Admiralty Tug And Phoenix Breakwater


A British Admiralty tug pulls close to a Phoenix breakwater. (Note 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun on top). The Phoenix breakwaters were a set of reinforced concrete caissons built as part of the artificial Mulberry harbours that were assembled as part of the follow-up to the Normandy landings during World War II. They were constructed by civil engineering contractors around the coast of Britain. They were collected at Dungeness and Selsey, and then towed across the English Channel and sunk to form the Mulberry harbour breakwaters replacing the initial 'Gooseberry' block ships. Further caisson were added in the autumn of 1944 to re-enforce the existing structure to cope with the harbour continuing in use longer than planned.

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