From
Lesser Known Facts of WWII 1942
OPERATION 'PLUTO'
In May, 1942, the first prototype of Pluto (Pipe Line Under The Ocean) was tested across the River Medway and a month later across the Firth Of Clyde in Scotland. The first of these 75 mm diameter pipes was laid to France on August 12, 1944, under the English Channel via the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg, France, a distance of 130 kilometres. In England, fuel for these pipes was pumped through a 1,600 kilometre network of pipelines from the ports of Liverpool and Bristol. Operation 'Pluto' was considered one of the greatest engineering feats in the history of war. As the Allied Armies advanced into Germany, 17 other pipelines were laid from Dungeness to the Pas-de-Calais and eventually reached as far as the River Rhine. In January, 1945, 300 tons of gasoline were pumped to France and in March this had reached 3,000 tons. By the end of the war a total of over 781 million litres had been supplied to the war machines of the Allied armies of liberation.