The Beaches.
Last week I listened to a BBC Radio 4 documentary about the D Day beach landings.*
Christian Dunn, who is a professor of wetland science at Bangor University, reenacted a mission that whilst much less known, ranks up there in importance with Alan Turing and his colleagues breaking the enigma code.
It’s not just a brilliant tale of bravery, but also a valuable lesson to be well heeded.
(Extract from Bangor University website)
“Before the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944, a lot of work had been done to select the beaches the Allies would land on – eventually the Normandy coast was chosen,” explained Professor Dunn.
“However, the French Resistance are believed to have smuggled out some geological maps of the area – one of them dating back to the Roman Empire – which suggested there was soft clay and peat under the sand of the beaches. Peat is a type of wetland sediment created over millennia, which can be very unstable.
The Allied scientists and planners needed to find out where these clay and peat deposits were along the beaches so they didn’t land on them on D-Day. As the aerial photographs weren’t accurate enough, a group of commandos were given training in wetland and soil science, and then had to swim to the beaches, from small boats or submarines, to collect sediment samples, in the months before the landing.”
Recording the documentary took Professor Dunn over to the Normandy landing beaches, where he re-enacted one of the swims the commandos did and collected samples in the same way, using kit specially made by soil testing equipment manufacturers Royal Eijkelkamp for the programme.
“I’m a wetland scientist, and spend a lot of my time wading around in mud in my wellies, but to think my area of science helped ensure the success of the climactic battle of WWII, is rather sobering,” Professor Dunn added.
Understandably, the landings themselves are rightly remembered every year, but it’s the meticulous preparation that whilst rarely commented on, is actually the foundation for the success that followed.
And how often is this also the case in business and life generally?
Reflecting on both successes and mistakes, I conclude that the amount of preparation is perhaps the single biggest determiner of the results. Whilst some attribute luck, timing, market conditions and many other factors, as to the reason for their triumphs and failures, I suggest, (adapting the Gary Player/Jerry Barber famous quote), that the more you prepare the luckier you get.
It’s not only that preparation will uncover potential pitfalls, nor that it allows for the “what if” scenarios to be planned for, it’s the confidence boost from knowing that no stone has been left unturned; or in the case of the D Day landings, no grain of sand.
* https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001zv39
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