistics chain sustaining carrier and amphibious task forces moving into the region.

On January 1, 1991, while operating with the amphibious force (CTF 156) off Masirah, Oman, the oiler grounded on an uncharted reef pinnacle at 20°06.5'N, 58°30.5'E. Initial diver surveys from embarked SEAL and EOD teams found multiple ruptures in cargo and ballast tanks and a fuel sheen. On-scene estimates recorded a significant spill. The Navy's Supervisor of Salvage coordinated a multinational response: the commercial tug M/V SMIT NEW YORK sailed from Fujairah, USNS COURIER (T-AK 5019) was positioned to receive off-loaded fuel, and the on-scene command initially fell to USS IWO JIMA (LPH 2). Between January 5 and January 13, defueling evolutions lightened the ship, after which uncontaminated cargo was transferred at sea to USNS WALTER S. DIEHL (T-AO 193). The oiler then proceeded under her own power, escorted and monitored for seepage, to a repair yard. She arrived Dubai on January 16 and entered dry dock. Inspection confirmed hull damage greater than first thought. Repairs and docking, recorded at $2.7 million, ran into March. She left dry dock on March 4, completed sea trials on March 7, and returned to full readiness before the end of the shooting phase of Operation Desert Storm.

After repairs, the ship resumed Pacific and Indian Ocean logistics. Imagery places her at anchor off Singapore on December 26, 1992, a typical port call for KAISER-class oilers working the Western Pacific sea lanes between replenishment commitments. Through the early and mid-1990s, she continued routine fuel delivery and vertical replenishment support to U.S. surface combatants and underway task groups, a period marked fleet-wide by post-Cold War force reductions and shifting deployment patterns.

On May 6, 1996, ANDREW J. HIGGINS was withdrawn from active service - the first of her class to be deactivated - and placed in reserve at the Suisun Bay anchorage near Benicia, California. She remained there for more than a decade as part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet.

The Navy decided to transfer the laid-up oiler to Chile as part of allied capability building. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on January 6, 2009, sold on May 19, 2009, and withdrawn from Suisun Bay on September 24, 2009, for tow to Mobile, Alabama, where Atlantic Marine completed a refit and overhaul. Renamed ALMIRANTE MONTT (AO 52), she was recommissioned into the Chilean Navy at Mobile on February 10, 2010, replacing older national tanker capacity and immediately entering regional exercise and logistics cycles.

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USNS ANDREW J. HIGGINS Construction Gallery:

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USNS ANDREW J. HIGGINS Image Gallery:

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