Operation Neptune 1944 by Ken Ford

Author:Ken Ford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Operation Neptune 1944: D-Day’s Seaborne Armada
ISBN: 9781472802736
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

THE GOOSEBERRY BREAKWATERS

As part of the Mulberry harbours, individual ships, given the overall code name Corncob, were selected to be sunk as blockships to form part of new breakwaters off the Normandy coast. The ships had all come to the end of their working lives and were therefore dispensable. These quickly erected breakwaters were called Gooseberries. Once the landings had been made the first of these block ships were to arrive in the areas where the Mulberries were to be built. The ships were to be manoeuvred into place and quickly scuttled, allowing them to rest end to end on the seabed. The two Gooseberries off Arromanches in Juno sector and St Laurent in Omaha sector were to be included in the outer limits of the artificial harbours.

Five Gooseberries were planned in total, two to be included in the Mulberry harbours, the other three to form simple breakwaters off the landing beaches Utah, Gold and Sword. A total of 59 blockships were used in the programme, all merchant ships except for four ex-naval vessels. Most of the ships were between 4,000 and 6,000 tons, the largest was the American 7,177-ton merchantman James Iredell, and the smallest the 3,169-ton Swedish cargo ship Ingman. Of the four naval vessels used, the largest was the British 25,500-ton battleship HMS Centurion, a veteran of the battle of Jutland in World War I. Another battleship, the French 22,189-ton FFS Courbet, was sunk in the Gooseberry off Sword Beach. The other two naval ships used were the light cruiser HMS Durban and ex-Dutch light cruiser HMS Sumatra.

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