Vietnam War-era craft heads to museum

The public got its first look at a Vietnam War era Higgins boat donated to Houma’s Regional Military Museum at Sunday’s Storm Warning IV rally at the Houma’s Downtown Marina.

The boat will be renamed for its former owner, Marvin Perrett, at a ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of D-Day on Saturday at 4 p.m. The event takes place at Munson Slip at the Dulac Shipyard, 618 Thompson Road, across from Gulf Island Fabrication.

Rear Admiral Mary E. Landry, recently promoted to commander of the Eighth Coast Guard District headquartered in New Orleans, will be the guest speaker.

“It’s pretty unusual to have one that runs,” said C. J. Christ, Regional Military Museum president and CEO. “They built one in New Orleans and put it in the D-Day Museum showcase, and it probably doesn’t even have an engine in it.”

The Higgins boat, officially known as a Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP) boat, was bought by Baton Rouge resident Rick Koglar two decades ago.

Koglar gave it to his friend Perrett, a World War II Coast Guard Higgins boat coxswain, as a gift. Perrett participated in the D-Day invasion of Normady, and the invasions of Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

“Perrett had the boat for 15 years. He would go around and do reenactments,” Christ explained. “People would break out their cameras when they tried to invade Lake Pontchartrain beach or something like that.”

Unlike the more famous World War II model, the donated Higgins boat was built in 1967 and is made of fiberglass instead of wood.

The boat was commissioned for the Navy and was onboard the USS Austin (LPD 4) until it was decommissioned.

After Perrett died in 2007, Koglar tried donating the Higgins boat to the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans, but the museum already had one.

Koglar put an ad for the Higgins boat in the Baton Rouge Advocate where museum members saw it.

“We called him and said we’d like to have it in our museum. He gave it to us,” Christ said.

Koglar will be at the renaming ceremony along with Perrett’s daughter, Melissa Perrett-Cook.

The Higgins boat has been in Houma for three months docked behind the Houma Generating Station. It can be seen from the boat launch behind the old fire station near Jim Bowie Park.

The museum has permission from the Terrebonne Port Commission to keep the artifact under the Intracoastal Canal Bridge, but Christ fears the boat will be exposed to vandalism. However, he said the Higgins boat could be moved there for special occasions and taking museum visitors out for a Sunday excursion.

“We may set up a loose schedule where we take people out from say 3 to 5 p.m. and 5 to 7 p.m., and bring the boat back to the launch where it’s at now,” Christ said. “But nothing has been worked out yet.”

The PD 4-3 Higgins boat donated to the Regional Military Museum in Houma will be renamed the Marvin Perrett, after its former owner, this Saturday, the 65th anniversary of D-Day. The craft was on display Sunday at the Storm Warning IV rally at the Houma’s Downtown Marina. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF