Talk:Operation Pluto

War at night

In England, the PLUTO pipelines were supplied by a 1,000 mile network
of pipelines built during the war at night to distribute fuel from
ports including Liverpool and Bristol.

Were they built at night or used at night?

Shermozle

• explanation added 80.43.107.36 22:17, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Acronym

Is it really "Pipelines" and "Oceans" or are either singular? Rich Farmbrough 09:23, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Pipeline Under The Ocean is also the second album by New Zealand band Pluto.

Units of measurement

Some measurements in this article are given as 'Mg/km' and 'Mg'. I assume Mg is meant to be Mega-grammes? It's a very unusual usage - SI unit of mass is the kilogramme (kg).

Yes I also noticed that. There is also an inconsistancy in whether imperial or metric units are given priority. I can understand the use of nautical miles in this case as it is acceptable for use in SI. However the use of inches, long tons and miles in the same article that talks about km and litres as the main unit seems a bit messy. Surely we can stick with SI units here (does anyone actually think in long tons?) Zarboki 17:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Not common usage in the UK. 2240 pounds was the standard ton and the US short ton was not much used. I think Mg may be overly pedantic SI (rather like insisting on quoting lengths in millimeters, e.g 1500mm for a car park barrier). Could easily be quoted as tonnes/kilometer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Esthameian (talk • contribs) 23:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

On the contrary, the long ton (2,240 lb) was pretty much the only ton used in the UK prior to metrication.

== Eventual Fate?

• in operation until 1945?
• used in post-war?
• how destroyed?

Afabbro 18:55, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Presumably the steel section was raised, cut up and melted down. Observantcynic (talk) 19:55, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Where was the steel (vast majority) section of the pipeline made? ====

There is no mention of the role of the Corby steelworks. I can remember there was a pub called The Pluto in the town. Complete with a picture of the underwater pipeline. The town of Corby is about to (or has) named roads, squares after the pipeline. Check out http://www.northamptonshire.co.uk/guides/corby/ I know the tube was produced in secret but it is a little bit crazy keeping it off Wikipedia after all these years!

Observantcynic (talk) 19:55, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Extra Information panel

The Wiktionary entries and the images seem relevent. The first page of links for all the others seems a jumble of irrelevant stuff!

Cool project

Would like it to be elevated - or even nominated for main page. 212.188.108.188 (talk) 13:39, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

It would need at least a lot more refs.Geni 13:54, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Dungeness or Greatstone?

I know from people that live in some bungalows in Leonard Road, Greatstone in Kent that they were used to house PLUTO pumping station(s) that pumped the fuel via PLUTO to France. Our understanding is that the fuel went from Greatstone to France direct ie not via Dungeness. This would seem to have been the case since the pumping station(s) were housed in Greatstone and not Dungeness. Could the writer of the article please say why he/she feels PLUTO went from Dungeness and not Greatstone? Peterfaulkner92 (talk) 11:50, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

IIRC, it was Greatstone-on-Sea or Littlestone-on-Sea that was used for PLUTO however I think Dungeness may have been stated at the time because it was the nearest notable place to someone not familiar with the area. At the time the Marsh was much less densely populated than it is now and these two named places would have been little more than seaside villages. Dungeness however would have been noticeable on naval charts and well-known to mariners.

In Film

Archive footage of the ConunDrum in use is shown during episode 17 ('Morning') of The World at War. Is this sufficient for inclusion in this section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dajon (talk • contribs) 04:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

An excellent, if poor picture quality, ICE documentary on the PLUTO project here: [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.53.228 (talk) 09:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

German efforts to sabotage

Remember reading somewhere that the Germans were well aware of the pipeline and wanted to inject corrosive liquids to break the pipes. 94.29.10.104 (talk) 20:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Form around early 1944 the RAF were preventing any German photo-reconnaissance aircraft from flying over any but selected areas of Britain. These areas almost certainly did not include the ones where PLUTO was being installed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.247.9 (talk) 09:34, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Pic of drum

Found a decent pic, but lack the skills to add to the Wiki:

http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib/38/media-38445/large.jpg?action=d&cat=photographs

135.196.94.75 (talk) 14:01, 9 December 2014 (UTC) FW 09.12.14

https://web.archive.org/web/20201112042753/http://media.iwm.org.uk/ciim5/38/445/large_000000.jpg Comfr (talk) 06:34, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Further reading

Is the title "History of, A Romance of Seventy-Five Years" correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.162.222 (talk) 15:07, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

No it was not right. Fixed now. 15:43, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

"Pulled the bollard out of the quay"

This is ridiculous. Either the person giving the interview wasn't being literal or someone is just vandalizing. This is an old joke about steam engines vs diesels, and it should not be treated as fact. When it comes to the actual power output at the bollard, there is no difference between a diesel and a steam tug. A diesel is geared down, both have identical propellers and rpms at the propeller; this is the only point of interface with the water as far as pulling. It's not like a diesel engined tug is going to lug down and stall or something. Utter bollocks. In fact, I'm just going to remove it, because if I don't, I'll come back in 4 years and find it's still there, just like the "photo of the very old pack of Camel Cigarettes" that someone pointed out as very obviously a picture of a counterfeit pack of Camels... "Dromedary" brand, no less...back in 2013: and it was still there when I saw it. AnnaGoFast (talk) 01:05, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Are we sure this isn't actually a PETROL pipeline?

From the way they keep calling it an "oil" pipeline, one must assume they brought their own refinery equipment over to France and set it up on the beaches to convert the oil fuel to something they could actually use, like petrol. Since vessels were pretty much the only vehicle that could burn "oil" back then, and diesel engines were few and far between in the Allied military. I would think it would simplify things greatly if they just pumped petrol under the seas, and didn't rely on the hard to build and easy to destroy refinery in France. In fact, in one place...but only one place....in the article it actually SAYS they pumped "petrol", but the rest of the time it just talks about "oil", which usually means something different these days. And while I'm here, the whole thing sounds like a massive waste of effort and resources, typical of much of the Allied effort. It's a good thing they had so many resources to waste (largely thanks to the US) and they could still win the war on what was left over. Well, win "their share" of the war; if they hadn't had Russia to keep 80% of the Germans occupied, they might have had to focus a little more. AnnaGoFast (talk) 01:20, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Most of the Western Allies vehicles and aircraft were petrol-engined and it was almost certainly mainly petrol that the pipeline transported, although I suspect it could carry whatever was thin enough to pump through it so it may have transported both petrol (80 octane for motor transport and 100 octane for aircraft use) and oil.

The Soviets may have occupied 80% of the German army but unless these German army personnel had been re-trained for the Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine the most they could have done if they hadn't been in Russia is to have made the D-day invasion and other western land campaigns much more difficult. Whilst this may have prevented the Allies invading Normandy that in itself would not have won the Nazis the war. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.247.9 (talk) 09:32, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Name

"Operation Pluto" or just "PLUTO" ? GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:05, 27 March 2021 (UTC)