Port Arromanches

This is also called Mulberry Harbor. It is located between the American and British zones…just east from Omaha Beach.

Shortly after D-day, the allies had to be able to get supplies delivered. They needed a deep-water port. They figured out that they would never be able to capture an existing port because the Germans would destroy it. So the plan was to quickly construct a new one. This is unbelievable to me as an Engineer. They built a total deep-water port in 10 days, from 6/7 (one day after D-day) to 6/17.

This project took 2 years. They began construction in the UK with 45,000 workers. They needed a breakwater. They made 60 huge 175 foot long, by 75 foot wide and tall concrete blocks, each weighing 10,000 tons. They did not want the Germans to be able to see these from airplanes, so they filled them with water and sank them in the British waters. They on D-day, they pumped the water out of them to refloat them. Then they hauled them over to France. The breakwater wall was 3 miles long.

They did much of the construction at night. During the day, they generated artificial smoke so that the German’s would not be able to see what was going on.

The port included 3 causeways to load items from the temporary port. The tide moved 15 feet from high to low, so the dock was mounted on huge pillars that allowed it to be raised or lowered.

Air superiority was a must. The Germans only got 2 airplanes in the air on D-day, compared to 15,000 airplane from the US and UK.

Photos:
1) Model of the deep-water port.
2) This is a piece of the pipe that they laid to pump gasoline from the UK to France. The pipe was 170 miles long! It was a composite of rubber, burlap, and double helix of copper. Very little of the pipe still exists because of the scrap value of the copper reinforcing wires.
3) Rupert. These dummies were air dropped in prior to D-day. They were to confuse the Germans that an airdrop was occurring. These dummies also exploded when the hit. These, and many other aspects of D-day, were accurately depicted in the movie “The Longest Day.”