grew from 100,000 to over a million would require the capture of a functioning cherbourg orerably le havre. we had a conversation during the q and date a minute ago. the seizure of a seaport was difficult. that might take months. in the meantime, how would the allies sustain themselves off that landing beach absent a workable port? the answer, or at least what seems like it at the time was to , construct an artificial harbor of the invasion beach. the idea had many fathers, but of course it was churchill, fond -- font of so many innovations, who pushed it. it took a lot of pushing, for it was stunningly ambitious, to build two artificial harbors, one off omaha beach for the americans and one off gold beach for the british. since everything had to have a code name, the harbors were called mulberries. it was gigantic. the mulberries were composed of several interdependent elements. at the outer edge, the allies placed a role of what were called bombardier ons. seen here, these are floats linked together like the kind you might put across a swimming pool to denote the deep end, only much, muc