Allan Harry Beckett MBE (b. 4 March 1914, East Ham, London Borough of Newham, United Kingdom, d. 19 June 2005, Farnborough, London) was a civil engineer whose design for the 'Whale' floating roadway was crucial to the success of the Mulberry harbour that was used in the Normandy Landings. Starting the war as a sapper digging trenches on the South Coast at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation, Allan Beckett came to play a significant role in the success of the Mulberry harbour used during and after the Normandy landings of June 1944.
His contribution to the Mulberry was to design the floating roadways which connected the pierhead to the shore, and a system of anchors. The roadway had to be strong enough to withstand constant wave action which, as occurred in the appalling weather of June 1944, was much more severe than anticipated. Beckett's design, which had been tested in the severe conditions of Scotland in winter, survived the storm which struck on 19 June 1944, and raged for three days.
Education and early military service
Allan Beckett was born on 4 March 1914 in East Ham, London; the eldest of three children of George William Harry Beckett and his wife Emma (née Stokes). Allan's father was a professional soldier in the Royal Field Artillery and was proud to be one of the 'Old Contemptibles'. London Borough of Newham have placed a blue heritage plaque on the house in Montpelier Gardens where the family lived. Allan's first interest was mechanical engineering – he was a keen model maker, building intricate model boat engines when a teenager. However his father persuaded him to study civil engineering at university as the career prospects were better.
He read civil engineering at the University of London and was then apprenticed to Sanders and Forster, steelwork and structural engineers from 1930 to 1933. From there he moved to the bridge department of consulting engineers A. J. Bridle until the war began. He volunteered for the Royal Engineers in January 1940 and, after basic sapper training, was at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation engaged in trench digging, watch duties and manning a searchlight at Folkestone Harbour. He also assisted in the sinking of the block ship SS Umvoti across the harbour's entrance. Commissioned in 1941, he was sent to King's Newton, near Derby, to work for Lieutenant-Colonel W. T. Everall, a specialist on the rapid construction of railway bridges for battlefield use. In this position, he gained valuable experience in assembling light steel bridging.
The Mulberry Minute
The notion of the Mulberry harbour had come from Winston Churchill, determined never to repeat the 1915 debâcle of the amphibious landings over open beaches during the Gallipoli Campaign. On 30 May 1942, with an invasion of the German-occupied Continent only a distant dream, he had prepared a minute for the chief of the Combined Operations Headquarters, headed: Piers for use on beaches.
"They must float up and down with the tide," Churchill noted. "The anchor problem must be mastered. Let me have the best solution worked out. Don’t argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves." These injunctions set down the essentials of the floating piers to enable the vast tonnage of vehicles and stores to be got ashore to support the forces in the field.
In the wake of Churchill's minute Allan Beckett's boss, Lt-Colonel William Teague Everall who was the Chief Bridging Instructor to the War Office, was charged with designing a roadway for use over shelving beaches under tidal conditions. Everall gave Beckett a sketch marked "Top Secret" asking whether, "as a keen sailor", he could make sense of it. The sketch showed a mile-long series of pontoons on legs, linked by bridges covering water that was shallow one end, deep the other. The caption read "Piers for flat beaches", without explanation of what they might be intended for.
Beckett thought the legs an unnecessary complication for a floating bridge. "If you think you can do better, you must make it clear before next Monday when I shall be revisiting the War Office," said Everall. By 2 July 1942 Allan had prepared a sketch drawing of a floating roadway, consisting of a torsionally compliant lozenge-shaped bridge span. He had a tin plate scale model made of one full span and part of an adjacent span to show a junction using spherical bearings. Everall took this model to his meeting at the War Office and returned exultant. "Beckett," he said, "they want six spans built right away, I have promised that you will produce fabrication drawings by the end of the week."