The dock piers were codenamed whales. They were the floating roadways that connected the "spud" pier heads to the land. Designed by Allan Beckett , the roadways were made from innovative torsionally flexible bridging units that had a span of 80 feet (24 m), mounted on pontoon units of either steel or concrete called "beetles". [ 17 ]

At the start of World War II, the US Navy had only three steel auxiliary floating dry docks: Auxiliary floating drydock YFD-2, built in 1901, was at Pearl Harbor. YFD-2 was repairing the US destroyer USS Shaw on 7 December 1941 during the attack on the harbor. Both YFD-2 and USS Shaw were repaired, after being hit and damaged in the attack. [3]

The St Nazaire Raid or Operation Chariot was a British amphibious attack on the heavily defended Normandie dry dock at St Nazaire in German-occupied France during the Second World War. The operation was undertaken by the Royal Navy (RN) and British Commandos under the auspices of Combined Operations Headquarters on 28 March 1942. [3]

Three docks were furnished to Army ports of embarkation, two docks to the Coast Guard, and five to the United Kingdom; one was lost, and one was sunk in the Bikini tests. A major problem in the provision of overseas docking facilities was the task of …

No Allied amphibious invasion in World War II left such a bitter legacy as Operation Jubilee, the ill-fated British-Canadian raid on the northern French port of Dieppe on Wednesday, August 19, 1942.

Jun 2, 2019 · The floating docks were spuds, the bridge spans were whales, and the pontoons supporting them were beetles. A liberty ship inside the outer wall of the Mulberry harbour just off of Gold beach at...

Sep 3, 2016 · The total capacity of the dry docks in the Navy by the end of 1943 was 723,000 tons. AFDB-1 with West Virginia (BB-48) high and dry in the dock USS ABSD-2 at Manus, 12 October 1944 with USS Mississippi (BB-41) drydocked.

Mar 22, 2018 · Floating Drydocks had been around for a long time before World War 2. But the scope of naval warfare during World War 2 and the Cold War that would follow would test the Navy’s ability to maintain vessels in faraway locations.

Apr 17, 2019 · The Navy’s solution was portable floating drydocks. Officially designated Advance Base Sectional Docks (ABSD), the moveable docks consisted of large pieces welded together to allow repairs at sea or in those instances where proper repair and refit facilities didn’t exist at …

Of all the remarkable naval vessels to find a home in the waters surrounding Espiritu Santo during World War II, none came close to the complexity and sheer size of the floating dry dock, USS ABSD-1. This incredible piece of marine engineering …