How did Mulberry Harbour support the Normandy landings in 1944?

The Mulberry harbours were a critical feat of military engineering designed to bypass heavily defended French ports during the Normandy Invasion in 1944. By providing their own portable port facilities, the Allies were able to land massive quantities of vehicles and supplies directly onto the beaches.12

Each harbour featured complex, prefabricated components:
* Whales: Flexible steel roadways that floated on pontoons to accommodate tidal changes.1
* Spuds: Adjustable pierheads that rested on the seafloor to facilitate unloading.1
* Breakwaters: Protection was provided by sunken concrete caissons (Phoenixes), scuttled ships (Gooseberries), and floating breakwaters.13

While the American harbour (Mulberry A) was destroyed by a storm shortly after deployment, the British harbour (Mulberry B) at Arromanches remained operational for 10 months. It served as a vital logistics hub, processing 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and four million tons of supplies, which proved essential for sustaining the Allied advance into Europe until permanent port facilities like Cherbourg could be secured.13