大象传媒

I stand on the cliffs at Brownwich Farm which is situated between Titchfield Haven and Chilling, now called Solent Breezes Caravan Park.
The large arable fields extend all along the cliff-top and produce wheat, barley, oats, potatoes and sugar-beet. The view from here is splendid. Below, the beach is all shingle, then the Solent and beyond that the Isle of Wight. There are woods, fields and hills; just visible is the Church spire at Ryde piercing the sky. To the right you see Cowes, famous for yachting. The Solent is the main shipping route to Southampton so there is plenty of activity.

My memory stirs and I think of events of sixty years ago. Spring 1944 and we four landgirls, Joyce, Olive, Kath and I arrived for work one morning to find a soldier carrying a gun, on guard duty.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 your business?鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 go down the lane to the shore.鈥�
鈥淲e work here, on the farm,鈥� said Kath.
He let us pass, saying we mustn鈥檛 go down to the beach.
Our task that day was potato planting in a large field of about forty acres. Rectangular, it stretched from the lane to the cliff and was bounded either side by low hedges. A tractor and machine had already made the furrows and put out sacks of seed potatoes ready for us. We put on our large hessian aprons, tied around the waist and, holding the lower edge, we filled them with potatoes. Then we set off along the furrows placing the potatoes at regular intervals. The tractor and machine would
return later to cover them. We reached the cliff-top path on each alternate row. Here we paused briefly to straighten our back and have a break. We always enjoyed the
view of the Island.
Today, the beach below, usually deserted, was a busy place. Soldiers were unrolling great coils of wire-mesh across the shingle. They didn鈥檛 notice us on the cliff above; we carried on with our work, wondering what was about to happen.
The next time we came to the cliff a great deal was happening. Several landing-craft were heading for the shore. They drew up the beach as far as they could and let their front ramps down.
鈥淟ook,鈥� said Joyce, 鈥渢here are three men skimming along on top of the water.鈥�
Then the jeep they rode in emerged from the waves.
We marvelled to see all kinds of vehicles, vans, lorries and jeeps issuing from the landing-craft and driving through the waves onto the beach. If any stalled or got stuck, big bulldozers were on hand to assist them or tow them up the beach.
We couldn鈥檛 linger too long to see this spectacle as we had to continue our work. We learned later that as they left the shore they drove away up the lane back to their base. The vehicles had been treated with special grease to enable them to drive through the sea-water.
This exercise was repeated on other days with different troops. Americans were in charge of the bulldozers and these remained at the farm throughout the exercise. It was evident that something important would happen soon and we had to be discreet.
The slogan was 鈥淐ARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES鈥�.

Some weeks later we saw weird-looking craft assembling in the Solent; like great rafts with a tall pole at each of the four corners. Very strange.

Now I know their purpose. They were part of the Mulberry Harbour. They were destined for Arromanches in Normandy where they became part of a floating quay, a huge and vital part of the D-Day invasion. This harbour was depended upon to keep the troops supplied with everything necessary to enable the project to be a success.

Footnote:
There is a D-Day museum at Arromanches with many interesting mementoes of these events. Included are models of the Mulberry Harbour, clearly showing how the plan worked with lorries going to and fro from the floating platforms, across floating roadways to the beach. A very clever scheme.

Eve Warwick

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