THIS week in Down Memory Lane we remember the allied landings in France during the Second World War.

Thurrock was involved already with war production, including soap, fuel, Jerry Cans, cardboard packaging and cement, all vital to the war effort.

The Normandy landings, codenamed Operation Neptune, were the landing operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy, in Operation Overlord.

They started on June 6, 1944, (D-Day), beginning at 6.30am. In planning, as for most Allied operations, the term D-Day was used for the day of the actual landing, which was dependent on final approval.

The most unusual Thurrock production was the construction using local cement of several ‘phoenix’ units, sections of the floating harbour to be constructed at Arromanche, called Mulberry Harbours.

However, the most unusual production line was in Tilbury Docks, with the secret work of producing a very long flexible fuel pipeline. This would be laid across the Channel and provide fuel for military vehicles.

The section of pipes were often welded by women, some from Chadwell St Mary, and then wound on to a huge floating reel, codenamed Conundrum, and towed behind a ship as it was unreeled.

The project was codenamed PLUTO (Pipe Line Under the Ocean) and was top secret.

The supply route involved two pipelines stretching across the English Channel. They pumped 172 million gallons of fuel along 780 miles of pipe at the rate of one million gallons a day.

The pipelines were also given codenames. Dumbo ran from Dungeness to Ambleteuse near Boulogne, and Bambi went from Hampshire through the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg.

The featured photograph shows Conundrum being made at Tilbury Docks to allow the pipeline to be fed through from the production shed.

Thurrock certainly played it’s part during the war.