Invasion' Port Made

1 One Penny Tile job had M WL-( eRES.s seven to be done Inside mon,t.lis to fulfil the promise to Marshal Afliexj Migher than Dover Stalin & the rest, ner main harbour had talten’ deck and surviving superstructur years to v11en build, well above water, is another 32- year-old battleship, the French In I 41‘I Courbet, one f the 100-odd ships . U that escaped on the fa.ll INVASION’ of France. Yet the story began not in This blockship was the battleship Quel’s storied Citadel toi’)5doed Frontenac luxury or Chateau In the Channel. sma hotel, but in a The largest Tricolor in the 1, secluded hut on the Channel o , Dorset. coast and the Cross of Lorraine ‘ There, a handful stilt fly at her scien rats of shortened niasts. MADE i” Lived for Study- PORT the Next in line is e the strrpe minin avour of seas, deter- n0. on y flow to hulk of the Dutch heavy cruiser sea but use beat the Sumatra. The Brftirh cruiser One of Durban, past her 25th .birthday, ners of tT Sc ealfic plan- lies nearest to ‘ e ,opeiation is In his the enemy and d still, as she was wont to do, CTOR guised. 0T dis- faces the IN FA Y enemy. He alone ., .wears olain clot Most of the merohantimen had the other side o the defied the U-boats in crumpled jacket Cli two wars. flannel puliover Had they survived this war they bags. Ptblicatton of could only have gone to the Biggest D-Day secret out name, he insisted, would handica.Z’us breaker s yard or to tli merchant his work. marines of other countries. asts: Express Naval Reporter W. A. CRUMLEY ill-disguised aiF INTO THE LEE Uncut masses of blond ‘lsjr straggle itfler his Into the lee their ERE, at last, is the incredible secret of the battle cap: his 1thakj of grounded blouse does not reach his hulks, a series of sreltered lakoons, H Normandy landings: the story of the pre came the concrete caissons, walst, though lie is not tall, and his Some of them sailed from the rabricated artificial harbours. shoes are brown. Thames on D Day, towed at four It is the story of hw a He sent, over the “commando” knots, and were seen by scores of scientific thousands of people, wno did not harbour as large and im workers who examined guess the secret, Others voyaged pregnable as Gibraltar was the strata of the Normandy more than 200 miles. Alt carrred beaches under the noses of the a handful of sailor and mounted secretly prefabricated by unsuspecting enemy. A.A. guns, served by soldiers, bewildered workers in Britain Six weeks before D Day Lieu) Concrete caissons, piers and and built by the Navy and tenant Berneastle floating breakwaters transformed went across in twO of the lagoons tnto pre Army on open Normandy a rubber canoe, surveyed the fabricated artificial harbours. beaches. Of how :— approaches to the Arromanclies The beaches and piers, fitting together like One hundred and fifty steel took a line of Meccano pieces, each the size of and concrete caissons, looking soundings. bridge spans, formed causeways These proved that the old French from ship to shore. They rise like Daily Exjess buildings or charts, which were all that the and fall with the tides, moored bicks of flats afloat, sailed out nayai staff had to work pn, were to heavy ramps and “spud pier- 1eFrich heads.” o1 the estuaries of England to edad ir: Normandy. When the problem of ticable, many years ago, a proposal these piers Five hundred thousand toni of to build a harbour at was under examination in 1942, the ships, farñou men-of-war and mer Arromamehea Prime Minister took a personal ohantmd, were sunk by or own Six days before’ D Day the interest in this subject. He wrote sailors to form breiters. 0r1n0 bloc Ships • Piers for use on beaches:: Thir een miles of piers an They must float tip and and slow some of the 40 down old, but with the tide. The anchor they began the inVZsiorL problem .must be mastered. acrossi On the sunny, ‘bridEe bejlg built - blowy evening of D Day the proud, iio grey line of Let me have the best Solt1on” ve ‘Cbtl- ioomed ships came slowly and warkej out. Don’t arge tons of artificial harlohrs, Steadily, dead on time and station. matter.” the and floating breakwaters— through the massed ranks of born Thirteen wi steel support or buttress barding battleships,’ cruisers and days after D Day, when tIuctures—were towed across the assault vessels. the construction of the harbours C1’anne1,’ in heavy weather, past was half finished and the shoals, minefields and had defied U boats, BLOCK$HIPS IN bombing, parachute mining and by 150 tugS. strafing night after Even before the smoke of battle night, the had greatesf. June gale for ten Pott Winston cleared from the obttacle sprang years pitted low bills beyond the town, up. All thiS inside or month. The even before the men of the 50th Merchant Navy’s\word for It is Division had reached Bayeux or PoUNDED To Port winstor swung right to overrun the heavy BITS It ea’me from the it is thd bw complete, coastal battery at Longues, or the quarter, worst possible strategic and Canadians line ,of battle got out Assault craft were driven: of sight, blockships ashore and pounded to pleees achieved Iii JanUl*ft-4sjthe Army of were taking up lee sliore on a - - The Lberation. their last stations. beaches were strewn with their wrecks, and For the OermnrIo have never It was not easy in the heavy ducks.” Large with fully understood swell for the’ merchant vessels uses of sea skeleton crews. dragged their anliors and went power, believed, that L could not guarded by Army A.A. gunners, to aground. - be done without a’port; that the get the sh:ps into the scuttling Allies must attacK positions,, bow to, stern. - Heavy seas broke open at ‘I.e Havre, Sea cocks complete outer the in Clierbourg, Calals, r DeDp. were opened. time bombs were the brea&wat’s At Officially, the story i nit blown. Irarbour on. the American t1e, sector even Quebec Conference ‘AfigU$ti$ep.. Unreconlsab1e now is the the concrete caissons tember 1943), 32. were breached and parts of when rreSi4eit year-old battlshlp Centurion, once carried away. them Roosevelt and Mr. Cihurcil the cork-filled target of the Fleet at orders fo the prefab4OatlØ, ibattle practice; parent ship of the Few supplies got through to the complete harbour’ work ‘‘1rst pilotless American beaches for aircraft—the rado-. But three days. ports, eaeh several times lrger controlled Queen Bees and Wasps: the American troops cut the than Dover. , . ,, - and, the first base of the Clierbourg —. warship steered by peninsula. — -. - the capture of remote radio control. , the port of Clier bourg was achieved on schedule. and the American harbour abandoned. was I Salvage from. the wreckage was I.. used to complete and reinforce the ‘;: British harbour at Arromanches There was no danger that our IL troops, denuded of supplies, would be thrown back into the sea. • No build-up without a Enough had been landed in the first 12 days to make the bridge port; no port without a heads secure. J. i But the supply hold-up seriously build-up. That was the 1.. delayed the whole American ad vance. dilemma confronting D Harbour B (B for British) now Day planners, and here is takes anything from •7,000-ton ((1 Liberty ships to coasters, unload the first historic picture- ing direct into ducks, lighters and causeways. story of Britain’s momen On its beaches, cleared f mined e tous answer — the pre obstacles, the squadrons of tank Vice - landing ships and flotillas of Admiral fabricated port, which was ramped craft, run up to discharge on W. G, Tennant, their — Brig. Bruce While, towed 100 miles and cargoes with every tide. K.B.E. or his out R.N., ho was whom the King has conferred the ,j in charge of the \t) assembled off lonely Nor standing part in the \POrt’s creation. sea operations. mandy beaches at Arromanchës. C That a synthetic port as large a Gibraltar’s should be created THE BLOCKSHIPS sailed on D.Day, were sunk to nwk in less than a month and with each beach. Some of them jorm stand the worst June gale for breakwater around ‘1) picture of Admi. Ramsay, Air Chief lie 40 years is an unparalleled to this err triumph of engineering skill Rear-Admiral Vian and other senior officers OCTOBER 23, 1944 and daring seamanship. 11,057 * MNDAY. o. Constructed at • sites as far apart Z1C as t h e Thames area (during raids on London screened C. lighting ws used), S o u t h a m pt 0 n, Portsmouth, Birk C .nhead, Hartlepool, Leith, Glasgow and North Wales, the portable port won the battle of the build-up, supplied the advance from V Fataise to Germany, and revolutionised modern warfare. Better than words these pictures un fold the amazing V’ 5tow. I Port That ••1 picture), like concrete Noah’s Arks ni Crossed Ihe THE CAISSONS (top were sunk to jorn ‘à3 IC) guns, are towed across; 146 of them, A striking feature of the great prefabri A.A. (lower picture) a spud; waters, As the port takes shape cated port constructed in Britain, towed in Its jour legs planted in the sea arrives off Arronwaches.

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