Operation Neptune

by Kenneth Edwards

  The requirements for the two “Mulberry” artificial harbours were no less than seven miles of this flexible pier roadway, and they had to be provided with adequate anchoring arrangements to prevent them swinging—and probably breaking—with the tidal streams. The inshore ends of the piers were anchored to specially heavy steel and concrete “floats,” which could be hauled up on the beach at high water. The road piers were, in fact, floating bridges of special type, and their construction was necessarily far too light to allow of any vessel discharging direct to them. Hence there was evolved for the seaward end of these piers special “spud pierheads” which could be firmly fixed to the sea bed and against which ships of small and even moderate tonnage could secure while discharging their cargoes, once unloaded, being driven ashore in trucks along the roadway pier linking the “spud pierhead” to the beach. The system was, in fact, somewhat similar to, but much more complicated than, that adopted for many decades on the Yangtze river in China. The rise and fall of that river is so great and apt to be so sudden that enormous floating pontoons capable of having a ship moored alongside are securely anchored off the river bank and connected to the land by a sliding or flexible bridge. But the distance between the pontoon, which amounts to a floating wharf provided with “godowns” and the rest, is in the Yangtze a matter of a few yards, and the current does not change its direction every few hours.

  Mulberry beetles constructed just off the Beaulieu River and being towed downstream for eventual cross-channel transportation.

  These following five photographs show the construction of ‘Whales’ the road elements of Mulberry Harbour at Marchwood Military Port. Marchwood, the Beaulieu River and nearby Lepe played very important roles in the construction of temporary Mulberry Harbours, which consisted of ‘Spuds’ (pier heads), ‘Whales’ (roads) and ‘Beetles’ (pontoons). In November 1943 a new military port was built at Marchwood to specifically assist with Mulberry Harbour construction in the build- up to D Day and to give extra docking space for the ever increasing number of vessels waiting in Southampton Water for the Normandy landings. It became the base for the newly formed No. 1 Port and Inland Water Transport Repair Depot, Royal Engineers. Wates Group Ltd. construction firm, who had been employed to build elements of Mulberry, also built a slipway and other facilities. Part of the waterfront was also roofed over so that Mulberry construction could continue in bad weather.

  A “spud pierhead” is a steel pontoon structure which is anchored to the sea bed by piles. As the tide rises and falls the pierhead floats up and down, sliding up and down these piles. Thus, while there is vertical movement dictated by the rise and fall, there is no lateral movement in obedience to tidal stream, current or wind.

  The “spud pierheads” used in the “Mulberries” were great steel structures displacing about 1,000 tons each. They consisted of a main steel pontoon 200 feet long and with a beam of 60 feet. These had four “spuds,” or pillars with which they were securely held to the sea bed and on which they could rise and fall with the tide. Provision was also made for the lengthening of a pierhead from 200 feet to 280 feet by the attachment of specially designed concrete intermediate pontoons.

  The “spud pierheads” were built almost as ships are built, and contained generating sets, storage space, and accommodation for their crews, which would not only tend them during their cross-Channel voyage in tow, but also serve in them when they were in operation, securing and casting off ships, arranging traffic both at sea and on the pier roadways and so on. They were unhandy things to tow, and they had farthest to go before they reached the Normandy coast, for they were built in Scottish ports. These “spud pierheads” were provided with yet another refinement. This amounted to a sort of false beach made of steel which sloped down into the water. LST’s could nose in against this, lower their ramps, and discharge their vehicles, which could be driven straight ashore along the pier roadway. And while this was going on coasters could lie alongside the other parts of the pierhead and discharge their cargoes straight into waiting lorries.

  The whole design of the “Mulberries” was keyed to rapid unloading of ships as well as to providing shelter for them from the weather during this operation. It was clear, however, that the “spud pierheads” could hope to deal only with coasters and LST’s, and that the “Liberty” ships lying within the concrete caisson breakwaters—the concrete caissons were called “Phoenixes”—would have to unload into barges, lighters, DUKW’s (amphibious lorries), and all sorts of small craft. These formed a ferry service of such dimensions that it consisted of between 2,0000 and 3,000 craft, exclusive of DUKW’s, and employed some 15,000 men.

  The need to provide shelter from the weather for these small craft would obviously be an earlier commitment than the completion of the “Mulberries,” for the ferry service would have to begin to operate immediately after the “touch down” of the initial assault, and much of the early stages of the “build up” would be dependent upon its work. The country had been combed to provide the craft for this ferry service, so that practically no replacements were available. It therefore became imperative that arrangements should be made to give them shelter from the weather.

  From the realisation of this need there arose the “Gooseberries.” These were to be shelter harbours formed by the sinking of blockships. These could only enclose a shallow water area, since, in order to be efficient units of the breakwater, the blockships, when resting on the bottom, would have to have the top strakes of their hulls above high-water mark, otherwise the sea would break over them at high tide, making the shelter within the blockship breakwaters inefficient, and threatening to break up the blockships themselves. While the “Gooseberries” could not, therefore, provide shelter for ships, they would do so for the more vulnerable small craft of the ferry service, the preservation of which from loss or damage due to weather was a matter of the utmost importance.

  It was decided that there were to be five of these “Gooseberry” shallow water harbours, that off Arromanches and that off St Laurent to form extensions of the “Mulberry” harbours to be laid off those places, while the others would be quite separate shelter harbours off beaches.

  Courbet was one of the first dreadnoughts built for the French Navy. She spent the war in the Mediterranean, helping to sink the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser Zenta in 1914. Although upgraded several times before the Second World War. Upon the German invasion of France, beginning on 10 May 1940, Courbet was hastily rearmed. She supported Allied troops in the defence of Cherbourg during June, later that month taking refuge in England. As part of Operation Catapult, she was seized in Portsmouth by British forces and was turned over to the Free French. She had a displacement of 23,475 tonnes.

  The conception of the “Gooseberries” was perfectly sound and their provision necessary. One can imagine, however, the reception of the Allied Naval Commander-in-Chief’s request to the Admiralty and the Ministry of War Transport for seventy ships—just to sink!

  There was a shortage of ships of all sorts, when it came to meeting the ever-growing demands of the planners of “Operation Overlord.” Admiral Ramsay was acutely conscious of the fact that he was continually “Oliver Twisting” the Admiralty, particularly since no revision had yet been obtained of the Cairo Conference decision that the naval commitments of the invasion of Northern France were to be discharged solely by the Royal Navy and such ships as could be made available by the Dominions and by Britain’s European Allies. He had no choice, however, in view of the increased demands of the military commander and the growing complexity of the operation. He was concerned above all that nothing in this tremendous enterprise should be left to chance. He might have taken as his motto the words of General Sir James Murray, who said in 1793: “The principal object is to have what is wanted and to have it in time.”

  Admiral Sir William George “Bill” Tennant, (1890-1963). Tennant was lauded for overseeing the successful evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 and subsequently served as captain of the battlecru
iser HMS Repulse, when it searched for German capital ships in the Atlantic. He later aided in the setup of the Mulberry harbours and the Pluto pipelines, a crucial part of the success of Operation Overlord.

  Finally, a compromise was reached with the provision of sixty blockships for the “Gooseberries” which would provide 24,000 feet of breakwater. The majority of these ships were freighters which were past their work, but some were warships. There was the old French battleship Courbet, the Dutch cruiser Sumatra, the British cruiser Durban and the grand old British battleship Centurion. The latter had served for many years before the war as a wireless-controlled target ship for the Royal Navy.

  It was obvious to Admiral Ramsay that the question of synthetic ports was becoming so big that a special staff would have to be found to deal with their many and varied components, see to their readiness at the critical moment, man them while being towed across the Channel, place them accurately in position, and administer their crews. For this onerous duty, demanding great concentration upon details and grasp of an organisation spread all over the United Kingdom and affecting many other Government Departments, Admiral Ramsay chose Rear-Admiral W. G. Tennant.

  Rear-Admiral Tennant had, as a captain, been Senior Naval Officer ashore at Dunkirk during the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force. During those hectic days he had risen above all difficulties and shown himself utterly tireless. Instead of avoiding the thousands of officers who wanted to ask questions, he had, in order to identify himself to them, cut the letters SNO out of the silver paper of a cigarette packet and stuck them on to his steel helmet with sardine oil. It had been he who, on the final night of that epic withdrawal, had said calmly: “Tomorrow we’ll either be back in London, in a German prison, or done for.” Rear-Admiral “Bill” Tennant was, in fact, the last man to tire or to get flurried, and as such he was undoubtedly the right man for so great a task. When he joined Admiral Ramsay he had one officer on his staff. So enormously did the requirements of the artificial harbours increase that by D-day he had under his direct command more than 500 officers and about 10,000 men.

  The layman may well begin to wonder whether the staff planning “Operation Neptune” were not playing some complicated round game, with all this talk of Mulberries, Gooseberries, Beetles, Whales, Bombardons, Phoenixes, and the rest. It must be remembered, however, that the closest possible secrecy had to surround all the preparations for invasion, so that the use of code-names for nearly everything became obligatory.

  By this time Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay’s belief in naval participation had been fulfilled and a task force of the United States Navy had been detailed to take part in Operation Neptune. Rear-Admiral Alan J. Kirk, USN, who had been so closely concerned with the initial planning of the operation, was appointed to command the United States Task Force.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE JIGSAW OF PLANNING

  General Eisenhower’s appointment—“One indivisible force”—Detailed planning—The needs of an army—Ship-loading problems—Build-up and turn-round control organisations—The need for simplification—The convoy code.

  In January, 1944, General Dwight Eisenhower of the United States Army was appointed Supreme Allied Commander for the invasion of North-western Europe. It was an appointment which was very rightly welcomed on both sides of the Atlantic, for it was universally recognised that there was no man in the Allied Armies better fitted for the task.

  General Eisenhower had been the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean theatre of operations for nearly fifteen months. He had held the supreme command—and therefore the supreme responsibility—during the Allied invasions of Sicily and of the mainland of Italy. Those fifteen crowded months had been packed with gigantic operations which had altered the whole course of the war, not only in the Mediterranean, but in British home waters and even in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

  Throughout these great events General Eisenhower had shown himself master of the intricate mosaic of operations which holds the pattern of grand strategy. He had, in addition, proved himself the ablest of commanders of inter-Allied forces. He has a passionate belief in the close and selfless collaboration without which Allies are encumbrances rather than assets. He treats Allied forces, not as separate entities but as an integral part of the weapon for common victory. At his headquarters at Algiers he had forged a staff organisation capable of dealing quickly and efficiently with any detail concerning any arm of the Allied forces. He had insisted that British and American officers should live as well as work alongside one another, so that each one became fully conversant with the problems and the methods of the other. The result was concord and efficiency. All men knew that General Eisenhower would have absolutely no mercy upon any grain of sand in the working parts—and he saw to it personally that they really were working parts.

  General Eisenhower brought this creed of co-operation to the staffs which had been working on the combined planning of the invasion of Northern France. That is not to say that there had been discord before his advent. There certainly had not been; but it was inevitable that there should, in the absence of a supreme commander, have been certain watertight compartments and minor misunderstandings for lack of overriding authority.

  One of the first things that General Eisenhower did on taking up his new appointment was to assemble the combined British and American staffs in the big conference room at Norfolk House. To them he said: “WE are not Allies. We have plenty of Allies among the United Nations, but we who are to undertake this great operation are one indivisible force with all its parts more closely integrated than has ever been the case in any force before.” General Eisenhower was certainly not decrying the value of the other United Nations, the armed forces of many of whom had served him so well in the Mediterranean theatre of war and were to serve him so well farther north; but he instilled into the staff and into the troops, ships’ crews and air crews allocated for the invasion of North-west Europe a spirit of mutual confidence that transcended mere co-operation.

  By the time General Eisenhower was appointed as Supreme Allied Commander in January, 1944, an immense amount of work had already been done by the planning staffs and by the various departments and organisations working to the instructions of the naval, military and air commanders. Such instructions had, of course, to be issued as the various details of the plan materialised. Had they not been, a long period of preparation would have been necessary after the final plans had been completed—a delay which would have postponed the invasion until the following year.

  The ramifications of the planning and preparation of the invasion of Normandy were so vast that it is even now difficult to grasp them in their entirety.

  For a long time even before the area of the invasion or its probable date had been decided upon, the intelligence staffs had been busily engaged in the collection and collation of all manner of details about the enemy coasts and their immediate hinterland. Advertisements had appeared in the Press from time to time for photographs and information dealing with certain areas. As a result, hundreds of thousands of innocent holiday snapshots, picture postcards, motoring maps and details provided by travel bureaux and tourist agencies contributed valuable material from which a vast store of knowledge was built up. A great deal of the material called for, of course, dealt with areas which were not selected for the invasion, but even if the invasion area had been decided upon, this would have been necessary in order to prevent our intentions from becoming common knowledge and reaching the enemy.

  From all this information there were printed and held in readiness literally millions of sheets of maps, elevations and diagrams. These covered all parts of Western Europe which might be involved in forthcoming operations. To produce these, practically every firm in the country capable of map printing had to be employed, while at the same time elaborate steps had to be taken to ensure that no draughtsman or printer was aware whether or not he was dealing with a zone selected for attack.

  Meanwhile there had been set u
p a very close working liaison between the planning staff and various civil administrative authorities who were indirectly but vitally concerned in the plans for “ Operation Overlord.”

  Of these the Ministry of War Transport was obviously most closely concerned. Not only did it have to provide the merchant shipping required for the invasion, and do this with the minimum of interference with the normal flow of seaborne traffic, but it had to deal with the railway companies and the harbour authorities. The Ministry of Supply was concerned because it was that Ministry’s responsibility to see that the interference with normal transport which was to be expected during the invasion did not lead to a slowing down of the whole of our war industries. The Ministry of Food was concerned that there should be equitable and sufficient distribution of food. The Ministry of Fuel and Power had to see to it that factories and power stations had sufficient stocks to tide over any interruption in fuel deliveries. The Ministry of Labour had to provide men and women at short notice for all manner of special work which had to be undertaken. The Home Office and the Ministry of Health had to contend with the problems arising out of the movement of large parts of the population in order to leave big tracts of country free of civilian inhabitants for the final battle-training of the assault troops for the invasion.

  It is no exaggeration to say that the requirements of the invasion of Normandy impinged upon the private lives and work of every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom; and that one of the great wonders of “Operation Overlord” was that it was carried out with so little interference with the needs and convenience of the general population. That was one of the triumphs of the administrative planning of the invasion.