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| Arromanches Mulberry Harbour IJ |
The D-Day landings on 6th June 1944 would secure the beachhead required for the the subsequent liberation of Europe. The strategic problem for the allies was the breakout into occupied Europe would require hundreds of thousands of men and vehicles, together with millions of tons of materiel to be landed in France for ongoing operations. They would require a deep water port to sustain the logistics chain. In 1942 a raid on Dieppe ended in failure which proved that an attack on well defended ports was not a viable option.
The solution was to build two ports in the Normandy Beachhead. The ports would be constructed from pre-fabricated components which were constructed in Great Britain and towed across the channel where they were assembled into the two harbours; Mulberry A at Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer off Omaha Beach to supply the United States forces and Mulberry B (Port Winston) at Arromanches off Gold Beach to supply the British and Canadian forces.
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| Mulberry Harbour |
The first supplies started coming ashore on 14th June 1944.
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Mulberry Harbour Arromanches Supplies being landed
Source: IWM A24361
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Five days later the worst storm in 20 years hit the Normandy coast destroying the American Mulberry.
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| Normandy storms batter Mulberry Harbour |
Mulberry B at Arromanches suffered damage, but survived the storm. It was repaired using parts from the American harbour and operated for 10 months, outlasting the 3 months it was expected to operate.
During the period in operation 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tonnes of materiel were landed at Port Winston, the Arromonches Mulberry harbour.
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| Port Winston Arromanches Mulberry harbour. |
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| Arromanches 2026 |
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| Arromanches Beach 2026 |
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| Arromanches Mulberry Harbour 2026 |
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| Arromanches looking towards Asnelles 2026 |
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| Arromanches Mulberry Harbour 2026 IJ |
