The Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches

Introduction

The costly Dieppe raid in August 1942 during which some 3500 Canadian Soldiers were killed or captured had shown that the Allies could not rely on being able to penetrate Hitler’s Atlantic Wall to capture a port on the north French coast. Accordingly two artificial ports were created to provide the berthing facilities necessary to offload the thousands of men and vehicles, and tons of supplies necessary to sustain Operation Overlord and the Battle of Normandy. The harbours were made up of all the elements usually found in any harbour: breakwater, piers, roadways etc and comprised no less than 10,000 separate towable component parts which had to be shipped from various locations throughout the UK.

Two harbours were planned, one off Omaha Beach, code named Mulberry "A" and Arromanches, code named Mulberry "B" which were both substantially in position by June 9th 1944. Between 19th and 21st June, a huge summer storm the worst for 25 years raged through the English Channel critically damaging Mulberry "A" which had not been securely fastened to the sea bed. The Allies quickly reacted by abandoning Mulberry “A” and consolidated its remains within the remains of Mulberry "B", thus creating as far as possible one completely functioning harbour.

To compound the obvious design and build difficulties, the harbours could not be trialled at sea for fear of observation by enemy aircraft. Furthermore the tidal range at Arromanches is 38ft and the floating roadways had to cope with this differential twice a day, every day.

Mulberry "B" (Port Winston) saw heavy use for 8 months—despite being designed to last only 3 months. In the 100 days after D-Day, it was used to land over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tonnes of supplies providing much needed reinforcements in France.

Photo Gallery

What Can Be Seen Today?

Much remains of Mulberry "B", or Port Winston as shown by the photographs. Today we will drive to within yards of the observation platform on the Arromanches sea front and even at high tide it is possible to clearly see how the harbour worked. Looking out over the bay examples of the massive "Phoenix" caissons each weighing over 6000 tonnes can be observed. These caissons, or pontoons, provided berthing facilities for the Liberty ships to embark their cargoes, often pre-loaded into trucks. These trucks were finally driven ashore along the floating roadways, elements of which can still be seen, and parked up briefly before being deployed inland to wherever they were most needed by the inshore troops. A further and more detailed explanation is given at the observation platform.

Here also, we collect our picnic lunch (not included) to have at a particularly beautiful location above Omaha Beach, stop number three on the Day One itinerary.

Private Transfer from London by Air

Short on timer or prefer to fly?

D-Day Airtours will take you on an insightful one-day tour by air of the landing beaches and other D-Day sites. Pick up from Central London (or other areas by arrangement) in the morning, flying to Carpiquet airport, Caen from Oxford, and return by mid-evening of the same day.

Alternatively, for an even shorter visit, take a flying tour over the area with guided commentary.

Either way your tour is delivered by a professional English guide experienced and knowledgeable in the D-Day landings.

Whether you are from America, Canada or Britain you will be provided with detailed information about your country's role in the landings.

Please feel free to contact us for more detailed information - click to contact us.

If you are looking for a longer, much more in-depth trip by car and on foot, then please see our alternate site offering this at www.d-dayairtours.com.