After D-Day, military planners knew that the Allied armies in France were going to need huge quantities of fuel to power the tremendous number of planes, tanks, trucks, jeeps and every other type of vehicle imaginable as the Allied armies fought their way across France and into Germany.
“Running out of gas” was a bad idea.
Using tankers to carry fuel to the French coast was thought to be too dangerous due to the ever-present U-Boat threat. Additionally, the US tanker fleet was desperately needed in the Pacific to supply the huge armada of Allied forces spread across great distances in the fight against Japan.
The solution turned out to be “Pluto” or Pipe Lines Under The Ocean. Today, no one thinks twice about laying a pipeline under the ocean. But in the 1940’s, no such technology existed and it had never been done before.
So beginning in 1942, the British started a project to see if it was possible. Involving engineers from both the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Iraq Petroleum Company, several methods were tried. The final design was to take 1000 meter lengths of a soft steel, welded together and then spool them onto a giant floating 30 ft diameter drum. The drum would be towed across the English channel slowly unspooling the 3 in diameter steel pipe as it went.
After successfully testing the concept across the River Clyde in Scotland and then again across the Bristol Channel, they were ready to go. On August 12, 1944, the first pipeline was laid in just 10 hours to Cherbourg in Normandy. On either end, pump houses were built and camouflaged inside buildings made to look like anything but a pumping station. Some of the pump houses were made to look like ice cream factories or even small houses so as not to attract the attention of German bombers.
By the end of the war, the Allies had laid down 18 pipelines across the English Channel and managed to pump nearly 200 million gallons of fuel to the advancing armies. By VE Day, the pipelines had been extended to run all the way across France to the Rhine.
Watch the short youtube video about the project at the link below: