The Great Storm That Could Have Sunk D-Day
By Paul Homewood
Storm on "Gooseberry" : Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Dwight C. Shepler; 1944;
There, with decks awash in the roaring sea, the sunken block ships of the great harbour of "Mulberry" successfully rode out the storm. The part of the breakwater formed by the line of sunken ships was called "Gooseberry." Though they worked about on the bottom, the ships held their place throughout the unseasonal blow of June 19-22, 1944. At the height of the gale’s fury, gunners stationed on a sunken merchantman sought safety on the fo’c’sle of the H.M.S. Centurion, an old British battlewagon which was the western bastion of Gooseberry.
Most of us will be familiar with the role that weather played in D-Day, and how the invasion was postponed for a day because of a big storm on June 4th and 5th.
Less well known maybe is a second, much stronger storm which hit Normandy a couple of weeks later from the 19th to 22nd. The storm was so bad that it totally destroyed the Mulberry harbour next to Omaha Beach, though fortunately the second one on Gold Beach survived and was in use till the end of the year.
The ECMWF, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, carried out a reanalysis a few years ago of the weather during that storm, which you can read here. It includes this table of wind measurements right on the Gold Beach:
Force 7 is officially classified as a “near gale”, with mean wind speeds of up to 38mph:
This certainly would not be an unusually strong storm in autumn or winter, but would be unusual in summer on the Normandy coast. It badly affected the build up of Allied forces for several days, delaying Operation Epsom, the attempt to outflank Caen, thus allowing time for the German defences to be reinforced.
Ironically the weather across Britain was settled:
https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/IO_ec70db69-8f3f-492e-b862-88e48bf76a8a/
It is doubly ironic that if D-Day had not gone ahead on the 6th June, the next “window” would have been the 18th to 20th June. Just think of the calamity that could have turned into!
BTW – Dwight Shepler, who painted the picture, was a US Navy Officer, and he took part in the invasion as an official artist. Although the painting took place back home in Massachussetts, it was based on drawings and film footage made on location at the time.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I can imagine (no, I can’t! ) Alvar Liddell – in that wonderful voice of his – reading the news and claiming – as his current-day newsreaders on R4 did this morning – and saying that the bad weather was all caused by ‘climate change’.
I’m sure that Liddell would know how illogical such a statement is.
Dear Auntie, ‘climate’ is a function of ‘weather’, not the other way round.
Brilliant piece, Paul.
As usual.
You are one of the few great UK heroes of the 21st millenium!
I agree.
O/T – Paul have you seen this regarding sea surface temperatures that’s doing the rounds on Twitter?
Thanks for the tip, Joe.
But if you are expecting me to drive to Tiddly Bay (Whitley Bay for all you Southern gits), strip off and leap into the North Sea to enjoy this extra 4.5°C heatwave, you are having a laugh.
I hope to have a dip in Cyprus, instead.
Who knew we had Marine Heatwaves and that they had categories?
Looks like the North Sea may break the 20C barrier if the forecast is correct. Still a bit cool for my old bones
And I wonder how many degrees above the North Sea is, I wonder, the sea in Cyprus, Martin (of very many happy memories!!)?
Hi Ben
“Looks like the North Sea may break the 20C barrier if the forecast is correct.”
Back in the real world:
https://seatemperature.info/durham-water-temperature.html
https://seatemperature.info/scotland-water-temperature.html
I heard this idiot Rowlatt’s report on Radio 2 news this morning. I know, why do I bother?
If I recall my history correctly, the British Mulberry survived the storm because the Engineers followed the instructions to the letter regarding the amount of securing ropes and bolts used to keep the harbours together. The Americans got their Mulberry into action many hours earlier than the British one because they used minimal fixing to secure the Mulberries. When the storm came, their Mulberry was blown along the coast and wrecked. The British one held. Moral of story – always follow the manufacturers instructions!
Absolutely right D P .
I am guessing that the weather forecasters were better then than the rubbish they come out with now , so it was important to anchor down the Mulberries as they knew a storm was coming .
I was in Normandy one time and went to see the remains , which were clearly visible at that time .
Also dropped into Bayeux to see the tapestry . Quite funny as it comes to mind as one of the first bits of censorship . The last few meters of it were removed a long time ago because it was probably ” Politically Incorrect”
The individual units of the Mulberry harbours needed anchoring to the sea bed as well as fixing to each other. In their understandable rush to get the harbour operational, American engineers responsible for assembling Mulberry ‘A’ off Omaha beach, took certain liberties with the number of anchors used. While they succeeded in getting up and running before Mulberry ‘B’ off Gold Beach, they suffered the consequenes during the storm. Intact components from Mulberry ‘A’ were moved to repair damage at Gold, which had survived the storm in better condition.
I remember a television programme about the making of Mulberry Harbour, and among other things a REME engineer designed an anchor shaped like a double ploughshare which dug in further the more it was pulled.
Apparently the navy didn’t like an army idea and tried to insist on the use of the traditional navy anchor.
In the end a compromise was reached where the harbour installation used the new pattern anchor and the ring of ships positioned to protect the harbour used the naval pattern.
Subsequently the ships dragged their anchors during the storm, causing damage to the harbour, whereas the new anchors held fast and stopped too much damage occurring.
I can’t remember whether the American Mulberry used the new pattern anchors, but as said above their harbour was rendered useless by the storm.
Not quite on the climate topic but interesting, nevertheless. My father was serving aboard the cruiser HMS Frobisher, first on D-Day itself where it was anchored next to HMS Roberts, then later as a supply ship. In earlyAugust, with little to do after the fighting had moved inland, Frobisher was in the Bay of the Seine and was hit in the stern by G7e Dackel torpedoes fired from E-boats. She managed to limp back to Chatham. My father was transferred to the aircraft carrier HMS Pioneer which sailed for Australia to take part in the invasio of Japan, but that didn’t happen because of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. HMS Pioneer then spent some time loading up on military munitions, tanks, trucks and aircraft which they took out to sea and dumped overboard in the deepest areas of the ocean as they were now totally redundant.
Perhaps one of the more important factors was an ENIGMA intercept from the German Embassy in Dublin. They had managed to obtain a very full picture of the D-Day plans, which they duly encoded and dispatched by telegram. Remarkable though it may seem, the diplomatic telegram had to go via cables to Wales and England and be re-transmitted from there. However, it was intercepted and decoded. The decode was translated by my mother at the outstation in Berkeley Street that specialised in diplomatic traffic. She was thus privy to the plans days ahead of the action. On the morning of the 5th the office had an atmosphere of collywobbles, knowing that the invasion was supposedly going ahead: they were not told about the weather delay. The decision had been taken not to suppress the telegram, but simply to delay its onward transmission until after D-Day – thus hopefully leaving the Germans unaware that the Dublin traffic was insecure.
Had the telegram gone through unmonitored the outcome might have been very different.
Maybe not. Hitler was so sure it would come at Calais that even tanks on the ground didn’t change his mind.
I don’t think Rommel would have been in Germany or that there would have been no reconnaissance to check on the force. One of the elements of the intelligence concerned unmasking the Fortitude deception, plus full dispositions of actual forces and landing beaches. Even if Hitler remained unconvinced Rommel is unlikely to have been fooled or to have ignored the possibility. Indeed, it is probably the belated arrival of the intelligence that helped change Hitler’s mind.
Wow! IDAU, just, Wow! What a great piece of history regarding your Mum. Thank you for sharing (Thumbs up, and smiley face icons, etc…)
ST: +1
So the US Mulberry broke up during the storm but the British one didn’t. Here’s why. The was a little (unofficail) competition between the Yanks and Brits in who could build their Mulberry first and the Yanks won by 24 hours. They achieved this by leaving out half of the structural joins bolts (We got to beat those goddamn limeys!). So, being a structural engineer no wonder it broke up during the storm, plough anchors or no plough anchors. A considerable amount of tension, twisting and bending I suspect which half of the required bolts could not sustain.
Adding that having served in the UK forces there is always a little frisson and leg pulls between us and our American friends.
If you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined!