PIPELINE ACROSS CHANNEL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 25 May 1945, Page 5

PIPELINE ACROSS CHANNEL

ADMIRAL MOUXTBATTEX'S IDEA EXPERIMENTS IN ENGLAND London, May 23. The germ of the idea of the submarine pipeline across the English Channel to carry petrol for the Allied armies in Europe, was planted in 1940 when Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten asked Mr Geoffrey Lloyd, Min ister in Charge of Petrol Warfare, if he could lay a pipeline across the Channel. Mr Lloyd at once consulted experts who said it was impossible, but a few days later Mr A. C. Hartley, chief engineer of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, suggested a pipeline that could be laid like a cable. A trial length was manufactured and laid from a cable ship. This 2in pipe was then increased to 3m and strengthened to withstand working at pressures in excess of 1200 pounds to the square inch. An experimental line was laid from Swansea to Ilfracombe, across the entrance to the Bristol Channel, where the currents are similar to the English Channel. After considerable difficulties had been overcome oil was delivered with such success that the staff needed for sending fuel to the Continent was put ir.to training and large supplies of cable were ordered and wound on drums 30 or more feet in diameter. Ships were also prepared for the work of laying the pipeline and as soon as mines were swept up after D-Day the installation was begun across the narrowest part of the Channel available to the British. The success of the operation not only assured safe supplies of fuel for the British forces, but it also released a large number of tankers for use in the Pacific war.