World War II was the impetus for many technological leaps forward, including some not many people know about.
As Allied forces advanced after D-Day, they needed a reliable way to fuel tanks, trucks, and aircraft without relying on vulnerable supply ships. Operation Pluto (Pipeline Under The Ocean) used innovative engineering to lay flexible pipelines across the English Channel from Britain to France. Despite technical challenges, the pipelines eventually delivered over a million gallons of fuel daily, playing a vital role in the push across Europe.
See the gargantuan spools of cable, the boats that pulled them across the water, and the workers who tirelessly laid them to provide resources to the troops.
1
A Conundrum is towed across the English Channel laying out pipe to Cherbourg.
1945
2
One of the centrifugal pump houses at Dungeness, camouflaged to resemble the surrounding gravel pit in which it was sited.
1945
3
Laying the pipeline: a Conundrum being moved into position into a specially constructed dock in preparation for the winding on of the pipe.
1945
4
A Conundrum loaded with pipe, ready to be towed across the Channel.
1945
5
The tug Britannic lays the seventeenth pipeline to Boulogne.
1945
6
A tug boat with the pipe conundrum situated below deck.
1945
7
The installed pipeline in France.
1945
8
In the main control room at Dungeness. Captain J.F. Hutchings explaining the workings of the control panel which monitored the amount of fuel passing through each pipe line to France.
1943
9
A conundrum on the beach at Greatstone used to lay the Pluto pipelines across the Channel.
Circa 1945
10
A conundrum being unspooled across the Channel.
Circa 1945
11
Tugboat laying pipes while sailing across the Channel.
1945
12
The cable laying ship HMS Sancroft in the Channel.
1945
13
Another shot of the HMS Sancroft laying cable.
1945
14
Sailors pose with the conundrum.
1945
15
A surviving section of the pipeline at Shanklin Chine, England.
2009
