History of Sussex airfields around Sussex. During the lead-up to the D-Day landings, the people of Sussex were witness to the build-up of military personnel and materials, including the assembly of landing crafts and construction of Mulberry harbours off the county's coast. Five new airfields were built to provide additional support for the D-Day landings, four near Chichester and one near Billingshurst. A legacy of the D-Day landings are the sections of Mulberry harbour that lay broken and abandoned on the sea floor off the coast, of Selsey Bill, having missed the invasion. Sussex was an industrial county, from the stone age, with
Mulberry harbour Dundas & Whitson, Mowlem, Nuttall, Parkinson, Pauling & Co. and Taylor Woodrow. On completion they were towed across the English Channel by tugs to the Normandy coast at only 4.3 Knots (8 km/h or 5 mph), assembled, operated and maintained by the Corps of Royal Engineers, under the guidance of Reginald D. Gwyther, who was appointed CBE for his efforts. Both locations for the temporary harbours required detailed information concerning geology, hydrography and sea conditions. To collect this data a special team of hydrographers was created in October 1943. The 712th Survey Flotilla, operated from naval base HMS "Tormentor" in