Gooseberries and Mulberries at Normandy 1944

Location of Mulberry A and Gooseberry 2 off Omaha at St. Laurent.

 

Location of Mulberry B and Gooseberry 3 off Gold Beach at Arromanches.

 

Do we know if Gooseberry 1 at UTAH was resited to match the actual landing rather than the planned one? It's possible that if the planned beaches were cleared quickly enough there wouldn't have been much point in moving it.

 

Location of Gooseberry 4 off Juno Beach at Courseulles.

 

Location of Gooseberry 5 off Sword Beach, at Ouistreham.

 

Gooseberry 2 off St Laurent during the storm on 20 June 1944.

Look at the waves breaking over the ship indicated with an arrow.

 

Hello Ramacal,
Nice images of the Mulberries and Gooseberries. I was lucky enough to carry out a survey of Mulberry B a few years ago and I was surprised by how much more remains underwater than is visible above. If people are interested I will dig out the survey and post a few images of the underwater parts.
Cheers
Chris

 

I found another image of Gooseberry 4 off Juno Beach at Courseulles. This is of particular personal interest for me, as my Dad's battery landed at this location on June 17, 1944 in US LST 336 (It was thought to have been lucky as the Battery number was 336 as well).



LST 336 fully loaded off the beach. (Another unit on board)



POW's being loaded.



Assemby area (Masefied)



Where one of the Bofors arrived just arrived after the capture of the Radar station at Douvres.

 

Nice photos - thanks. I did also look though the others you have posted and they are really good. I do like the one of Gooseberry 2 in the storm - it shows how effective the corncobs were given the waves outside and inside the gooseberry.
I have attached a few images I have relating to Gooseberry 4. The 2 plans show the planned layout of Gooseberry 4 and the actual placement. The photo is from the US Fold3 site. Hope they are of interest.
Cheers
Chris

 

Hi Chris,

Many thanks for the extra images.

Rob.

 

A couple more images and diagrams of Mullberry B.






Blockships in Mullberry B

 

For your info here is another plan of Mulberry B. I had to subsample it to meet the size limitations here so it may not be fully readable. If you want a higher resolution version let me know your e-mail and I can send it across.

Cheers

Chris

 

Hello ramacal,
In the plan I posted just now the two later blockships are not uniquely identified. They are annotated as being Parkhaven or Bosworth. In the chart you sent earlier I think they are uniquely identified but I can not quite read the manes. Can you post a higher resolution version of just the 2 later blockships what are identified as Empire Bittern and Parkhaven in the name table you sent.
Cheers
Chris

 

CMH

Hope this is a better image.

I posted on a thread called Blockship 230 about one specific vessel - Blockship 230

 

Thanks - that is readable. For your info - here is a spreadsheet I put together a while ago with a good friend of mine in Belgium showing all the block ships and their numbers plus where they ended up. Hope it is of interest.
Chris

 

Here is another image for you. This is some of the sonar data from the survey I did of Mulberry B. This shows the Gooseberry part and you can see the outlines of some of the Corncobs. It seems several were salvaged in the 1960/70s when the French government wanted the Normandy beaches and seas cleaned up (HMS Alynbank is missing completely). Where ships were not removed, the salvors seemed to cut them down to sea floor level then leave the bottom few feet and hence these 'ghost' ships. The left two ships (lying side by side) are Saltersgate and Empire Bittern. Then we have Georgios and Njejos and a bit of Innerton.
The black areas are where we did not get any data. Unfortunately the water around the Gooseberry was shallow and there was a lot of wreckage in it as well as many items of fixed fishing gear placed there by French crab fishermen. Because of this we were unable to get in there to see if any of the other Corncobs remain.
The Phoenix caissons that are above water were captured by a scanning laser which is why these appear in the black area. The numbers are id numbers assigned by us during the survey and link to the report of survey.
Hope this is of interest
Chris

 

Glad you like it. Here is another section of the survey. This time it is the main breakwater. The line of phoenix caissons to the bottom(south) is the line of caissons that remain visible at all times off Arromanches. These are type Ax caissons and were 'planted' near the end of the harbour's use. Originally there were two more to the right but these were raised after WWII and used in the reconstruction of Le Havre - they are still there today but invisible under the modern day quays. All the other caissons are submerged all but the lowest of spring tides.