大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jenny Zmroczek of Norfolk Adult Education鈥檚 reminiscence team on behalf of Reg Plumb and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

Memories of Mulberry Harbour

This is a somewhat curtailed account of my involvement with the creation and deployment of the world鈥檚 greatest floating harbour and its transfer from England鈥檚 south coast to the north coast of France at the small seaside town of Arromanches in June 1944.

The story starts at Spurn Point South Humberside in March 1944 where as the commander of a LAA troop of 4 bofors guns my task was to provide ant-aircraft protection to the complex of personnel and establishments then existing at Spurn, cut off from the mainland by the narrow strip of road which projects into the sea and at the end of what was then almost a small self-contained town. My main unit was 416 Battery 127 LAA Regiment RA (LAA) and we part of 105 AA Brigade (Defended Ports Abroad).

The telephone in my troop office, in one of a row of Nissen huts near the entrance to the area, answered by my troop clerk, summoned me to a conference at battery HQ the next morning. BHQ was at Kilnsea Camp a few miles nearer Hull and probably the nearest actual unit to the point which also housed a RA coastal battery, elements of naval signalling staff, a platoon of WRNS, some RA Ordinance staff maintaining the coastal guns, a sick quarters presided over by a QARANG sister and the usual crowd of essential other drivers, cooks, orderlies and staff.

By 08.30 the next day I was astride one of the two troop motorcycles, a 500cc Royal Enfield, on my way to do battle with the strong wind which had been rattling wires, bowling small items along the road and churning up the grey sea on either side of the road. I could see that there were telephone wires down along the side of the road, but by the time I had become aware of them I was wrestling with the bike whose back wheel seemed to have a mind of its own. A few seconds more I was off the bike, but without doing any damage to myself. Surveying a mass of wires wrapped round the wheel, I began to unwind them. Wrapping them round a convenient post I resumed my journey a trifle more sedately than I had set off.

An hour or so later we three troop commanders emerged from our conference, rife with speculation about the news we had received about our forthcoming transfer to the south coast. All commanders of whatever numbers of army formations rapidly became familiar with the sudden changes of plan and location to which Higher Command are prone, but that morning the war suddenly became much nearer. We had become used to having all out vehicles painted with the white star in a circle, on the top and sides, and seeing allied aircraft above with their so-called invasion markings (3 white bars on the underside of each wing) and this was all part of what we knew would someday be our lot as part of the forthcoming invasion.

We had been told that day that the regiment was to provide anti-aircraft protection for the floating port to be known as the Mulberry Harbour, which was now being constructed. It was made up of floating chunks of steel and concrete, some 60 feet high, weighing 5000 tons, and could either sit on the sea bed, or be pumped out and floated. They would be towed into prearranged positions off the invasion beach, protected from the worst of the force of the sea by floating block ships which the Royal Navy were to sail over the channel and then sink in a line offshore so that the harbour and its floating piers Rhinos) could operate nearer the shore using two floating roadways of Bailey bridge construction. On top of each of these units was being sited a 40mm AA gun, at the top of a square building to house a gun team from our regiment.

Not unnaturally, one of the comments at our conference had been 鈥淲hy us?鈥� and we had been reminded of our performance at an AA practice camp we had attended last January at Clacton which had gone rather well for us. So, the powers that be had decided that they wanted 127 Regiment to keep the Germans off Mulberry Harbour. We were to make haste to two locations. One was Lydd, to look after units now arriving on the beach, and the other was Selsey (which, nearer the day of invasion, was inside the concentration area which troops would not be allowed to leave once units had arrived to take up pre-invasion positions).

On arrival our task was to install a gun crew at each unit to man the gun for defence against any wandering enemy aircraft which took too much interest in the scene below. We were to be there three days at a time before being replaced by the next crew. Located next to our section of beach at Selsey was the US Navy engaged on the same task as ourselves 鈥� provisioning and protecting their units. We didn鈥檛 have a lot to do with them apart from occasional meetings, mainly over shore admin matters, and occasionally waving as we passed each other at sea.

During the ensuing weeks the troops gradually became used to the new environment and when the sun shone it could be very pleasant. Some found they had no head for heights, so there had to be changes of personnel, even among the officers. In the centre of the units was the corrugated iron and girder building on top of which sat the gun. At one end and down a short ladder were the sleeping quarters. The floorboards on the shelter were spaced a good inch apart, so we could see and hear the seawater sloshing about below.

Anyone associated with the sea has always to be prepared for sudden incidents and emergencies and during the weeks in the run-up to D-Day we had lots of them. One day, whilst waiting to reverse off the beach with a load of 20 men with arms, rations and kit for three days, out craft refused to budge. Suddenly we leapt back off the beach into deep water, as did the LCVP next to us whose anchor had crossed ours in beaching. So there we were, the pair of us going round in circles at full speed until our anchors were freed.

As June 6th approached we officers were allotted specific sailing units and times of departure. I was assigned to No. A60 due to be pumped out and taken on tow on D+6. On board were all the battery NAAFI stores, which included three weeks supply of chocolate, cigarettes and other attractive items bought with BHQ funds.

The day we left England was full of incident. We had been warned to be prepared to board at dawn, ready for our towing tug to arrive. Both the drivers of the two DUKWs which were supposed to carry us a 15 minute trip to our unit were most unhappy about setting out at all because of the heavy sea and rising tide. I was most anxious to get away because we had to unload all our stores, hauling them up the side of the unit. With some persuasion we were finally away and it took about half an hour to reach the unit. We got some of the tools off after all the rations, kit and personnelbut had to abandon some of our gun tools after the DUKWs refused to stay in the inceasingly hazardous conditions. We pumped out and towed off, and a great gale gradually blew up.

After D-Day not all the units had sailed across safely. One was torpedoed and only the three gunners on the top deck got off safely. One unit overturned in transit, which was a constant hazard of crossing. The 5000 ton mass was prone to overtake its tug on a high tide. Ending up side by side with it, with the tow rope straining back at an acute angle so that it was possible for the whole package to overturn.

We spent four months in the harbour created off the north coast of France. Our daily sea trips in the harbour were conducted whilst it was still being swept cleat of the mines dropped the previous night. With our 36 guns and the naval cruiser sited permanently in the harbour, we were able to put up a substantial barrage at times of enemy attack. This went on night after night while the unloading of stores went on by day and the armies were kept supplied until Antwerp was cleared and the port and Scheldt approaches cleared.

Bob, our MTO, had the job of leading the burial collection party which toured the bay with boathooks after operations, collecting identity discs from the fallen who had risen to the surface of the water, and who then had to be brought ashore for burial. The saddest day I remember occurred after HM Hospital ship 鈥楢msterdam鈥� struck a mine on 7th August 1944, not far from the north wall entrance to the harbour. The nurses drifted by after rising to the surface some days later.

The operations at Port Mulberry gradually scaled down as the need lessened and distances to the frontline became greater. We were deployed along the coast to St Come de Fresne where we resumed the usual AA task, assisted by Mongolian Prisoners of War. It became a normal sight in the mornings to see the column of prisoners wending its way along the cliff to work stations, usually singing at the top of their voices. We were quite popular with the local French farmers, despite their losing all their fruit cops to the blast, and were regularly invited in to drink cider or eat stew.
Finally, in October we were warned to move by road convoy to Alost. In fact we reached Moorcel, a small village, where we put up tents for the night in the grounds of the convent school. Thence to Holland and the south bank of the Scheldt where we gave AA protection and dealt with any odd German patrols.

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