Mulberry Harbors

In the early stages of the world war, the English Channel had helped out the British as it isolated them from the rest of Europe and prevented a German invasion. However, as the tide of the war started changing with the Allies winning battles in North Africa and southern Europe, it was now the Allies who had to face the problem of traveling through the English Channel to get to the rest of Europe.

This challenge was extremely difficult because the Germans had turned all the channel ports in France into military fortresses. With that being known, it would be almost impossible for the Allies to attack was one of the ports was because of the military defenses the Germans had put up. However, the Allies knew that they would need a port in order to deploy their troops and bring the necessary supplies for D-Day to be successful.


The Allies eventually came up with the idea of creating artificial harbors. These harbors were called Mulberries and they consisted of 73 individual prefabricated concrete blocks. When assembled together, they could make up ports that would allow boats to tie-up and unload their supplies. The mulberries were built in the UK and then towed across the ocean and brought to the beaches.

These harbors required a lot of effort to build. In fact, before being flooded, they weighed between 1,500 and 6,000 tons, could be as large as 60x17 meters, and the height of a five-story building. To make sure that they were being built fast enough, 40,000 workers were employed for this project and special building sites were made.

When the invasion took place, the mulberries played a major role. The operation may not have been as successful if the mulberries weren't there, allowing supplies to be restocked and new soldiers to be deployed.

Source:
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/DDay-Mulberry-harbours/