From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Storm on “Gooseberry” : Painting, Watercolor on Paper; by Dwight C. Shepler; 1944;

There, with decks awash in the roaring sea, the sunken block ships of the great harbour of “Mulberry” successfully rode out the storm. The part of the breakwater formed by the line of sunken ships was called “Gooseberry.” Though they worked about on the bottom, the ships held their place throughout the unseasonal blow of June 19-22, 1944. At the height of the gale’s fury, gunners stationed on a sunken merchantman sought safety on the fo’c’sle of the H.M.S. Centurion, an old British battlewagon which was the western bastion of Gooseberry.

https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/art/exhibits/conflicts-and-operations/wwii/the-invasion-of-normandy/the-storm-of-19-20-june-1944/storm-on-gooseberry.html

Most of us will be familiar with the role that weather played in D-Day, and how the invasion was postponed for a day because of a big storm on June 4th and 5th.

Less well known maybe is a second, much stronger storm which hit Normandy a couple of weeks later from the 19th to 22nd. The storm was so bad that it totally destroyed the Mulberry harbour next to Omaha Beach, though fortunately the second one on Gold Beach survived and was in use till the end of the year.

The ECMWF, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, carried out a reanalysis a few years ago of the weather during  that storm, which you can read here. It includes this table of wind measurements right on the Gold Beach:

This certainly would not be an unusually strong storm in autumn or winter, but would be unusual in summer on the Normandy coast. It badly affected the build up of Allied forces for several days, delaying Operation Epsom, the attempt to outflank Caen, thus allowing time for the German defences to be reinforced.

Ironically the weather across  Britain was settled:

https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/IO_ec70db69-8f3f-492e-b862-88e48bf76a8a/

It is doubly ironic that if D-Day had not gone ahead on the 6th June, the next “window” would have been the 18th to 20th June. Just think of the calamity that could have turned into!

BTW – Dwight Shepler, who painted the picture, was a US Navy Officer, and he took part in the invasion as an official artist. Although the painting took place back home in Massachussetts, it was based on drawings and film footage made on location at the time.