1944: The invasion of Normandy was as much a triumph of technology as it was a feat of logistics or firepower. That an invasion was coming was well known by everyone, including the Germans. The only question was, where would the Allies land? The Germans expected a landing near Calais, where the English Channel is narrowest and where the invaders would have access to a deep-water port.
The beaches at Normandy came to be chosen partly because they offered relatively easy access to the French interior, but also because the Allies had learned the hard way at Dieppe two years earlier that attacking a heavily defended port was likely to fail. There was no deep-water port in the immediate Normandy invasion area, meaning that some method would have to be devised for landing men and supplies in the weeks following D-Day.
Enter Mulberry Harbor (or, more correctly in this case, “harbour”). Mulberry, a British inspiration born out of the Dieppe debacle, was a massive artificial harbor, prefabricated in England and towed across the English Channel for assembly off the invasion beaches. The harbor consisted of several elements, including massive reinforced concrete caissons, breakwaters, a floating roadway and piers. Block ships were sunk off the Normandy coast to create protection from the open sea.
Two harbors were built and operational within three days of the invasion: Mulberry A for the Americans at Omaha Beach and Mulberry B serving the British and Canadians at Arromanches. A heavy storm destroyed the American harbor on June 19 but Mulberry B remained in use for eight months. In the first 100 days following D-Day, the harbor landed over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tons of supplies for the Battle of Normandy.
(Source: Various)
This article first appeared on Wired.com June 6, 2007.
