A Welshman’s contribution to the Mulberry Harbours, legendary feats of British engineering, helped secure the Allied victory in the Second World War, says Jules
Last month, the Imperial WarMuseum at Duxford revealed its latest exhibit. To the casual observer it’s nothing more than a short steel bridge made of elliptical girders, but it is the only example of its kind in the UK. Eighty feet long and 10 feet wide, this modest bridge is known as a ‘Whale’ and, along with hundreds of similar examples, it once formed part of a vast artificial harbour known by its code name, ‘Mulberry’. Designed and built in utmost secrecy at a handful of sites around Britain’s coastline, thousands of Mulberry’s components were towed across the channel to Normandy to play a vital role in the biggest military operation in history, D-Day.
