The Normandy Invasion in June 1944 was only the start of the
Allied campaign to free Europe from German occupation. The breakout from the
beachhead into Normandy and beyond required substantial deployment of troops,
equipment and supplies. The dilemma for the Allies was the requirement to have
a port capable of handling ocean-going ships with sufficient depth of water and
the port facilities to offload the heavy and bulky cargoes.
The ports in Northern France were heavily defended, and the disastrous
raid on Dieppe in 1943 had shown that attacking a port would be costly, and not
guaranteed of success.
The answer was the construction of an artificial port to
sustain the logistical requirements of the Allies. The Mulberries comprised floating roadways and pierheads which went up and down with the tide. In order to avoid rough seas, huge hollow concrete blocks and old hulks were sunk in order to form a breakwater.
The individual components were constructed around the UK, moved to various ports on the south coast, then towed across the English Channel. The first time everything would come together was on the coast of Normandy.
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| Mulberry Harbour Caisson being towed across the English Chanel |
Two Mulberry harbours were
built. One on Omaha Beach which was destroyed in a storm 19th June ,
and one at Arromanches which became the Allies main logistical location in
Europe until the capture of Antwerp in September 1944.
Arromanches was liberated in the
evening of June 6th
and the very next day the first ships were scuttled. June
8th saw the submersion of the first Phoenix caissons and June
14th the unloading of the first cargoes. The port, which became
known as Port Winston was totally operational by the beginning of July 1944.
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| Arromanches - Mulberry 'B' PORT WINSTON |
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| Mulberry Harbour - Pier |
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| Mulberry Harbour - Pier and Roadway |
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| Mulberry Harbour Roadway |
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| Mulberry Harbour - Port Winston |
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| Roadway and Beach 1944 |
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| Roadway and Beach 2015 |
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| Roadway and Beach 2015 |
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| Arromanches 1944 |
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| Arromanches 2015 |
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| Arromanches Beach 2015 |
The contribution of
Port Winston to the outcome of World War Two was immense. In the 10 months
after D-Day 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tonnes of supplies
sustained the Battle for Normandy and beyond.
What did the Enemy think of the Mulberries? After the war, Albert Speer, the great architect of German defences and manager of the forced labour, Todt Organisation, said:
"To construct our defences we had in two years used some 13 million cubic metres of concrete and 1½ million tons of steel. A fortnight after the Normandy Landings, this costly effort was brought to nothing because of an idea of simple genius. As we now know, the invasion force brought their own harbours, and built, at Arromanches and Omaha, on unprotected coast, the necessary landing ramps."
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