My hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada has a monument on the Shore of Lake Ontario to the Soldiers of the Dieppe raid. 582 members of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry took part in the raid. 200 were killed and nearly 300 were wounded or taken prisoner. It's nice to know that something positive resulted from the experience of that disaster.
it was a massive lesson to the allies, they also got hold of a brand new highly complicated 4 rotor enigma machine that was vital for cracking it as we'd lost the ability to decipher it
Dear IWM: A GREAT tribute to a brilliant piece of military engineering. I like how you very clearly give the credit to the Canadians who were slaughtered at Dieppe, but who unfortunately proved the truism that defeats make great teachers. The meticulous planning that went into OVERLORD was for an amphbious operation the like of which I think we will never see again. And contrasts to the ultra-skinny (this is putting it kindly) planning that went into the amphbious landings 29 years previously at the Dardanelles in 1915.....
The planning can't have been that meticulous. The bombing and shelling of the gun emplacements appeared to have little effect. (Why didn't they drop Tallboys and Grand Slams on them?) The Bocage seems to have caught them completely by surprise.
@@Poliss95 I read accounts of survivors from the first wave on Omaha who were appalled as they came in to see that the bombardment and bombing had managed to miss the entire massive beach. Part of the reason for doing it was to smash up and crater the beach to give the infantry cover as they advanced. Instead it was a pristine death trap.
@@Caratacus1 from what I understand and have read in after action reports the bombers came in from the sea rather than coming up parallel to the beaches leading many pilots due to clouds hold on dropping until they thought they were clear of hitting friendly forces instead they hit inland.
Might not be a more valuable disaster than Dieppe. Not only did it open the eyes of the Allies to the challenges they faced but it gave the Axis sense of complacency to the threat they faced. Both aspects led to the victory of D day .
@@redtobertshateshandles Actually, Rommel later admitted in his diaries and letters that keeping the tanks close to the beaches would have been a mistake. Allied naval gunfire and tactical airforces would have prevented them from pursuing a war of maneuver.
There are still a few mulberry Harbour components dotted around the UK coast. I grew up in Southend where there is a mulberry harbour caisson off the foreshore at Thorpe Bay. When I was younger we used to walk out to it and climb on it to dive off. It broke its back on the mud Bank. There are also shell holes in it where the navy tried unsuccessfully to destroy it. There's also another at Portsmouth in the cut between Pompey and Hayling Island.
I've met Julian Thompson a number of times, the former Royal Marines commander during the Falklands. He is adamant that the lessons of Dieppe were already known and it did not need to have been undertaken.
Thank you for this. I knew about the Mulberry harbours but was never really able to envisage just how they worked. This has clarified it and it was nothing like I had imagined.
My grandfather was a member of the Royal Engineers, the role of his group was to build and maintain forward landing strips for the RAF. They arrived at the time of the storm where they lost most of their heavy equipment, I believe that they found replacement equipment which they used
At Arromanche in France, where traces of the Mulberry can still be seen, they have got a fantastic working model of the installation. It shows how the pier heads move up and down with tides, and demonstrate's the one way circle of trucks that took the supplies to shore. I have read that the US engineers were not so fastidious as the British in constructing habour A, and it's debatable whether it might have survived the storm, with stronger achoring in place. Apologists for the Americans maintain that their site was in a more exposed position. The jury is still out. Large parts of the port ( harbour B) were taken up to Antwerp to speed up the opening of freight there in the autumn of 1944.so it repayed the efforts of construction.
By apologists do you mean the University of Oxford? "We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years." link below If the US Mulberry had not been destroyed what could have been used to repair the British harbour? www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/storm-struck-mulberry-harbours
@@andygray9285 I came to say this, a type of arrogance that they'd have a port in a few days and wouldn't need them for that long. New boys to the fight I guess. I don't remember if the Americans did but the British ran some old ships aground and scuttled them to add to the defences too
The Mulberry Harbours were very ingenious. But to work as intended, they had to be installed as per instructions. Each floating Beetle supporting the roadway was anchored to the sandy seabed by diagonally criss-crossing kedge anchors buried in the sand, to hold the mile-long row in place. However, Mulberry ‘A’ was not properly anchored, as above, but rather more loosely installed instead. As a result, it was totally destroyed in the violent storm two weeks after D-Day. Mulberry ‘B’, which was properly anchored, was badly damaged, but then repaired and continued to function.
Mulberry "A" was installed by the americans, perfunctorily; which was destroyed in the storm. These artificial, temporary piers supposedly suggested by churchill who also formed a committee to research ways to get back to mainland Europe in 1940, played an important role allowing the allies to break out from the beach-head. ((WSC not my cup of tea).
The CB's were given very little time to come to grips with to the concept (mere days if memory serves) hence they weren't steeped in the need to follow all the instructions. Which is a British leadership failure. Plenty of those to go around. Remember the RN contribution? (Bombardons) These almost wrecked 'B' when they broke free. The RN tried to take over the whole concept and would have mightily failed if they had.
The storm that struck the Mulberry Harbours "We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years." University of Oxford
@@nickdanger3802 Hey don't go throwing facts around. There's some deeply held prejudices, feelings of superiority and accusations of inferiority still to be tossed about more than 75 years later. Remember the only thing worse than having allies is not having allies.
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived." www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/storm-struck-mulberry-harbours
@@Poliss95 "The Utah Beach Gooseberry lost several blockships that were torn open, and the Mulberry harbor off St. Laurent was devastated. The breakwaters were overwhelmed by waves, two blockships broke their backs, and only 10 out of 35 Phoenix caissons remained in position." www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/mulberry-harbor-d-day-engineering/
"A wrecked Phoenix Breakwater is also to be seen, broken in two, in the Thames estuary off Shoebury Ness in Essex. It broke while being towed from Harwich in June 1944." military.wikia.org/wiki/Phoenix_breakwaters
During the night a U.S. salvage barge and five British LCTs drifted in against the eastern side of the center Whale roadway. Their heavy steel hulls destroyed very object they ran into. They cracked the concrete pontoons and crushed the steel. The Whale bridging gave way and turned on its side in a mass. The storm continued through the night of 21 June and is said to be the worst June gale in forty years. Additional shipping buffeted by strong winds and heavy seas continued to drift down against the piers and roadways. Phoenixes in the outer breakwater showed signs of collapse and the Lobnitz pier-heads gave indications of breaking up in the heavy seas, making it necessary to evacuate personnel. The 51 Bombardons broke their moorings and all twenty-four steel masses went drift. The Bombardons inflicted an enormous amount of damage to the harbor roadways and piers. The Bombardons were masses of floating steel, and free of their moorings they broke through the concrete Phoenix caissons destroying them and became battering rams inside the harbor. apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a547464.pdf
Thanks IWM! The content is pitched at the right level, with great footage. Lightyears away from your average History Channel doc dumbed down but over-dramatised cheese.
lawrie flowers mentions the Kedge anchors. I understand that the design of these anchors was an engineering breakthrough, amongst many. This program requires a supplement to cover the development, testing, and manufacture of these artificial ports. An example of the Kedge anchor is mounted on display at Arromanche. When I visited Arromanche I couldn’t find a Chip Shop, but the restaurant I visited did serve Fish n Chips 🙀 The remains of the Mulberries at Arromanche can still be seen , particularly from the air, from 29,000 ft on the Heathrow to Paris route. Sit on the starboard side, and look for the slight hollow in the coastline around Arromanche.
There’s a beetle floating pontoon on the beach at Aldwick, West Sussex. It can be explored during low tide. There’s also another Mulberry component further out, but I don’t know what it is.
There is a broken backed Phoenix near the exit from Langstone Harbour, if you look carefully along the beach just south of the public slipway there are still the remains of the slips on which some Phoenix units were made.
@@cuchidesoto2686 the Richard Montgomery is just off Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey. Sheerness is such a dump that, if the explosives on the Richard Montgomery ever detonate, it will cause millions of pounds worth of improvements…
The British and Americans had their own seperate Whale causeways. When construction began the British officer in command ordered that each section had to secured by four wire hawsers that were anchored into the sea bed. The Americans opted to use only two moorings to each section. When the great storm had abated the US causeway was destroyed and the British one was still intact and continued to function superbly.
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years." University of Oxford The storm that struck the Mulberry Harbours
@@nickdanger3802 Yes, you said that. But you didn't address the point Ken Harris just made re the hawsers. Would four hawsers have saved the American harbour, or at least rendered it repairable? We may never know.
You are obviously proud of the British effort. Nothing wrong with that, but you fail to address why the Americans took their “shortcut”. Speed was of the essence in getting supplies to the fight, and the Americans realized they could have the system functional sooner with this tactic, and reinforce the system after it was put into use. The 40-year storm spoiled that approach. They threw the dice, and this time it came up snakeyes. The high roller approach did, however, pay off many times during the war, relative to Montgomery’s much more conservative approach.
"Undismayed by the destruction of their artificial harbour, the Americans applied to the development of the Omaha and Utah anchorages their tremendous talent for invention and organization. In defiance of orthodox opinion they beached coasters (LST's) and unloaded them direct into Army lorries at low tide... during July the Americans here handled more than twice the tonnage which passed through the British Mulberry." Chester, Wilmot , The Struggle for Europe. Hertfordshire SG: Wordsworth Editions, 1997, p.387
What, isn't directly mentioned is that I'm sure German strategic thinking was based on the fact that the allies had to take a port within the first week of the campaign. The Mulberry Harbours changed that dynamic they removed that requirement and that opened up the areas of operations to pretty much anywhere along the coastline of the English Channel. There is a reason the Germans felt that the Pas-de-Calais was the most likely target, in large part because of the large number of ports, both directly and in close proximity...
Very interesting video, thanks! I like the attitude of the planners of the invasion - "Let's invade here, where enemy resistance is expected to be fairly light." "But there's no harbor!" "Don't worry, we'll build one in a couple of days!"
Stephen E. Ambrose was not impressed by the Mulberries. He thought that landing supplies on the beaches was more effective and the Mulberry a waste of effort. His book on D-Day is the only one I've thrown away.
In the video it's pointed out that the calming affects of the breakwater made beach unloading possible. It has been said that the destruction of the US harbour was due to a lower standard of installation by the engineers.
Ambrose needed to study the tide cycles and do a bit of maths with regards to turn around times and cycles for the shipping. Mind you he wasn't the only one. One or more US Generals were of the same opinion of the "waste of resources" involved in the construction of the Mulberries. Lets first look at the "Landing on the Beach option", LST's and LCM's were the only craft really designed for landing on a beach and being left high and dry during Low Tide. There are also photos of Liberty Ships being beached and unloading in to trucks and DUKWs. Other ships not suited to being beached had to "stand off" from the beach and off load into DUKWs. Once beached a vessel was stuck there for the best part of 24 hours until the next High Tide refloated them. Ships offloading into DUKWs could go when empty, but the process was still slow. The Americans at Omaha were helped by the Breakwaters constructed as a part of the original Mulberry A. Going by the Land on the Beaches lobby it is doubtful that a Breakwater would have been a part of the plan. This would have meant a slower unloading time for all of the ships unloading into DUKWs. Contrast this scene with Mulberry B where ships could offload at the Pier Heads as well as Landing craft at special ramps that were part of the Pier Head. This meant that once any type of shipping was unloaded it could then set sail back to England for more supplies without having to wait for the next High Tide, hence a shorter cycle time and a greater utilisation rate. Consider also that LSTs and LCMs were in VERY short supply in the European Theatre and also in the Pacific. The Landing at Saipan was conducted within a week of D-Day, and that is why LSTs were in such short supply. Hopefully I have explained the flaws in the "Land the Supplies over the Beaches" nonsense. Mark from Melbourne Australia.
I find this fascinating. - We saw the remnants of Mulberry off the DDay beaches. Our guide mentioned that the American harbour collapsed because the American engineers had not secured them properly. I saw the 'whale' section at Duxford.
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years." University of Oxford The storm that struck the Mulberry Harbours
As mentioned in another post, there is a very good museum at Arromanches. Of course, it shows in great detail, what all the elements that made up Mulberry 'B', were and how they worked. However, for me, the most impressive exhibit is.....a photograph. It is about 8x11, black and white and was taken from 11,000 metres above Mulberry 'B' on or about 14th June, when both harbours were working at near capacity. A german aircraft. 11,000 metres and above the harbour at all, meant it was a German jet aircraft, so its product was as rare as rocking horse poo. It shows the Allies had brought with them a port the size of Dover and we'd done it TWICE. Had we been fighting a rational, logical, compassionate enemy, they would have looked at that photograph and reasoned; "We cannot beat these people. There is no path to victory for us. We must sue for cease fire and peace while we still can, otherwise we will needlessly bleed our people dry. But we weren't fighting a rational enemy, were we?
That complexity that you mention was partly responsible for the failure of Mulberry A (American) during that storm. The various components had been designed carefully to be able to deal with storms, and that included redundancy in the fixings and in the anchoring systems. Doing things properly was the reason why Mulberry B (British) took The Royal Engineers longer to assemble by a number of days than it took The Seabees to assemble Mulberry A. In their haste The Seabees failed to install all fixings as required and they also failed to install all of the required anchoring chains. The American beach at Omaha Beach was also more exposed to the Channel than the British beach at Gold Beach. This is why when the storm hit the Invasion Beaches, Mulberry A essentially failed it's first major test. The storm was severe enough to also cause significant damage to Mulberry B, but Mulberry B was deemed repairable. Mark from Melbourne Australia.
@@markfryer9880 "We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years." University of Oxford
Mulberry A was put together by the Americans too hurriedly and not properly and that was why it received more damage. The British did assemble Mulberry B as directed and it stood up to the storms much better.
@@nickdanger3802 I read it in a history book about the invasion but I am pretty sure it was on TV too, it was a long time ago and I can’t remember the name of the book now unfortunately. The Americans did it for speed and their unloading started much quicker than the British/Canadian one did, however the storm exposed the folly of that and closed it down. However, check Wikipedia and you will see it says the American one was not securely attached to the sea bed like the British/Canadian one and that was a major reason why the American one was so severely damaged and abandoned after the storm.
@@trevorgiddings3053 "We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years." University of Oxford The storm that struck the Mulberry Harbours page
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived." University of Oxford on line
@@nickdanger3802 "The harbours were transported to the Normandy beaches in the days after D-Day. Mulberry A was installed very quickly and ahead of schedule although various shortcuts were made in its installation, such as using fewer anchors on the roadway than specified in the design." Jackson, Z., Grey, S., Adcock, T.A.A. et al. The waves at the Mulberry Harbours. J. Ocean Eng. Mar. Energy 3, 285-292
@@Nog311 Has any qualified person, like an engineer, stated the only reason A was written off was due to it not being done exactly the same way as B? If A had not been written off what would have been used to repair B?
@@nickdanger3802 No but the engineers at Oxford University state that "We found that the American Mulberry experienced slightly more severe waves than the British harbour."
You weren't there operating with the information available at the time. War is all about mistakes, and who makes the fewest and who learns the most from the ones they do make. Read "One Day in August" by David O'Keefe (2013).
The Mulberry harbors were a brilliant British idea, unfortunately the American harbor was not anchored properly, the US engineers thought it would be better to putout less than half of the anchors that they should have for the sake of speed, they were wrong and the pontoons broke loose. This fact is rarely mentioned as it is an embarrassment to the US.
@@nickdanger3802 you keep repeating this but it doesn’t actually refute the original point. They may or may not have put out the appropriate anchors, and they may or may have not made a difference given the different weather conditions you mention.
IIRC Mulberry A at Omaha beach was more exposed than Mulberry B was. There were accusations that the US Navy assembly of Mulberry A was inferior to the British engineers work at Mulberry B. Possibly…. However the June storm that destroyed Mulberry A was so strong it probably didn’t matter
The American mulberry A was poorly put together by the Americans, and that is why it was so serverley damage in the storm. This lack of attention to detail would cost the Americans dearly in Europe.
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived." University of Oxford
Dieppe: Poor recce by commandos who failed to report on the beach geology. Round stones which rolled like marbles under the tracks of the tanks made them sitting ducks.
I thought that all of the Sherman tanks were of the same size, I didn't;t know that they also had a "enormous " version too. Why have we not heard about this before? Perhaps you could do a video on what I am sure would be a GREAT tank.
There were two models of Sherman which were different in size from the “standard” ones. The first was the E2 models, the “Jumbo”. It was basically the same size but was much heavier due to the added armor. The second and much more numerous especially in British hands was the A4 series which had a lengthened hull to fit the rather large multi bank engine. This engine was in fact five six cylinder engines working together. The US never adopted it and exported all that were made to Britain where it was quite popular. Those were known as either the Sherman V or the Firefly Vc.
The American ground forces were the largest group by nationality at almost half including airborne. Britain second then Canada. British controlled naval forces were about 80 per cent. Almost all of the fighters were P38's since that was the only aircraft the navy did not try to shoot down. The Battle of Saipan was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands from 15 June to 9 July 1944 as part of Operation Forager.
@@nickdanger3802 I'm Canadian, so I'll say sorry first, for having to correct you. The British put 61,000 troops ashore, the Americans 57,500 and the Canadians 14,000.
Mulberry Harbours: Were they any good? Well, they were better than nothing - which in this context, means, yes, they were good! Why is this question even being asked? Anything short of bad, in the circumstances, was good!
A mention of the decisive principals would have been nice. Is the IWM just dedicated to the preservation of Winston's memory? Which in this instance is probably apt as Mulberry was that man's only contribution to the military effort. All his strategic blunders overshadow the other contributions. e.g. Dieppe was a ridiculous concept and proved to be so in every facet of the operation. A throwback to the tactics of earlier centuries. Add to that Greece/Nth Africa, support for the Navy (5 years to negotiate a draw in the Atlantic), Soft underbelly plus Dodecanese, Dowding, Semphill, Monty, ... the list is long.) Furthermore if the people needed WRC's reassurances says very little for their supposed bulldog spirit. Hint: never vote for an aristocrat when what you were really after was a man (or adult if I have to be politically corrected). Their time has passed, dating back to the Enclosure laws.
'support for the Navy (5 years to negotiate a draw in the Atlantic)' What a blinkered chap you are. The British & Canadian navies won the Battle of the Atlantic in May, 1943. They also made possible the D-Day landings, providing the vast majority of the warships and the crews for landing craft. The RN won the naval campaign in the Mediterranean, lifted over 500,000 troops from France in 1940, held the Channel secure, and fought through the convoys to North Russia.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 Rather a rosy picture you've provided for yourself, old chap. One word SWATH: demonstrated to them in 1938 by Creed himself, and those strategic geniuses couldn't find one single useful application? It isn't and wasn't rocket science old boy. (2) e.g. Imagine PT-boats (and/or smaller) with an at-sea recovery support (motherships, for storms) protecting the convoys. Result: Atlantic War 1939-1940 (May). Given the size of the navies arrayed against them it was understandable that the time gaps between contributions you mentioned sometimes involved years (which suited their brain speed and depth quite admirably I imagine.) The sailors were magnificent, however the leadership was not even in the same city. Don't confuse the two contributions. IOW don't follow the medals, follow the stench of death. Secondary conclusions. High rank and age (over 35) provide no value in command positions - since perhaps Waterloo. Good only for logistics, training, officer material identification and advisory (only) on technical development. Perhaps even the separation of forces is no longer essential with the battle speeds available today. e.g. Imagine introducing the tank AFTER it had been tested and analysed by a team of battle-experienced subalterns and sergeants. Delayed perhaps 6 months; Result: end-of-war machine upon introduction. Learn to think critically m'boy.
@@peterclark6290 Are you the same person who posted similar rambling nonsense a year or two ago? If you are, it seems you haven't changed or, indeed, learned anything. The first SWATH vessel actually built by anyone, by the way, was in 1968. Rather late for the Battle of the Atlantic perhaps?
@@dovetonsturdee7033 When the RN and RCN won the Battle of the Atlantic did they use any of the 38 escort carriers, 78 Captain class frigates, 10 Lake class cutters or thousands of carrier aircraft provided by Lend Lease? What about RAF Coastal Command and over 2,000 B24's?
@@nickdanger3802 Sorry, I am surprised that you should post such a fatuous comment. Of course the RN & RCN used a lot of American built equipment, but the crews who fought & won the Battle were British & Canadian. To follow your argument, it would be logical to assume that the US Navy victory at Midway should not be credited to the American air crews, but to the Douglas Aircraft Company, who built the Dauntless. It would, of course, also be foolish and wrong. Churchill said, I believe, 'give us the tools & we will finish the job.' Huge American resources did indeed supply many of the tools, but I did not anticipate that you would seek to belittle the efforts of the RN & RCN in this manner.
@@Buffaloc It is interesting looking at where the soldiers who went ashore on D-Day came from, they were a grand collection of allsorts. Equally interesting is the line up for El Alamein. On the 'German' side, there was also quite a collection of non-Germans.
My hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada has a monument on the Shore of Lake Ontario to the Soldiers of the Dieppe raid. 582 members of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry took part in the raid. 200 were killed and nearly 300 were wounded or taken prisoner. It's nice to know that something positive resulted from the experience of that disaster.
it was a massive lesson to the allies, they also got hold of a brand new highly complicated 4 rotor enigma machine that was vital for cracking it as we'd lost the ability to decipher it
It was a diversion so commandos could infiltrate the harbour to find Enigma machines and code books. IIRC, they only acquired code books.
Dear IWM: A GREAT tribute to a brilliant piece of military engineering. I like how you very clearly give the credit to the Canadians who were slaughtered at Dieppe, but who unfortunately proved the truism that defeats make great teachers. The meticulous planning that went into OVERLORD was for an amphbious operation the like of which I think we will never see again. And contrasts to the ultra-skinny (this is putting it kindly) planning that went into the amphbious landings 29 years previously at the Dardanelles in 1915.....
The planning can't have been that meticulous. The bombing and shelling of the gun emplacements appeared to have little effect. (Why didn't they drop Tallboys and Grand Slams on them?) The Bocage seems to have caught them completely by surprise.
@@Poliss95 I read accounts of survivors from the first wave on Omaha who were appalled as they came in to see that the bombardment and bombing had managed to miss the entire massive beach. Part of the reason for doing it was to smash up and crater the beach to give the infantry cover as they advanced. Instead it was a pristine death trap.
@@Poliss95 probably because they did not have the quantity of bombs that would have been required.
@@Poliss95 also the tallboys and grandslam bombs were being used for the uboat pens.
@@Caratacus1 from what I understand and have read in after action reports the bombers came in from the sea rather than coming up parallel to the beaches leading many pilots due to clouds hold on dropping until they thought they were clear of hitting friendly forces instead they hit inland.
Might not be a more valuable disaster than Dieppe. Not only did it open the eyes of the Allies to the challenges they faced but it gave the Axis sense of complacency to the threat they faced. Both aspects led to the victory of D day .
No the Axis weren't complacent just the opposite. And they didn't listen to Rommel.
@@redtobertshateshandles Actually, Rommel later admitted in his diaries and letters that keeping the tanks close to the beaches would have been a mistake. Allied naval gunfire and tactical airforces would have prevented them from pursuing a war of maneuver.
D-Day was to save western Europe from Stalin.
There are still a few mulberry Harbour components dotted around the UK coast. I grew up in Southend where there is a mulberry harbour caisson off the foreshore at Thorpe Bay. When I was younger we used to walk out to it and climb on it to dive off. It broke its back on the mud Bank. There are also shell holes in it where the navy tried unsuccessfully to destroy it.
There's also another at Portsmouth in the cut between Pompey and Hayling Island.
Great mix of archive footage and explanation. This must have taken a great deal of research and thought to make this into this informative piece
Glad you enjoyed it!
I've met Julian Thompson a number of times, the former Royal Marines commander during the Falklands. He is adamant that the lessons of Dieppe were already known and it did not need to have been undertaken.
Did he know then that the Dieppe Raid was merely a diversion so Commandos could infiltrate the harbour & look for Enigma machines/code books?
Thank you for this. I knew about the Mulberry harbours but was never really able to envisage just how they worked. This has clarified it and it was nothing like I had imagined.
My grandfather was a member of the Royal Engineers, the role of his group was to build and maintain forward landing strips for the RAF. They arrived at the time of the storm where they lost most of their heavy equipment, I believe that they found replacement equipment which they used
At Arromanche in France, where traces of the Mulberry can still be seen, they have got a fantastic working model of the installation. It shows how the pier heads move up and down with tides, and demonstrate's the one way circle of trucks that took the supplies to shore.
I have read that the US engineers were not so fastidious as the British in constructing habour A, and it's debatable whether it might have survived the storm, with stronger achoring in place. Apologists for the Americans maintain that their site was in a more exposed position. The jury is still out.
Large parts of the port ( harbour B) were taken up to Antwerp to speed up the opening of freight there in the autumn of 1944.so it repayed the efforts of construction.
By apologists do you mean the University of Oxford?
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years." link below
If the US Mulberry had not been destroyed what could have been used to repair the British harbour?
www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/storm-struck-mulberry-harbours
There is one of the Phoenix sections off of the coast of Greatstone in Kent apparently it was stuck fast and could not be refloated.
@@nickdanger3802 Ah yes but the paper you quoted does not take into account that the American engineers failed to anchor their Mullbery corectly.
@@andygray9285 If A had not been destroyed what would have been used to rebuild B?
@@andygray9285 I came to say this, a type of arrogance that they'd have a port in a few days and wouldn't need them for that long. New boys to the fight I guess.
I don't remember if the Americans did but the British ran some old ships aground and scuttled them to add to the defences too
The Mulberry Harbours were very ingenious.
But to work as intended, they had to be installed as per instructions.
Each floating Beetle supporting the roadway was anchored to the sandy seabed by diagonally criss-crossing kedge anchors buried in the sand, to hold the mile-long row in place.
However, Mulberry ‘A’ was not properly anchored, as above, but rather more loosely installed instead.
As a result, it was totally destroyed in the violent storm two weeks after D-Day.
Mulberry ‘B’, which was properly anchored, was badly damaged, but then repaired and continued to function.
Mulberry "A" was installed by the americans, perfunctorily; which was destroyed in the storm. These artificial, temporary piers supposedly suggested by churchill who also formed a committee to research ways to get back to mainland Europe in 1940, played an important role allowing the allies to break out from the beach-head. ((WSC not my cup of tea).
The CB's were given very little time to come to grips with to the concept (mere days if memory serves) hence they weren't steeped in the need to follow all the instructions. Which is a British leadership failure. Plenty of those to go around. Remember the RN contribution? (Bombardons) These almost wrecked 'B' when they broke free. The RN tried to take over the whole concept and would have mightily failed if they had.
The storm that struck the Mulberry Harbours "We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years."
University of Oxford
@@nickdanger3802 Hey don't go throwing facts around. There's some deeply held prejudices, feelings of superiority and accusations of inferiority still to be tossed about more than 75 years later. Remember the only thing worse than having allies is not having allies.
Nothing I like better than to find a great video about a subject I had no previous knowledge of. Great work, keep it up.
Thank you for another informative video. Thank you also for the interesting comments everyone. Have a good day from Sydney Australia.
The huge caissons are still in place near Arromaches. I’ve sailed along there and into the harbour. It is an eerie place.
i think i read somewhere Mulberry A was built quicker but didn't use the anchors for the roadway and this was why it took more damage during the storm
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived."
www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/storm-struck-mulberry-harbours
@@nickdanger3802 The Americans were careless about the exact spots to sink the blockships too, which let the storm through to the Mulberry.
@@Poliss95 "The Utah Beach Gooseberry lost several blockships that were torn open, and the Mulberry harbor off St. Laurent was devastated. The breakwaters were overwhelmed by waves, two blockships broke their backs, and only 10 out of 35 Phoenix caissons remained in position."
www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/mulberry-harbor-d-day-engineering/
"A wrecked Phoenix Breakwater is also to be seen, broken in two, in the Thames estuary off Shoebury Ness in Essex.
It broke while being towed from Harwich in June 1944."
military.wikia.org/wiki/Phoenix_breakwaters
During the night a U.S. salvage barge and five British LCTs drifted in against the eastern side of the center Whale roadway. Their heavy steel hulls destroyed very object they ran into. They cracked the concrete pontoons and crushed the steel. The Whale bridging gave way and turned on its side in a mass. The storm continued through the night of 21 June and is said to be the worst June gale in forty years. Additional shipping buffeted by strong winds and heavy seas continued to drift down against the piers and roadways. Phoenixes in the outer breakwater showed signs of collapse and the Lobnitz pier-heads gave indications of breaking up in the heavy seas, making it necessary to evacuate personnel. The
51
Bombardons broke their moorings and all twenty-four steel masses went drift. The Bombardons inflicted an enormous amount of damage to the harbor roadways and piers. The Bombardons were masses of floating steel, and free of their moorings they broke through the concrete Phoenix caissons destroying them and became battering rams inside the harbor.
apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a547464.pdf
Thanks IWM! The content is pitched at the right level, with great footage. Lightyears away from your average History Channel doc dumbed down but over-dramatised cheese.
lawrie flowers mentions the Kedge anchors. I understand that the design of these anchors was an engineering breakthrough, amongst many. This program requires a supplement to cover the development, testing, and manufacture of these artificial ports. An example of the Kedge anchor is mounted on display at Arromanche. When I visited Arromanche I couldn’t find a Chip Shop, but the restaurant I visited did serve Fish n Chips 🙀
The remains of the Mulberries at Arromanche can still be seen , particularly from the air, from 29,000 ft on the Heathrow to Paris route. Sit on the starboard side, and look for the slight hollow in the coastline around Arromanche.
There’s a beetle floating pontoon on the beach at Aldwick, West Sussex. It can be explored during low tide. There’s also another Mulberry component further out, but I don’t know what it is.
There is a broken backed Phoenix near the exit from Langstone Harbour, if you look carefully along the beach just south of the public slipway there are still the remains of the slips on which some Phoenix units were made.
@@cuchidesoto2686 the Richard Montgomery is just off Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey. Sheerness is such a dump that, if the explosives on the Richard Montgomery ever detonate, it will cause millions of pounds worth of improvements…
The British and Americans had their own seperate Whale causeways. When construction began the British officer in command ordered that each section had to secured by four wire hawsers that were anchored into the sea bed. The Americans opted to use only two moorings to each section. When the great storm had abated the US causeway was destroyed and the British one was still intact and continued to function superbly.
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years."
University of Oxford The storm that struck the Mulberry Harbours
@@nickdanger3802 Yes, you said that. But you didn't address the point Ken Harris just made re the hawsers. Would four hawsers have saved the American harbour, or at least rendered it repairable? We may never know.
@@neilgriffiths6427 What If The US harbor was not destroyed? What would the British use to repair their harbor?
You are obviously proud of the British effort. Nothing wrong with that, but you fail to address why the Americans took their “shortcut”. Speed was of the essence in getting supplies to the fight, and the Americans realized they could have the system functional sooner with this tactic, and reinforce the system after it was put into use. The 40-year storm spoiled that approach. They threw the dice, and this time it came up snakeyes. The high roller approach did, however, pay off many times during the war, relative to Montgomery’s much more conservative approach.
@@neilgriffiths6427 Has an expert, like an engineer, stated the only reason A was written off was due to not being done exactly the same as B?
The success of Overlord is a great example of the adage “amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics”.
"Undismayed by the destruction of their artificial harbour, the Americans applied to the development of the Omaha and Utah anchorages their tremendous talent for invention and organization. In defiance of orthodox opinion they beached coasters (LST's) and unloaded them direct into Army lorries at low tide... during July the Americans here handled more than twice the tonnage which passed through the British Mulberry."
Chester, Wilmot , The Struggle for Europe. Hertfordshire SG: Wordsworth Editions, 1997, p.387
What, isn't directly mentioned is that I'm sure German strategic thinking was based on the fact that the allies had to take a port within the first week of the campaign. The Mulberry Harbours changed that dynamic they removed that requirement and that opened up the areas of operations to pretty much anywhere along the coastline of the English Channel. There is a reason the Germans felt that the Pas-de-Calais was the most likely target, in large part because of the large number of ports, both directly and in close proximity...
Very interesting video, thanks! I like the attitude of the planners of the invasion - "Let's invade here, where enemy resistance is expected to be fairly light." "But there's no harbor!" "Don't worry, we'll build one in a couple of days!"
Stephen E. Ambrose was not impressed by the Mulberries. He thought that landing supplies on the beaches was more effective and the Mulberry a waste of effort.
His book on D-Day is the only one I've thrown away.
I can't stand Ambrose and his Hoo-Rah jingoism but unfortunately he was right about this.
In the video it's pointed out that the calming affects of the breakwater made beach unloading possible. It has been said that the destruction of the US harbour was due to a lower standard of installation by the engineers.
Ambrose needed to study the tide cycles and do a bit of maths with regards to turn around times and cycles for the shipping. Mind you he wasn't the only one. One or more US Generals were of the same opinion of the "waste of resources" involved in the construction of the Mulberries. Lets first look at the "Landing on the Beach option", LST's and LCM's were the only craft really designed for landing on a beach and being left high and dry during Low Tide. There are also photos of Liberty Ships being beached and unloading in to trucks and DUKWs. Other ships not suited to being beached had to "stand off" from the beach and off load into DUKWs. Once beached a vessel was stuck there for the best part of 24 hours until the next High Tide refloated them. Ships offloading into DUKWs could go when empty, but the process was still slow. The Americans at Omaha were helped by the Breakwaters constructed as a part of the original Mulberry A. Going by the Land on the Beaches lobby it is doubtful that a Breakwater would have been a part of the plan. This would have meant a slower unloading time for all of the ships unloading into DUKWs. Contrast this scene with Mulberry B where ships could offload at the Pier Heads as well as Landing craft at special ramps that were part of the Pier Head. This meant that once any type of shipping was unloaded it could then set sail back to England for more supplies without having to wait for the next High Tide, hence a shorter cycle time and a greater utilisation rate. Consider also that LSTs and LCMs were in VERY short supply in the European Theatre and also in the Pacific. The Landing at Saipan was conducted within a week of D-Day, and that is why LSTs were in such short supply.
Hopefully I have explained the flaws in the "Land the Supplies over the Beaches" nonsense.
Mark from Melbourne Australia.
@@markfryer9880 Funny, I thought we had 2 high tides a day
@@alisterbennett one high is much higher than the next. eg: high highs will be once a day, either am or pm. Effectively one high per 24hrs.
I find this fascinating. - We saw the remnants of Mulberry off the DDay beaches. Our guide mentioned that the American harbour collapsed because the American engineers had not secured them properly. I saw the 'whale' section at Duxford.
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years."
University of Oxford The storm that struck the Mulberry Harbours
US Combat Engineers skipped a step in anchoring the pontoons, that lead to them being more damaged and unsalvageable.
@@michaeldowson6988 "Parts of it were salvaged to repair the British harbour at Gold which worked for 10 months."
History Learning Site UK
@@nickdanger3802 I wasn't very clear; i meant that it wasn't worth salvaging the working dock in place. Parts of it were used elsewhere though.
@@michaeldowson6988 "Mulberry A was more exposed than B and therefore suffered a great deal more damage."
Think Defence UK Mulberry Harbours on line
As mentioned in another post, there is a very good museum at Arromanches. Of course, it shows in great detail, what all the elements that made up Mulberry 'B', were and how they worked. However, for me, the most impressive exhibit is.....a photograph. It is about 8x11, black and white and was taken from 11,000 metres above Mulberry 'B' on or about 14th June, when both harbours were working at near capacity. A german aircraft.
11,000 metres and above the harbour at all, meant it was a German jet aircraft, so its product was as rare as rocking horse poo. It shows the Allies had brought with them a port the size of Dover and we'd done it TWICE. Had we been fighting a rational, logical, compassionate enemy, they would have looked at that photograph and reasoned; "We cannot beat these people. There is no path to victory for us. We must sue for cease fire and peace while we still can, otherwise we will needlessly bleed our people dry. But we weren't fighting a rational enemy, were we?
Interesting video. I'd only heard passing mention before in documentaries. The system seems much more complicated and amazing than I had thought.
That complexity that you mention was partly responsible for the failure of Mulberry A (American) during that storm. The various components had been designed carefully to be able to deal with storms, and that included redundancy in the fixings and in the anchoring systems. Doing things properly was the reason why Mulberry B (British) took The Royal Engineers longer to assemble by a number of days than it took The Seabees to assemble Mulberry A. In their haste The Seabees failed to install all fixings as required and they also failed to install all of the required anchoring chains. The American beach at Omaha Beach was also more exposed to the Channel than the British beach at Gold Beach. This is why when the storm hit the Invasion Beaches, Mulberry A essentially failed it's first major test. The storm was severe enough to also cause significant damage to Mulberry B, but Mulberry B was deemed repairable.
Mark from Melbourne Australia.
@@markfryer9880 "We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years."
University of Oxford
Oops! Apologies all. Posted this accidentally. Was intending to share privately.
Could you please give us a constant volume-level? I keep having to switch up and down between the two narrators.
dman bro, my guy literally spoke my entire essay for me, great recource for school
For the record Arromanches-les-Bains is near Gold beach. Timestamp 5:54
My namesake and Godfather was there. He somehow made it back to The UK and fought on. His name was Charles Mortimer, he was a good friend of my dad.
Crazy that seventy years later they still can't move the wrecked one in the Thames estuary.
Did I hear the commentary say Mulberry B was on Sword Beach? It was Gold Beach.
Yes
For every problem there is an engineering solution.
Speer's comment was the most important one.
There’s one still floating in Portland harbour
Mulberry A was put together by the Americans too hurriedly and not properly and that was why it received more damage. The British did assemble Mulberry B as directed and it stood up to the storms much better.
Source?
@@nickdanger3802 I read it in a history book about the invasion but I am pretty sure it was on TV too, it was a long time ago and I can’t remember the name of the book now unfortunately. The Americans did it for speed and their unloading started much quicker than the British/Canadian one did, however the storm exposed the folly of that and closed it down. However, check Wikipedia and you will see it says the American one was not securely attached to the sea bed like the British/Canadian one and that was a major reason why the American one was so severely damaged and abandoned after the storm.
@@trevorgiddings3053 "We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived. We also found that a storm of the severity of the 1944 storm would only be expected to occur during the summer once in every 40 years."
University of Oxford The storm that struck the Mulberry Harbours page
I have heard my grandfather was there to construct the port. He was a Royal Marine. Who else toke part in the construction?
My Granddad was a shipbuilder - a reserved occupation. He working on building the harbours before they went over.
The UK PM ordered the harbours.
Without hindsight,I would have thought he was being silly.
Sure but how long were the Allies delayed after initial landing. So many brave lives...
Funny enough that temporary port was used until market garden captured Antwerp I always thought that port was the main goal
It was, but Montgomery thought Market Garden would gain more press coverage.
MyDad went over with the Mulberries .D day +3 unloading US tanks on the beach. I only found out a few years ago from his brother about this.
But, where did they put the Mulberry Tree?
It's where people dance around on cold and frosty mornings.
Seems to me that the breakwater ships and beach landing the stores did the job.
Exactly. Breakwater ships have nothing to do with Mulberry Harbours per se. Likewise use of sand piers and floating piers was well established.
Mulbury A was so damaged because the Americans didn't erect it to plan. They took short cuts and didn't connect all the lashing points.
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived."
University of Oxford on line
@@nickdanger3802 "The harbours were transported to the Normandy beaches in the days after D-Day. Mulberry A was installed very quickly and ahead of schedule although various shortcuts were made in its installation, such as using fewer anchors on the roadway than specified in the design." Jackson, Z., Grey, S., Adcock, T.A.A. et al. The waves at the Mulberry Harbours. J. Ocean Eng. Mar. Energy 3, 285-292
Same story two versions as always.
@@Nog311 Has any qualified person, like an engineer, stated the only reason A was written off was due to it not being done exactly the same way as B?
If A had not been written off what would have been used to repair B?
@@nickdanger3802 No but the engineers at Oxford University state that "We found that the American Mulberry experienced
slightly more severe waves than the British harbour."
Yes they were.
Heads should have rolled for the Dieppe debacle.
You weren't there operating with the information available at the time. War is all about mistakes, and who makes the fewest and who learns the most from the ones they do make. Read "One Day in August" by David O'Keefe (2013).
The Mulberry harbors were a brilliant British idea, unfortunately the American harbor was not anchored properly, the US engineers thought it would be better to putout less than half of the anchors that they should have for the sake of speed, they were wrong and the pontoons broke loose. This fact is rarely mentioned as it is an embarrassment to the US.
"Mulberry A was more exposed than B and therefore suffered a great deal more damage."
Think Defence UK Mulberry Harbours on line
@@nickdanger3802 you keep repeating this but it doesn’t actually refute the original point. They may or may not have put out the appropriate anchors, and they may or may have not made a difference given the different weather conditions you mention.
@@bob_the_bomb4508 If A had not been written off what could have been used to repair B?
IIRC Mulberry A at Omaha beach was more exposed than Mulberry B was. There were accusations that the US Navy assembly of Mulberry A was inferior to the British engineers work at Mulberry B. Possibly…. However the June storm that destroyed Mulberry A was so strong it probably didn’t matter
The American mulberry A was poorly put together by the Americans, and that is why it was so serverley damage in the storm.
This lack of attention to detail would cost the Americans dearly in Europe.
"We found that the waves at the American harbour were significantly larger than those at the British Mulberry - although both experienced waves larger than they were designed to withstand. This goes a long way to explain why the American harbour failed whilst the British one narrowly survived."
University of Oxford
"Cubic tons"?
It's a measure of volume used in shipping, 40 cu ft = 1 Ton. Now superseded.
Brilliant.
It seems like a level of rapid policy, planning and development of which today’s institutions are hardly capable.
When building at cost +10% you can do anything.
That should be “tons”, not tonnes. An imperial ton is heavier than a metric tonne. So 4 million tons is more. Simple research.
Dieppe: Poor recce by commandos who failed to report on the beach geology. Round stones which rolled like marbles under the tracks of the tanks made them sitting ducks.
I thought that all of the Sherman tanks were of the same size, I didn't;t know that they also had a "enormous " version too. Why have we not heard about this before? Perhaps you could do a video on what I am sure would be a GREAT tank.
There were two models of Sherman which were different in size from the “standard” ones. The first was the E2 models, the “Jumbo”. It was basically the same size but was much heavier due to the added armor. The second and much more numerous especially in British hands was the A4 series which had a lengthened hull to fit the rather large multi bank engine. This engine was in fact five six cylinder engines working together. The US never adopted it and exported all that were made to Britain where it was quite popular. Those were known as either the Sherman V or the Firefly Vc.
Is this a Trick Question? Only problem with Mulberry was there was only Time to build 2 by D Day.
Should have used Burberry ones instead.
What did you say the Allies invaded on D Day, I thought it was only the Americans.
The American ground forces were the largest group by nationality at almost half including airborne. Britain second then Canada. British controlled naval forces were about 80 per cent. Almost all of the fighters were P38's since that was the only aircraft the navy did not try to shoot down.
The Battle of Saipan was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands from 15 June to 9 July 1944 as part of Operation Forager.
@@nickdanger3802 I'm Canadian, so I'll say sorry first, for having to correct you. The British put 61,000 troops ashore, the Americans 57,500 and the Canadians 14,000.
Mulberry Harbours: Were they any good?
Well, they were better than nothing - which in this context, means, yes, they were good!
Why is this question even being asked? Anything short of bad, in the circumstances, was good!
In this case nothing (ie beach landings) was better and the evidence shows they were better.
No they sucked, I mean the Allies lost the war, right?
A mention of the decisive principals would have been nice. Is the IWM just dedicated to the preservation of Winston's memory? Which in this instance is probably apt as Mulberry was that man's only contribution to the military effort. All his strategic blunders overshadow the other contributions. e.g. Dieppe was a ridiculous concept and proved to be so in every facet of the operation. A throwback to the tactics of earlier centuries. Add to that Greece/Nth Africa, support for the Navy (5 years to negotiate a draw in the Atlantic), Soft underbelly plus Dodecanese, Dowding, Semphill, Monty, ... the list is long.)
Furthermore if the people needed WRC's reassurances says very little for their supposed bulldog spirit.
Hint: never vote for an aristocrat when what you were really after was a man (or adult if I have to be politically corrected). Their time has passed, dating back to the Enclosure laws.
'support for the Navy (5 years to negotiate a draw in the Atlantic)' What a blinkered chap you are. The British & Canadian navies won the Battle of the Atlantic in May, 1943. They also made possible the D-Day landings, providing the vast majority of the warships and the crews for landing craft. The RN won the naval campaign in the Mediterranean, lifted over 500,000 troops from France in 1940, held the Channel secure, and fought through the convoys to North Russia.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 Rather a rosy picture you've provided for yourself, old chap. One word SWATH: demonstrated to them in 1938 by Creed himself, and those strategic geniuses couldn't find one single useful application? It isn't and wasn't rocket science old boy.
(2) e.g. Imagine PT-boats (and/or smaller) with an at-sea recovery support (motherships, for storms) protecting the convoys. Result: Atlantic War 1939-1940 (May).
Given the size of the navies arrayed against them it was understandable that the time gaps between contributions you mentioned sometimes involved years (which suited their brain speed and depth quite admirably I imagine.)
The sailors were magnificent, however the leadership was not even in the same city. Don't confuse the two contributions. IOW don't follow the medals, follow the stench of death.
Secondary conclusions. High rank and age (over 35) provide no value in command positions - since perhaps Waterloo. Good only for logistics, training, officer material identification and advisory (only) on technical development. Perhaps even the separation of forces is no longer essential with the battle speeds available today.
e.g. Imagine introducing the tank AFTER it had been tested and analysed by a team of battle-experienced subalterns and sergeants. Delayed perhaps 6 months; Result: end-of-war machine upon introduction.
Learn to think critically m'boy.
@@peterclark6290 Are you the same person who posted similar rambling nonsense a year or two ago? If you are, it seems you haven't changed or, indeed, learned anything. The first SWATH vessel actually built by anyone, by the way, was in 1968. Rather late for the Battle of the Atlantic perhaps?
@@dovetonsturdee7033 When the RN and RCN won the Battle of the Atlantic did they use any of the 38 escort carriers, 78 Captain class frigates, 10 Lake class cutters or thousands of carrier aircraft provided by Lend Lease? What about RAF Coastal Command and over 2,000 B24's?
@@nickdanger3802 Sorry, I am surprised that you should post such a fatuous comment. Of course the RN & RCN used a lot of American built equipment, but the crews who fought & won the Battle were British & Canadian. To follow your argument, it would be logical to assume that the US Navy victory at Midway should not be credited to the American air crews, but to the Douglas Aircraft Company, who built the Dauntless. It would, of course, also be foolish and wrong.
Churchill said, I believe, 'give us the tools & we will finish the job.' Huge American resources did indeed supply many of the tools, but I did not anticipate that you would seek to belittle the efforts of the RN & RCN in this manner.
Brave German soldiers there.
Brave American and British soldiers as well. Everyone thought they were on the right side.
@@Buffaloc It is interesting looking at where the soldiers who went ashore on D-Day came from, they were a grand collection of allsorts. Equally interesting is the line up for El Alamein. On the 'German' side, there was also quite a collection of non-Germans.