Making Concrete Float: Mulberry Harbors of WWII Operation Overlord
It's part of the excellent BBC/History Channel series called 'Battle Stations,' which first aired between 2000 - 2006.
"Battle Stations is a documentary series of 1 hour episodes, which uses archive footage, re-enactments and first-hand accounts from the crews, to follow the machines and technology implemented from the Second World War to the Gulf War in the land, air and sea."Truth be told, I knew very little about these Mulberry Harbors before watching this documentary, even though I thought myself well-versed in D-Day history. It makes perfect sense, though; secure harbors were vital to a successful Allied invasion of Europe, but the Nazis controlled all necessary shipping hubs in northern Europe.
The solution? Float all the pieces for massive harbor installations with you across the channel.
Encyclopaedia Britannica explains:
"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. Each harbour, when fully operational, had the capacity to move 7,000 tons of vehicles and supplies per day from ship to shore...An audacious and brilliant engineering feat.
The various parts of the Mulberries were fabricated in secrecy in Britain and floated into position immediately after D-Day. Within 12 days of the landing (D-Day plus 12), both harbours were operational. They were intended to provide the primary means for the movement of goods from ship to shore until the port at Cherbourg was captured and opened.
However, on June 19 a violent storm began, and by June 22 the American harbour was destroyed. (Parts of the wreckage were used to repair the British harbour.) The Americans had to return to the old way of doing things: bringing landing ships in to shore, grounding them, off-loading the ships, and then refloating them on the next high tide.
The British Mulberry supported the Allied armies for 10 months. Two and a half million men, a half million vehicles, and four million tons of supplies landed in Europe through the artificial harbour at Arromanches. Remains of the structure can be seen to this day near the Musée du Débarquement."
