Arromanches Mulberry through Moggy's lens

Nice pic Moggy !

*NOTE: Under threat from demolition from the MoD it is possible to walk out on the mud flats to the Southend section but I very very strongly advise you NOT to do so the tides at Southend come in at right angles to the beach and there is a 100% risk of getring cut off.

SO DONT DO IT!

Very sound advice, lots of gully’s and depressions to cross and at certain times the tide comes in faster than you can run.
Many moons ago a pal of mine very nearly lost his life there. He only just made it after a lot of running and swimming and he was a very fit 17 year old at the time !
The only safe way is by boat.

Photo and text below from the Southend Council website.

World War II Caisson (Mulberry Harbour)

This is a ‘Phoenix’ caisson, its back broken, lying on the West Knock sandbank about 1.8 km off Thorpe Bay. The caisson is a section of temporary ‘Mulberry Harbour’ intended to be used in the Normandy landings following D Day, for the rapid re-supply of troops. The Mulberry Harbours were planned to extend 3.5 km along the coast and extend 1.75 km out to sea. The Mulberry Harbour formed at Arromanches played a crucial role in on the success of the landings. This caisson was being towed from Immingham, on the Humber, to Southsea in the run up to D Day, when it sprang a leak and was brought into the Thames estuary and allowed to sink.

The Mullberry harbour was designed by J D Bernal, it was made from hollow concrete sections called Cassions,

There are a number of sections in the Mullberry:

Section 1: Gooseberry, this was a breakwater and consited of some 60 allied ships deliberatly scuttled in selected positions these where known as Blockships.

Section 2: The Harbour, 150 re-enforced floting concrette blocks known as Pheonix Cassion’s the largest of which was some 80ft long 60ft high, these were towed accross the English Channel at 5mph these were able to be sunk and then re-floated, the the run-up to the invasion they were kept in the sunk position to stop enemy spy aircrat from seeing what was going on.

Section 3: Spuds these were the head of the Mullbery, in essence a floating wharf that would rise and fall with the tide, this was achived by anchoring the four steel legs on the sea bed, they were some 200ftlong and 60ft wide.

Section 4: Whales this was the roadway from the Spuds to the shoreand consisted of steel pontoons .

All secions of the “B” Mullbery were in place by Dplus12 (12 Days after D-Day)

On the night of 19th June 1944 with both the American “A” Mullberry off Saint-Laurent at Omaha Beach and the British “B” Mullbery in operation at Arromanche Gold Beach a violent storm hit the two sites, the British Mullberry sufferd considrable damage but was still operationalble, whilst the American Mullbery had only just been half completed the blockships where torn from thier anchor points and sunk, the Cassions where swept on to the shore, the roadway was destroyed and the giant whalfs that were mid channel were sunk with noway of reteving them. The site was declaied a write-off and abbandond, all salvageable parts were re-directed to the British Mullbery.

The British Mullbery remained in service for a further 10 monts taking ashore 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, 4million tons of supplys.

Whats Left:
As you can see from Moggys photo the Arromanches site is still fairly complete, whilst at Sanit-Laurent many of the section were removed and bought back to the UK for breaking, a few sections remain under the water as dose on of the block ships laying accross a Cassion and the beached sections also surrive.

Here in the UK a number of unused sections remain.

Aldwick, West Sussesx
One section visable at low tide

Bognor Regis, West Sussex
Known as “far or outer mullbery” a single section lays in deep water it is not visable and has been very badly broken up by RAF gunners

Corlistton harbour, Dumffries & Galoway, Scotland
One Section

Hayling island, Hampshire
A section remains in the nature reserve

Littlehampton
9 miles off shore a section lays broken in to a number of pieces.

Pagham, West Sussex
Known as “inner mulberry” visable at low tide

Phargmites Salt Mash (Thames estuary) Woolich, London
Un-used parts reported

Portland
Two complete sections

Southend-on-Sea, Essex
One section back broken visable at all times*

Wingtown Bay, Isle of Whithorn
Construction & test tower

*NOTE: Under threat from demolition from the MoD it is possible to walk out on the mud flats to the Southend section but I very very strongly advise you NOT to do so the tides at Southend come in at right angles to the beach and there is a 100% risk of getring cut off.

SO DONT DO IT!

Very nice Moggy. I understand the mulberry was made up of a lot of floating concrete things (technical term that). Were they then sunk and (therefore) sat on the ocean floor (presumably moved into place during high tide), or were they moored and remained floating whilst in use? And IIRC wasn’t there a big storm that caused some damage?