"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".
Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"
First though - I was out on Gertrude this week and took these at the southernmost point of the journey, while slurping a flat white from the adjacent café..
..a bunch of rocks to most, but for those of us in the know [clicky], those concrete blocks are some of the remains of a WW2 Mulberry construction site - they built Phoenix (type C) caissons on this very beach - in fact I was sat on one of the anchor blocks to drink that coffee - amazing, eh?
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| Picture credit: Mike Beel collection |
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...and look what arrived in the post this week - now what could that mean?? 😁
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Laters, as the young people are want to say...
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteIncredible to think those concrete remains on the beach played such a massive part in D-Day. That teaser photo of the coach parts looks like a top-notch project in the making, too!
Cheers, Andy
Cheers for the comment Andy - those little snippets of history are all around us if you know what you're looking for.. the wagons will grace the table top at some point in Cedar Gulch ™ (😁) just need to get the summer out of the way first
DeleteMy Dad was in the navy in WW2 and sailed one of those concrete blocks from the North East to the South Coast.Said they were that big that they could play football on them !
ReplyDeleteCrikey Ian - that's a memory to have for your Dad! It may also give you a link to the story in Jim's comment - that piece of Mulberry at Southend was en route from Immingham on the Humber, to Southsea (south coast, and very near those concrete blocks I pictured) , when it sprang a leak and was brought into the Thames estuary and allowed to sink. I wonder if it was part of the same "convoy" /transfer your Dad was on??
DeleteHello Steve. For some reason your post on Arromanches didn't arrive until today - I began to fear you had fallen off a curtain wall. That was a good trip to France and those wagons are inspiring. There used to be a piece of Mulberry in the Thames near Westminster as I recall. My mother told me about it and I was mightily impressed.
ReplyDeleteWatcha Jim - good to hear from you again... had a little dig about your Mulberry as Westminster sounded a bit central and I couldn't figure out why it would have been there, but it looks like she may have been talking about the one at Southend?? (https://maps.app.goo.gl/JairBzP7BYzsZtZ86)
DeleteHowdy Steve.At the risk of labouring a point but I must stop my dear old Mum spinning in her grave. I too did some digging and my 70+ years old memory must be at fault. What we saw at Westminster was probably a ferroconcrete barge moored at Westminster and used as a mooring. Apparently there is an urban myth that they were used with Mulberry and, as I am sure you discovered, there is a difference of opinion as to whether they actually went to France. I can't really blame my Mum if she was misled - there were a lot of stories during the war.
DeleteHere you go Jim - this is a fascinating read: https://thecretefleet.com/blog/f/posting-about-the-concrete-barges-heres-the-real-history
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