In late-May 2024 I had the pleasure to attend the Naval Dockyards Society 28th Annual Conference, ‘From Yards to Hards – Preparing Allied naval forces for the 1944 Normandy Landings’. Hosted by the ‘D-Day Story’ Portsmouth, this fascinating conference brought together historians from around the world to discuss Second World War innovation that made D-Day possible. These include innovations in organisation, logistics and technology.
The Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944 was the most ambitious and extensive amphibious invasion in history. How were the troops prepared, equipped, and marshalled to the correct locations at the correct time? How were multiple Allied armed forces combined into one coherent invasion force? What technology had to be invented, developed, and then mass-produced to move so much manpower and equipment across the Channel, and then effectively deploy this on the invasion beaches?
The conference aimed to answer these questions. Of particular interest was the development of the critical infrastructure and naval equipment required for Operation Overlord, the Mulberry Harbours and Landing Craft tanks.
Mulberry Harbours and Whale Bridges
In an excellent talk by Dr Jacob Thomas-Llewellyn of the University of Reading, he brought attention to how the British design and construction of the two Mulberry Harbours, relied on close cooperation with British industry. These gigantic floating ports made up of ‘Spud’ pierheads, ‘Phoenix’ caissons, and ‘Whale’ bridges were essential to the Allied invasion effort after D-Day to land the heavy equipment and vehicles required for the wider liberation of France.
The rapid development of the Mulberry Harbours is an example where government, armed forces, and private industry combined to build critical infrastructure, essential for the successful invasion and winning the war.
But the development of temporary floating harbours doesn’t end with D-Day.
Today there are contemporary parallels with efforts by the US Army to build and maintain a floating pier designed to allow large ships to supply humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. Similar floating harbours can be deployed in disaster and war zones to provide aid, supplies, and logistical support.
Landing Craft
But before the Mulberry Harbours were deployed, the Allied forces still had to land tanks, vehicles, and heavy equipment on the Normandy beaches themselves. For this they required a simple and versatile landing craft which could land on the beaches, and more importantly deploy their tanks quickly and safely before withdrawing to sea. And they needed lots of these vessels!
These were the Landing Craft Tanks or LCTs. Dr Ian Buxton of Newcastle University presented a fascinating paper on the mass construction of over 1,300 tank landing craft in Britain during the Second World War.
So many were required that non-ship builders, structural engineering firms learnt to build these vessels, and the LCTs took up a quarter of British warship production in the run up to D-Day.
After the war, the cheap and versatile LCTs found multiple uses as civilian ferries and transport craft. LCT-7074, preserved and on display at the D-Day Story was even later used as a floating nightclub!
Overall, the conference provided a fascinating insight into some of the engineering problems and solutions developed for critical infrastructure and transport for D-Day. Without this essential technology, the Normandy Landings in June 1944 simply would not have been possible.
Robert Rumble is the Project Curator for Lifesavers, a five-year project to explore how conflict has driven innovation in science and technology. Lifesavers is a collaboration between Imperial War Museums and Lloyd’s Register Foundation.
