Recognizing the huge risk in capturing German-held ports in occupied France, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued his famous memo 'Piers for use on Beaches' outlining the most audacious plan of the Second World War. The Allies would build and tow two enormous harbours across 100 miles of Nazi infested waters as they launched the invasion of Europe in June 1944. D-Day was the greatest sea borne invasion in human history. By the end of the first day, almost 200,000 men had been landed ashore on the beaches. For the invasion to be a success, they desperately needed regular supplies. Normandy had no large ports - and other ports along the coast were too well defended by the Germans to be stormed and seized. In planning for D-Day however, the Allies had conceived one of the boldest engineering feats ever attempted during wartime - The Mulberry Harbours. The Allies would build their own giant artificial harbours off the Normandy beaches, constructed from huge slabs of steel and concrete floated across the Channel. MULBERRY HARBOURS is the story of one of the greatest military engineering feats of all time, designed and built at the direct request of Winston Churchill in just nine months by a labour force of 45,000 men working in total secrecy. Packed with rare film footage, the film also includes exclusive interviews with one of the chief architects of the project, Major Allan Beckett and Brigadier Mervyn Walters, Commander of Mulberry B. Without The Mulberry Harbours, D-Day could not have been a success and the outcome of World War Two might have been very different.
Alexander IV History's supplementary notes:
From the "Battle Stations" series.
Narrated by: James Faulkner
Extended interview of Commander Mulberry 'B' Mervyn Walters is joined to the film 45:08
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbour
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