A Harbour Goes to France

[Music] [Music] on the evening of june the 5th 1944 the greatest fleet the world has ever known sailed from the shores of southern england while great air forces swept the skies above it carried the soldiers safely across a hundred miles of perilous sea [Music] at dawn the next day guns of the allied fleets opened the assault on the beaches of [Music] normandy [Music] [Music] the army seized the beaches and poured in but the tremendous problem of communication and supply still remained for those who planned the invasion this had always been a major problem which could only be overcome if a port was captured in the first few days of the campaign there were plenty of good ports on the french coast burloyn the harv sherburg and the rest they were the gateways into the continent but the germans knew it hold the ports they said and we hold europe so they fortified them against attack by cm land and were prepared to destroy them completely rather than let any one of them fall into our hands they believed that before we could capture report the changeable channel weather would cut off our army from its food oil and ammunition the weather as well as the germans could be our enemy in may 1942 mr churchill wrote a memorandum on the subject of peers for beaches a harbor was essential but if we could not capture one then we must build our own but it takes years to build a harbor dover for instance took seven years how could we build a much greater harbor than dover in a matter of days and under fire from enemy guns there was but one solution and at quebec in august 1943 the main principles of this darting and fantastic project were agreed upon we would build great harbor units in england tow them across the sea and set them down during the battle off the normandy coast in the autumn of 1943 building began [Music] in ports and harbors and shipyards and factories all over england sections of the vast harbour began to take shape over 30 000 men were at work on strange monstrous structures of which they could not be told the purpose half a million tons of concrete alone went to the building of these mammoths as d-day approached all these parts of the great harbour to be were launched then towed in great secrecy to the assembly place whence they would be taken across to france [Music] the place chosen for this port was the little normandy town of aramash where surveys and soundings had been secretly taken weeks before d-day the royal engineers were already ashore making a survey of the beach while the battle went on a few miles behind the town the first part of the operation consisted of sinking old ships which were now making their last voyage under their own steel they were sunk with explosive charges the first went down on the afternoon of d plus one towards evening a second ship was sunk their purpose was to give immediate shelter to small craft and to form the first part of the harbour brickwater in four days fifteen old ships were sunk fifteen old ships whose last hours were perhaps their greatest [Music] ashore the engineers blew great gaps in the west wall made roads and carried out demolitions bulldozers cleared the roads for the lorries which would roll ashore later the short end sections of the piers each some 480 feet long were towed into position opposite the gaps already blasted by the engineers each section of pier was held in position by steel cables which were run out to anchors by specially constructed boats other sections were then joined on making a flexible floating causeway which rose and fell with the tide along this causeway the engineers laid a steel road strong enough to carry the heaviest vehicles [Music] at the same time to extend the line of sunken ships breakwaters were laid these concrete structures each weighing 7000 tons had been towed across the channel some 200 types were engaged on this job [Music] alone [Music] as they were brought into position the valves were opened and the sea rushed in the great mass of concrete slowly settled down on the ocean bed forming a great wall against the sea a floating breakwater was laid further out to sea to provide a deep water anchorage for the bigger ships it was an experimental contrivance which hadn't been tested in heavy weather indeed the whole harbour was experimental nobody had ever attempted such a tremendous engineering feat before yet by d plus 10 although the main installations were unfinished ducks were unloading hundreds of tons daily in the lee of the breakwaters the engineer's job ashore was nearly finished and the floating causeways stretched far out into the harbor the first pier head which like all the other sections had made the slow and hazardous journey across the channel was now brought into position the press of a button and the great legs were lowered to the sea bottom making a vast steady platform with further peerheads linked to it a great wharf would be formed where vessels could unload directly into lorries which would drive to and fro along the floating causeways by d plus 13 only 12 days after the first ship was sunk the huge task of making the port was nearly done the inner breakwater was more than half completed all the floating breakwaters were led one pier finished three quarters of a mile of it with three of the projected line of pier heads at its seaward m to meet this line a second pier was under construction to the west was a third pier this had a pier head designed for unloading tank landing ships unloading from the main pier was just beginning then the wind began to blow and on the 13th day of the invasion the treacherous sea became hitler's ally unloading on the open beaches ceased yet somehow or other the work of unloading in the port went on [Music] the wind became a gale the gun crews had to be taken off and the floating breakwaters broke away from their moorings a june gale this was an enemy more deadly than the germans this was the reason why we had built the harbour but this jail was a winter stream it blew all day all night all next day and the next night ashore the army's supplies were dwindling the build-up for the great offensive was stopped on the third day the storm was still raging ships and craft many in distress scuffled for shelter in the lee of the breakwaters [Music] yet through the harbor the desperately needed supplies still went ashore the army asked for ammunition and in spite of the gale hundreds of tons were unloaded in a day but the harbor suffered heavy damage the gale had caught it before it was finished some of the breakwaters damaged by wreckage had crumpled away or collapsed but much survived the start block ships hadn't shifted the piers so frail looking yet so strong were undamaged the harbor still lived and the men who had built it now set about the job of mindy it had stood up to the gale the miracle had happened for the first time in history a harbor had been built in sections towed across the sea and set down during a battle on the enemy's shore [Music] in an ever increasing flood the vehicles and supplies poured through it in calm weather and rock we had beaten the weather and hitler had lost yet another ally lorries jeeps ambulances tanks they rolled ashore along the causeway down the roads which the engineers had built with the harbor behind them our armies drove through car and onto valleys over the same over the psalms through leo and into belgium [Music] on through brussels and into holland to the frontiers of germany and on towards berlin so