OPERATION PLUTO

Whilst planning our recent trip to Normandy for the 65th Anniversary, we discovered there is an interesting connection between Ellesmere Port (where the pilgrimage began), Liverpool and nearby Stanlow Oil Refinery.

Long before the Normandy invasion, military and government leaders recognised that a guaranteed and plentiful supply of motor fuel for the invasion force was an imperative. The standard procedure would have been to transport oil and fuel by tankers into the war zone. Not only would tankers run the risk of enemy attack both from the air and by submarine, but the oil supply would be subject to the vagaries of the weather.

A group of innovative thinkers decided the answer was to pump the fuel through a specially designed pipeline under the sea to where it was needed, and the scientists took up the challenge. The operation was undertaken by british scientists, oil companies and armed forces to construct oil pipelines under the English Channel between Britain and France. The scheme was developed by Arthur Hartley, chief engineer with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, after Admiral Louis Mountbatten first initiated the concept.

Operation PLUTO (Pipe Line Under The Ocean) was to supply petrol from storage tanks in southern England to the advancing Allied armies in France in the months following D-Day. Eisenhower acknowledged the significance of this feat when he said:

“Second in daring only to the Mulberry Harbours, was PLUTO.” ...