WW2 Pipe Line Under The Ocean - 2nd Nov 2008 3:47pm
Although I had heard of the "Pluto Tanks" by the sewage works on New Ferry/Bromborough border, I never realised their significance until I saw this ....
‘Pluto’ was the acronym used for the Pipe Line Under The Ocean. This was the attempt made by Britain in the Second World War to lay a fuel pipe-line across the Channel to France, beginning from Bromborough in Merseyside.
In April 1942, the Chief of Combined Operations Lord Louis Mounbatten began investigating the possibility of laying a fuel pipe-line between Britain and France, in preparation for the planned Allied invasion of France.
An aerial view of Bromborough, Wirral and part of the River Mersey.
Researchers found that a three-inch steel pipe could be welded to any required length and still be flexible enough to be wound around a drum not less than thirty feet in diameter, and so carry oil that way. The Pluto pipe-line would therefore be laid using huge floating drums with steel pipe wrapped round them, which could then be towed across the Channel to France.
The Merseyside connection
The oil tanker buoys that fed oil into Pluto were moored off the coast at Bromborough on the Wirral. Oil was pumped from Bromborough up the river Mersey to Stanlow. At Stanlow the oil joined the already existing national pipeline, and then travelled down the country and across the Channel. Towards the end of the War, Pluto was able to carry one million gallons of oil per day, using sixteen separate pipe-lines between Britain and France.
‘Pluto’ was the acronym used for the Pipe Line Under The Ocean. This was the attempt made by Britain in the Second World War to lay a fuel pipe-line across the Channel to France, beginning from Bromborough in Merseyside.
In April 1942, the Chief of Combined Operations Lord Louis Mounbatten began investigating the possibility of laying a fuel pipe-line between Britain and France, in preparation for the planned Allied invasion of France.
An aerial view of Bromborough, Wirral and part of the River Mersey.
Researchers found that a three-inch steel pipe could be welded to any required length and still be flexible enough to be wound around a drum not less than thirty feet in diameter, and so carry oil that way. The Pluto pipe-line would therefore be laid using huge floating drums with steel pipe wrapped round them, which could then be towed across the Channel to France.
The Merseyside connection
The oil tanker buoys that fed oil into Pluto were moored off the coast at Bromborough on the Wirral. Oil was pumped from Bromborough up the river Mersey to Stanlow. At Stanlow the oil joined the already existing national pipeline, and then travelled down the country and across the Channel. Towards the end of the War, Pluto was able to carry one million gallons of oil per day, using sixteen separate pipe-lines between Britain and France.