TWO ARTIFICIAL harbours were designed and
constructed by the British in World War II to
facilitate the unloading of supply ships off the
coast of Normandy. These were to be put in place
immediately following D-Day. One harbour, known
as Mulberry A, was constructed off Saint-Laurent
at Omaha Beach in the American sector, and the
other, Mulberry B, was built off Arromanches at
Gold Beach in the British sector.
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The Mulberry harbours were two prefabricated
military harbours taken across the English
Channel from Britain with the invading army and
assembled off the coast of Normandy as part of
the D-Day invasion of France.
The Mulberries were created to provide the port
facilities necessary to offload the thousands of
men and vehicles, and tons of supplies necessary
to sustain Operation Overlord and the Battle of
Normandy. The harbours were made up of all the
elements one would expect of any harbour:
breakwater, piers, roadways etc. and were
pre-fabricated in the UK.
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Each Mulberry harbour consisted of approximately
6 miles (10 km) of flexible steel roadways
(code-named 'Whales') that floated on steel or
concrete pontoons (called 'Beetles'). The
roadways terminated at great pierheads, called
'Spuds', that were jacked up and down on legs
which rested on the seafloor.
These structures were to be sheltered from the
sea by lines of massive sunken caissons (called
'Phoenixes'), lines of scuttled ships (called
'Gooseberries'), and a line of floating
breakwaters (called 'Bombardons').
It was estimated that construction of the
caissons alone required 330,000 cubic yards
(252,000 cubic metres) of concrete, 31,000 tons
of steel, and 1.5 million yards (1.4 million
metres) of steel shuttering.
Following the failed Dieppe raid in 1942 the
Allies needed to consider ways in which to push
large quantities of provisions across the beaches
in the early stages of an invasion. The British
solution to the problem was to bring their own
port with them. This solution had the support of
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who in May 1943
wrote the following note:
"Piers for use on beaches: They must
float up and down with the tide. The anchor
problem must be mastered...Let me have the best
solution worked out. Don't argue the matter. The
difficulties will argue for themselves." With
Churchill's support, the artificial harbours
received immediate attention, resources, time,
and energy.
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By June 9, just 3 days after D-Day, two harbours
codenamed Mulberry 'A' and 'B' were constructed
at Omaha Beach and Arromanches, respectively.
However, a large storm on June 19 destroyed the
American harbour at Omaha, leaving only the
British harbour which came to be known as Port
Winston at Arromanches.
While the harbour at Omaha was destroyed sooner
than expected (due to it not being securely
anchored to the sea bed), Port Winston saw heavy
use for 8 months—despite being designed to
last only 3 months. In the 100 days after D-Day,
it was used to land over 2.5 million men, 500,000
vehicles, and 4 million tonnes of supplies
providing much needed reinforcements in
France.
A complete Mulberry harbour was constructed out
of 600,000 tons of concrete between 33 jetties,
and had 10 miles of floating roadways to land men
and vehicles on the beach.
Port Winston is commonly upheld as one of the
best examples of military engineering. Its
remains are still visible today from the beaches
at Arromanches, and a section of it remains
embedded in the sand in the Thames Estuary,
accesible at low tide, about 100m off the coast
at Shoeburyness
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An etching of the Mulberry Harbour on a memorial
at Arromances.
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A preseved section (Whale) of the harbour roadway
at Arromanches.(Left and
below)
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