Local History - Action
Operation Pluto

The biggest contribution made by the Highlands to the war effort was without doubt the role played by AI Welders in operation PLUTO   (Pipeline Under The Ocean) One of World War II’s most secret weapons was not munitions, but an innovative undersea pipeline system that delivered a million gallons of fuel a day. The allied superiority in oil supplies provided by operation PLUTO was a decisive factor in the battles in Europe PLUTO was one of the most remarkable events of the war - the installation of an underwater pipeline to supply our Forces on the Continent with petrol.


Though the strategy and tactics could be worked out, the commanders lacked a reliable means of supplying fuel to the tanks and trucks that would fight the armoured battles as the armies inched across half a continent.

The plans for the invasion of France from England were already under development in early 1942. Hopes of capturing an intact port that could accept and discharge ocean-going tankers were the stuff of dreams, and fuelling armoured vehicles from handheld 4-gallon cans was not a much more realistic alternative. No one could know it at that moment, but their problem would be solved and the invasion assisted, not by military men, but by oilfield engineers.

Mountbatten asked if there were any existing techniques for laying underwater pipelines that could be brought to bear on the problem. Experts advised that the known techniques required a large number of support vessels and, worse yet, would need a lot of time for on-site assembly and laydown. The proposed solution would just provide the enemy with some free target practice.

Mr. AC Hartley, a born problem-solver and Anglo-Iranian’s chief Engineer innovative proposal was, since you can’t assemble the pipe at sea, why not manufacture it in one continuous length, and deploy it rapidly off the back of a ship, in the way submarine telegraph cables had been laid.

Thus was born Operation Pluto (for Pipe Line Under The Ocean), the daring, inventive, and Top-Top secret plan that eventually delivered a million gallons of fuel a day behind the Allied troops as they advanced across France and Belgium and into Germany.

The suggested pipe had to be of small diameter, to keep size and weight manageable.  So was developed the Hais (for Hartley-Anglo-Iranian-Siemens) cable: a lead pipe swathed in insulation, reinforced by steel wire, and coated in tar and yarn.

Though not strictly a cable, it was referred to as such in order that an inadvertent slip would not reveal that a pipe project was in progress. Total secrecy was of desperate concern. Should the enemy pick up even the phrase "a pipe running undersea like a telegraph line" it would render the project open to investigation, infiltration, and attack.
Within a year, development and testing of the Hais cable had been completed, and manufacturing begun. Two other engineers were inspired to make their own contribution to the project. BJ Ellis, and HA Hammick, recalled that when they had handled steel pipe in the oil fields, it was flexible in long lengths just like the Hais cable. They suggested that a three-inch steel pipe could be coiled around a large drum and rapidly deployed at sea. The suggestion was most welcome; doubts were beginning to grow as to whether there was enough lead available to make all the needed Hais cable. The resulting Hamel (Hammick-Ellis) pipe was tested successfully, and also laid in Operation Pluto.


The Hais cable weighed 63 tons per nautical mile, and so needed to be deployed from a special vessel. A coastal freighter was converted to work as a cable layer, and christened HMS Holdfast., A gigantic floating drum somewhat like a large cotton bobbin, named HMS Conundrum, or "Conun" for short was used.
From the Isle of Wight the lines would cross to Cherbourg, and from Dungeness to Boulogne. Pumpworks and systems were erected at each point, heavily camouflaged as bungalows, gravel pits, and garages. With every aspect of the project under a heavy veil of secrecy, all critical movements were enacted under cover of dark. The RAF flew regular photographic control missions to be sure no visible traces of the project existed.

The pipelines carried 1,350,000 gallons daily, delivering a total of 172,000,000 gallons by VE Day. Pumping continued through July 1945 so that all available tankers could be employed in the Far East. The liquid life for the machinery of liberation was faithfully delivered by Operation Pluto

The Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight Eisenhower, dubbed Operation Pluto "second in daring only to the artificial harbours project," writing into his report that "this provided our main supplies of fuel during the Winter and Spring campaigns."


 
Samuel Hunter Gordon

Samuel Hunter Gordon (1878 - 1959) was for 50 years the Managing Director of the Rose Street Foundry which became known later as AI Welders.  During World War II he was responsible for the design and construction of machines which employed the new welding process which proved invaluable for operation Pluto. A plague in his memory exists at the corner of Rose Street and Academy Street.  
 
Rose Street Plaque
The former office
of AI Welders