How did he get the mahogany out of the Japanese occupied Philippines?
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-higgins-boat-wood-steel-and-purpose
“Higgins foresaw and prepared for the coming war better than most. As a mark of his prescience, he bought the entire 1939 production of Philippine mahogany and stored it at personal expense, at his boatyard. He knew it would be desperately needed soon, and it was. One of his first wartime contracts was to build PT boats, all of which required mahogany as the primary deck material.”