Mulberry harbour

Mulberry harbour
View of the Mulberry B harbour "Port Winston" at Arromanches in September 1944. Centre and left are "Spud" pierheads with floating piers of "Whales" and "Beetles". At right is 2000 feet of "Swiss Roll".[1]
Location
Location	Arromanches and Omaha Beach, Normandy, France
Coordinates	49°20′51″N 0°38′02″W / 49.3475°N 0.6340°W / 49.3475; -0.6340
Details
Opened	June 1944
Closed	March 1945
Type	Temporary portable harbour
Purpose	Military equipment, stores and personnel
Joins	Beach

Mulberry harbours were two temporary portable harbours developed by the British Admiralty and War Office during the Second World War to facilitate the rapid offloading of cargo onto beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Designed in 1942 and then built in under a year in great secrecy, within hours of the Allies successfully creating beachheads following D-Day, sections of the two prefabricated harbours and old ships, to be sunk to create breakwaters, were being towed across the English Channel from southern England and placed in position off Omaha Beach (Mulberry "A") and Gold Beach (Mulberry "B").

The Mulberry harbours solved the problem of needing deep water jetties and a harbour to provide the invasion force with the necessary reinforcements and supplies, and were to be used until major French ports could be captured and brought back into use after repair of the inevitable sabotage by German defenders. Comprising floating but sinkable breakwaters, floating pontoons, piers and floating roadways, this innovative and technically difficult system was being used for the first time.

The Mulberry B harbour at Gold Beach was used for 10 months after D-Day, and over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tons of supplies were landed before it was fully decommissioned. The still only partially-completed Mulberry A harbour at Omaha Beach was damaged on 19 June by a violent storm that arrived from the north-east before the pontoons were securely anchored. After three days the storm finally abated and damage was found to be so severe that the harbour had to be abandoned and the Americans had to resort to landing men and material over the open beaches.