-: I was trained in being a Trainee Quantity Surveyor
and one of our jobs was for the Ministry of Defense
to do the costing for the Mulberry Harbor.
That was going to be floated across the channel
onto the Normandy beaches prior to the landing
of the troops.
They had to get them a port in which to unload tanks
and heavy armored cars.
And also in addition to that we prepared the cost for Pluto,
a pipeline under the ocean,
from England to Normandy beaches.
To provide petrol on the petrol pumps that we installed
on the Mulberry Harbor to provide the troops with petrol
to take their tanks and armored cars into France.
Without that, they wouldn't have been able
to proceed on the beaches.
And because I was engaged with a team
of four other people doing that.
Costing A: for the preparation of the estimates
for the work to be done,
and then monitoring,
and the amount of money that was spent
on getting the work done.
It was a period of about a year.
And so I got deferment from being called up
because I was 18 and due to be conscripted,
but my employer applied for a deferment
and I got a years deferment.
So I didn't go into the forces
until...
June 1946 instead of a year earlier.