Operation PLUTO — Pipe‑Lines Under The Ocean
Operation PLUTO — Pipe‑Lines Under The Ocean Operation PLUTO (Pipe-Lines Under the Ocean) credit - iwm.org Operation PLUTO — Pipe‑Lines Under The Ocean — was one of the most daring and imaginative engineering achievements of the Second World War. It was conceived to solve a single, overwhelming logistical problem that emerged the moment Allied troops landed in Normandy: how to keep a vast mechanised army supplied with fuel once it was fighting on the far side of the English Channel. Every element of the Allied advance depended on petrol and diesel. Tanks, lorries, jeeps, landing craft, generators, and aircraft all required a constant, reliable flow of fuel, and planners estimated that fuel and lubricants would account for more than half of all supplies needed after D‑Day. Relying solely on tankers and drums would be slow, vulnerable, and inadequate for the scale of operations. British engineers therefore proposed a radical solution: lay fuel pipelines beneath the English Channel , d...
