Portland: Mulberry Harbour

I’m not particularly au fait with the names and/or functions of the various structures you can find around ports and harbours, and this hunk of what looked like concrete, rearing up from the waters of Portland harbour just offshore from Portland Castle, looks rather odd, too tall to function as a dock, too obvious to hold anything secret, lacking any obvious means by which to lift goods – in short, a mystery. Enter Professor Google … 

According to the Historic England website, these are two ‘Phoenix Caissons, sections of the structure known as a Mulberry Harbour designed for, and used in, the invasion of Normandy in June 1944. The harbour was a part of the vital support structure behind the successful operation’. It goes on: 

The ‘Mulberries’ were … pre-fabricated concrete harbours … 4,500 men were involved in their construction, and each ‘Mulberry’ was intended to be roughly equivalent in area to Dover Harbour and be capable of handling 12,000 tons of supplies daily. They consisted of a number of exotically code-named components: ‘Phoenix’ (a hollow concrete caisson); ‘Corncob’ (a sunken blockship); ‘Whales’ (floating pierheads); ‘Spuds’ (extendable steel legs); ‘Beetles’ (concrete pontoon barges); and ‘Bombardons’ (steel mooring buoys).

The Grade II-listed structures now present in Portland harbour are two of the ten ‘Phoenix’ caissons that were ‘towed to Portland in 1946 and were positioned to the west of the harbour to protect berthed vessels from prevailing westerly winds.’ In case you’re wondering what happened to the other eight, they were ‘sent by the Admiralty to the Netherlands to repair and block breaches in the dykes, following a great storm in January 1953’. 

If the structures themselves are not fascinating enough for you, on top of the caissons, there are six sculptures representing some of the crucial people involved on D-Day: two British sailors, two American G.I.s, and two dockyard workers. As you might imagine given the nature of the caissons, the manufacture and installation of these sculptures is an engaging story in its own right, and it is well worth reading the intriguing tale on the website of those responsible, Dead Walk Designs. The website also includes a gallery of the sculptures up close, as well as a video of the whole process – highly recommended viewing!

Weymouth: D-Day embarkation

When I visit Weymouth, as I seem to be doing now on a regular basis, it’s primarily for the wildlife, the birds, butterflies and dragonflies that are either resident or passing through on their Spring and Autumn migrations, and so almost every day I walk from my guest house on the front along to RSPB Lodmoor and back. Along the way I pass poignant reminders of the importance of this seaside town during the Second World War. 

One of those reminders is this sign, placed as you can see at the bottom of a flight of steps that leads from Greenhill Road down to Brunswick Lane at the edge of the beach. 

The text on the sign reads:

Rangers Way 2
At the start of June 1944, the 2nd Battalion US Rangers descended these steps en masse before lining up on the Promenade. They then marched to the Pavilion to board the boats for the crossing of the Channel to Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, France.
"We may never see their like again."

 And, one afternoon, when I was returning to my guest house from a walk around RSPB Radipole via a meandering exploration of the older parts of Weymouth, I found another similar reminder of this town’s strategic importance for the embarkation of soldiers heading to France 82 years ago. 

This harbourside plaque reads:

D-Day Embarkation June 1944

Weymouth was one of the main embarkation points for troops assembled in South Dorset in preparation for the invasion of France during World War II. The thousands of troops who embarked through Weymouth included the US 1st Infantry Division, who landed on Omaha Beach and the 2nd Ranger Battalion who successfully disabled the heavily fortified German artillery battery at Pointe du Hoc. In the days leading up to the 6th June landings this area in front of the old 1908 Pavilion was a bustle of activity with men and supplies being loaded onto landing craft. Over the following year more than half a million American servicemen and 150,000 vehicles would pass through Weymouth and Portland to the beaches of Normandy.

As the Rangers Way sign’s quotation of General Dwight Eisenhower’s famous statement says, ‘We may never see their like again.’

Cardiff Bay: Star Walk Wales

 

Until quite recently, I'd never noticed these panels set into the pavement outside the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay, and trying to find out more about them has proved difficult.
 

Online research produced the following:

• A report on The CAD Centre UK Ltd, dated June 2017, has the following mention: 'The provider [presumably The CAD Centre] is working with the architect of the Wales Millennium Centre by funding the first stages of the development of “Star Walk Wales”, an innovative project to commemorate key figures from Wales, where members of the public can interact with the “stars” and learn more about Welsh personalities.'
  
  
• According to their website, the installation work was done by a company called Atlantic Dwellings.
  
  
• A Twitter/X profile @StarWalkWales was set up in September 2016. It describes itself as follows:' Star Walk Wales, aims to create a made in Wales dedicated star-studded walk way in Cardiff Bay, to celebrate the life and work of Wales' finest achievers', but there are no posts and the account doesn't appear to be active. The website linked to this profile is also inactive.
  
  
• And it appears that the Welsh Government was not supportive of the project. Minutes of business discussed in the Senedd in November 2018 report: 'Commissioners were provided with an update on recent developments around the long-standing proposals for a ‘Star Walk Wales’. Commissioners concluded that they did not feel able to support the development of a ‘Star Walk’ on the Assembly estate.'

 

The Star Walk consists of just one 'star', a poet named Nigel Bevan. He is also something of an enigma, as online research has not produced any information about him and his work. So much for these 'stars' focusing on Wales's finest achievers!