Barges Assembled by the US Army at Hayle, Truro and Totnes

Yes, I see what you mean.

That map doesn't show the full extent of the reclaimed ground that exists now... so it looks like the reclamation may have happened in at least 3 stages - one for the Edwardian park, one before the 1930 map was surveyed and one at some point before 1962 when the cricket club moved in.

It's a pity there are no photos on Britain From Above (BFA) showing the park post war. I did find one very distant one dated July 1946 being sold by Historic England. It's hard to draw many conclusions from this but it definitely shows wide dark band around the foreshore that would not be inconsistent with a row of recently disused barge building slipways like those at Hayle. I was under the impression that BFA had published everything up to 1953 including the photos from companies other than Aerofilms (this one is said to be Aero Pictorial) but clearly I was wrong about that.

 

This 1971 photo is the closest I am aware of to what you want.
The Truro Estuary, 1.25 miles SE of Truro, looking NW – aerial photo
Cornwall County have been playing cricket matches at Boscawen Park since 1895.
Whether the Facebook group Nostalgic Truro would have a photo that might help. Might be worth a try if you're on FB.

 

Some more stuff that I've unearthed. This is fromm OCOT Monographs, U.S. Army Transportation Corps - Fort Lee, Virginia - this contains scans of early postwar USATC documents.

There is stacks of material which gives a lot more detail than I've seen elsewhere. A particular highlight for my original question is the table below from Volume V of the Historical Report on the USATC in the European Theater. I'm not sure of the exact applicable date for this table, but some time in the final quarter of 1944. It would be interesting to see the earlier volumes covering the preparation for D Day but these are not available on this site.

Google won't make much sense of these PDFs because there has been no OCR done on them - they are just pictures of the typescript.

Does anyone know what a 'Seamule' was? I've come across this term several times but I don't know what they were.

 

Hi,
The “Sea Mule” was a small tug.

A few photos showing it in British use.

Regards

Danny

 

Excellent, thanks. I thought it was something along those lines judging by the way its role was described.

Any idea where and when those photos were taken?

Judging by the table, the Sea Mules were also assembled in Europe... presumably somewhere in the UK. Does anyone know where and when?

 

I finally found a clear picture of some steel BK barges, again at Cherbourg and again on the Getty site. Note the four hatchway like things on the decks - these match perfectly with the barges shown under construction in the Hayle photo.

Picture taken in October 1944 of troops in the port of Cherbourg, in... News Photo - Getty Images