Mystery Boat...

[ricvee2005]

I was reading a July 1969 National Geographic magazine this morning, when I came across an interesting photo - which I have attached to this thread...

It shows the wreck of a boat, described by the author as a landing craft, on Omaha beach... It appears to be a ferro-cement craft. To my knowledge, landing craft were constructed of steel.

My opinion is that it is either one of the "Little Ships" that didn't make it home...or a pontoon boat that would have supported a roadway connected to a Mulberry harbour structure...

It is highly unlikely that anything remains of the boat now, as the photo is 42 years old... What do you think ?

[Steve T]

It's part of the Mulberry harbour. Part of one of the concrete caissons I believe. The harbour was destroyed by the storm at the end of June 1944 and the shore was peppered with the remains. Indeed, the Arromanche Mulberry can still be clearly seen even to this day, and some of the beaches still show the remains of caissons and other bits of the harbour.

The cliffs in the background (Pont du Percee) have huge chunks of the harbour around the base. The whole of that end of the beach is made up of old concrete harbour bits


Cheers

Steve T

[ricvee2005]

Hi Steve

The boat seems too small to have been a caisson and is canoe-shaped, whereas the caissons forming the structure of the Mulberry were rectangular...

Perhaps it was one of these pontoon boats... (attached photo)