- Title: FRANCE/FILE: Campaign to save artificial harbour vital to Allied D-Day operations
- Date: 4th June 2014
- Summary: NORMANDY COAST, FRANCE (FILE - JUNE 1944) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (GAUMONT BRITISH NEWS) VARIOUS OF ALLIED TROOPS PREPARING TO LAND ON COAST
- Embargoed: 19th June 2014 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVACIKGVT1NLYWDCPOGG3RJA7GFA
- Story Text: As the world prepared to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, a French campaigner said on Tuesday (June 4) that efforts had to be made to save the artificial harbour vital to the Allied operations, worn away by time and often forgotten by history.
The "Mulberry ports" were manmade harbours constructed in secret in Britain and shipped across the Channel with the Allied forces in June 1944 to bypass the heavily-fortified German-held harbours along the French coast.
One of the harbours was badly damaged by a violent storm but large sections of the other - nicknamed the "Winston port" after British wartime leader Winston Churchill - can still be seen from the shore.
Campaigner Gerard Lecornu said he had been campaigning on behalf of the port for over two decades, saying it had been overlooked for preservation efforts and that officials must harness the momentum created by the international interest in D-Day.
"Arromanches is in the media spotlight at the moment and this is an event that we have been waiting for for years. What we can't let happen is that after this event we lose sight of what could be done to highlight the fate of this port and above all, the values it represents - liberty, democracy, peace, hope in Europe," he said.
The innovative harbours were installed some two kilometres from the coast, linked to the shoreline with a series of floating pontoons, for the supply of tanks, munitions and other provisions.
"This port is important in more than one way. It's a revolutionary idea to have imagined the construction of an artificial port. It's a historically unprecedented enterprise, and it's unique. There have not been other artificial ports constructed since the landings. It's a technical exploit," he said .
French software company Dassault Systemes has used its expertise to remodel the port to give some idea of how it may have looked in June 1944, with visitors able to walk over its quayside watching as ships are unloaded.
The head of the company's passion for innovation division Mehdi Tayoubi said that it was a humbling experience to work in the reconstruction of an innovative piece of engineering.
"It was extremely important today, for the 70th anniversary, to do an exhaustive study of what there is under the water, but also to remodel and re-understand, to preserve it thanks to the digital world, because that's what we - the digital generation - owes to our ancestors, and it's what we owe future generations," he said.
Lecornu said that he had written to UNESCO in 1990 highlighting the threat to a piece of world heritage, but that he was hopeful for the future with the cause gaining the support of the French government.
Over 15 heads of state and government along with a thousand veterans are expected to attend a series of events along the coastline to celebrate the anniversary , culminating in a international gala on the beach at Ouistreham on Friday. - Copyright Holder: GAUMONT BRITISH NEWSREEL (REUTERS)
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