Empire ship the Normandy invasion depended on the successful construction of the Mulberry ports. These were prefabricated ports, constructed at Southampton, Gosport, Portsmouth, Tilbury Docks, and even as far north as Birkenhead and Hartlepool. Two hundred tugs then took three months to tow the components of the harbours from where they were constructed to assembly areas on the South Coast. Between 7 June 1944 and the end of July, the tugs towed the materials across the channel to Normandy. Before D-Day, sixty old merchant ships and four old warships were selected as blockships, to be scuttled in a line to give protection
The Road to the Isles local tunes. The tune associated with the Road to the Isles was an air played by Malcolm Johnson of Barra on a chanter and composed by Pipe Major John McLellan of Dunoon (originally titled "The Burning Sands of Egypt"). Kenneth Macleod then wrote the words for a voice and harp (or piano) arrangement of this air by Patuffa Kennedy-Fraser. The tune is a march of the British Army. It is said to have been played by Bill Millin, piper to Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, during the first day of the Normandy Landings on D-Day during World War II, during