With the outbreak of WW1 C&N Gosport turned its industrial power and its engineering skills to the production of fast craft and airboats.
A Phoenix Cork N86 from WW1 – this one shown launching from Brough in the Humber Estuary 1918.
WWII
June 6th 1944 D-Day
Gosport playd a large role int eh invasion of normandy with days of bustling activity prior to D-Day, troops, tanks, and armourments were stockpiled and gathered in 3 locations around the port. MAssive concrete caissons for mulberry harbours were constructed our of stokes bay and slipways were created at Hardway, Beach Street and another 3 in stokes bay itself.
With close to 40,000 troops stationed around the small port, the massive embarkment began in a small weather window. Loading and preparation took place over 5 days in the in the build-up to the Invasion.
During the war Gosport was the direct target of 61 bombing raids by the Luftwaffe, the heaviest of these being in 1940 and ’41, with eh heaviest of these on the nights of 12th and 16th August 1940, and 10th January, 10th March, and again 14th June 1941.
The Gosport yard took its heaviest blitz bombings in 1942 when the yard was struck and subsequent fire destroyed a lot of the records and drawings held at the Camper and Nicholson offices.
