GREG DUSEK: “Tide predictions enable us to tell when is high and low tide and what time is high and low tide going to occur at different coastal locations. The tide is related to the position of the sun and the moon relative to the Earth, and so going back even to the mid-1700s, people understood that when you had high tide every day, and how high the tide was, relates to, in particular, the phase of the moon. And so, even in the mid-1700s in colonial America there were tide predictions of the timing of the tides at various harbors. They weren’t terribly accurate, but they did provide some information which would be useful to mariners and to citizens. But it wasn’t really until the late 1800s that a few folks — Sir William Thompson, who later became known as Lord Kelvin in England and William Farrell of the U.S., who was at the U.S. Coast Survey, which later actually became NOAA much later in time — they were the first ones to figure out if we go and collect the observations, go measure the water level for a month at a time at a certain location, you could then figure out what frequencies make up the tide, what are known as tidal constituents. And if you knew those tidal constituents at a particular location, then you could use that information to generate tide predictions, or very specific water levels and times of the tide at a certain location even months or years into the future.”

HOST: So how were tide predictions calculated once this was figured out in the late 1800s?

GREG DUSEK: “Understanding that there were these specific frequencies that related to the tides, these tidal constituents, you could recreate those mechanically. So you could have these different gears and pulleys represent specific frequencies and then use what’s known as a tide machine to, basically, you put in those constituents, and that tide machine would spit out a tidal curve telling you exactly the times and water levels associated with certain tidal constituents. Some of the first tide machines were created in the late 1800s, and in the U.S., really kind of the best tide machine that was really ever created was finished in about 1912 and, in fact, if you ever visit NOAA, you can find it right in one of our buildings. We still have it there today. It was called ‘old brass brains,’ and it was this metal machine about eleven feet long, about as tall as a person, and people would operate that all the time, generating tide predictions from tidal constituents — and you can generate those predictions for anywhere in the world, as long as you had the information about the constituents. And the big thing with this machine is that this used to be a process that was done by hand. There was a quote in a New York Times article when the machine was first put out, where they say, ‘the machine turns out in ten to 15 hours the work that would keep a mere human calculator busy for six months.’ So, you know, we used to have human calculators, and it would take about six months for them to do one set of tide predictions, and now we could do it in maybe a day or so.”

HOST: I’m still not clear on the idea of tidal constituents.

GREG DUSEK: “So tidal constituents are specific frequencies that represent the position of the moon and the sun relative to the Earth, and how that influences water level. You can calculate the tide with not too many tidal constituents, maybe 20 or 30. The tide machines of the time could solve for about 37 tide constituents, which is usually more than enough to get a really accurate prediction, but there are several hundred known constituents that we can solve for today if needed.”

HOST: How many of these mechanical tide machines did the Allies have during the war?

GREG DUSEK: “There were a number of these tide machines by the time WWII rolled around. We had one in the United States, there were two in the United Kingdom. Pretty much every maritime nation at that point had some sort of tide machine to enable them to generate tide predictions. But because we only had three primary machines within the allied nations, it was really important to keep them safe. So in the UK, for instance, they had these two machines which they had in two different locations, because they were really afraid of the Germans figuring out where the machines were and then firebombing them to destroy them, because they would’ve been high value targets. So the location was a closely held secret and the really tried to keep them hidden. If they lost both of them, that could be a huge implication on the war effort, so it was really important to keep the machines safe.”

HOST: And this leads us back to planning for the D-Day invasion. What were some of the challenges of predicting the tides along the Normandy coast where the Allies planned to land?

GREG DUSEK: “So the tide range around the Normandy beaches was around 20 feet, because you have this really large tidal range, the beach you’re going to have to traverse is going to be wildly different depending on if you’re at low tide or high tide. At low tide, you might have 2-300 yards more of beach to cover, during an amphibious assault, then at high tide. So because of that, you really want to minimize your exposure. The other important part about the tide range is that the water level is changing very rapidly. So *you could be gaining or losing about a foot of water every 15 minutes. *On top of that, the Normandy coastline is kind of complex, and that influences the tides fairly substantially as you go along the coast. So, the allies had five locations they wanted to land at. Utah and Sword were the two furthest apart, about 100 kilometers apart, and the tide could vary by more than hour between those two locations, and so knowing the precise time of low tide was going to be really important.”

HOST: So how did the Allies get the information they needed to do their calculations for these extreme tide conditions?

GREG DUSEK: “At this time in history, there was tidal information at lots of the major coastal cities. There were tide constituents generated from water level observations at nearby cities — Cherbourg to the West and Le Have to the East — but now both of these locations were about 100 kilometers away from the landing beaches, and so the predictions that you generated at those locations would probably not be very accurate for where the landings were going to occur. And so they had, in the tide tables at the time, there was some information closer to the landing zones, but it wasn’t nearly as detailed and there was even a note in the tide tables that said, ‘these predictions may not be accurate.’ So they really didn’t have much to go on for the exact landing locations. Apparently, the allies actually sent in some special forces, night reconnaissance, ahead of the attack, to look at the bathymetry (the shape of the bottom), the type of sand that was there, and to even collect a little bit of information about the tides, which could then support calculating new predictions for those specific landing zones.”

HOST: And why was it so important to stage the invasion at low tide?

GREG DUSEK: “They knew they wanted to land at low tide, so that they could send their initial forces to clear out the number of objects on the beach, but if you can imagine that they got tides just a little bit wrong, say they were off by 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and they landed just before low tide. Well, because of the tide range, water’s *dropping about a foot every hour right before low tide, *and so your amphibious craft would’ve arrived, unloaded the troops, the tides would’ve dropped, and all the craft would’ve been stuck on the beach — and then, you know, you’d be gumming up the whole operation, you wouldn’t be able to have reinforcements come in, and it would have been a disaster. And so they needed to arrive just after low tide, so that water levels are *rising about a foot an hour, *and it would enable their crafts to drop the troops and then get back out of the way for the next round of troops to arrive.”

HOST: At the time, German forces knew that the allies would likely try an invasion of the French coast from across the English Channel. Can you talk about how the Germans were planning for this?

GREG DUSEK: “The Germans and Gen. Rommel were really expecting the allies to attack at high tide, because at low tide there would be maybe 2-300 yards of beach that the amphibious forces would have to traverse, leaving them exposed for an extended period of time. Because of that, Rommel had all of these obstacles placed along the beach — millions of obstacles along the French and Belgian coastlines — and so, they were convinced that an attack would happen at high tide. Now, the allies saw these obstacles and decided that a high tide attack wouldn’t be possible, and instead they would have to plan their attack at low tide, giving their initial troops a chance to move obstacles out of the way, blow up obstacles, and clear a path for the heavy infantry and tanks and things like that, that would follow the initial attack.”

HOST: So you said that all the conditions that needed to fall in place — the moon, the weather, the tides — meant that the small window between the 5th and 7th of June were the best dates for the Allies to launch the invasion. How did the Allies settle on June 6th to commence operations?

GREG DUSEK: “On June 4th, the weather was going to be too bad, so they didn’t attack. They waited until June 6th. The weather was still not great and it was very questionable, but Eisenhower made the decision to attack because he was worried that, if it failed here, they’d have to wait at least two weeks and maybe a month or more to go forward with the assault, and then it could’ve been figured out. They didn’t want to wait that long, because they were losing lives like crazy. Even though the weather was rough getting across the Channel, it actually worked in our favor because Rommel — because the weather wasn’t any good and because it was low tide at first light and he was anticipating a high-tide assault — he was actually not even in Berlin, he was visiting his wife for her birthday somewhere else, and so wasn't prepared even for the assault at all. So we actually caught them off guard by choosing to attack that day.”

HOST: Well the invasion of course succeeded, so among all of the factors that led to this success, I guess that means that the Allies got the tide predictions right for the Normandy coast on June 6th, 1944?

HOST: GREG DUSEK: “Later on, people went back and using computers and using hydrodynamic models re-ran a simulation to look at how accurate the predictions were around the Normandy coastline for the assault and found them to be really quite accurate, you know, using a mechanical machine and data collected from a few hours in a midget submarine or something, was almost as accurate as we can determine today. I would say anecdotally in our office, we’ve looked at a lot of historical predictions going back to the late 1800s, early 1900s, and compared them to what we can find today with modern instruments and modern computers and are always amazed at just how accurate, you know, what people were able to figure out with really minimal amounts of information and technology, and could get pretty darned close to what we can measure today with all of the technology we have.”

HOST: From your perspective as an oceanographer at NOAA’s tides and currents office, what’s your takeaway from the D-Day invasion?

“The important thing to think about with this is that tides really were one of the pivotal roles with one of the most important days in human history. I think it shows just how important it is to understand our natural environment and to be able to make prediction about the natural environment. It seems simple, in terms of the rise and fall of the water level due to tides, but it’s actually quite complex. It can take a lot of work to figure out and can be important to understand for a whole range of reasons.”

HOST: It’s truly a remarkable story. I’m curious how you discovered the historical role of tide predictions for the invasion of the Normandy coast in WWII?

GREG DUSEK: “Our former chief scientist of the National Ocean Service, Bruce Parker, was really on the forefront of tide prediction and tide analysis when he was here at NOAA, and did a lot of research into tide history. He wrote a book a number of years ago, The Power of the Sea, where he goes into a lot of stories and other interesting historical facts about the tide and about the ocean. He’s been a great source for this kind of historical research and it’s really interesting.”

HOST: I imagine tide prediction in the 21st century has come a long way from the Old Brass Brains machine the U.S. used back in the day.

GREG DUSEK: “Today, we have the benefit of having a lot more data. You know, instead of maybe collecting information about the water level a couple times a day, a few days, or a few months, we have instruments that measure water levels every six minutes for years and years. And so, we can take that time series and run it in a computer, and take four, five, six years of data or more, run it through a computer, and figure out very precisely what the tidal constituents are for a particular location, and then generate tide predictions from those constituents, again, every six minutes, at a very high level of accuracy going out years into the future. From a time standpoint, we can do that in a matter of minutes. Whereas before, even after the tide machine was created, it was taking people days to generate these predictions. So we’ve advanced quite a bit.”

HOST: What are some of the reasons that we need such detailed information about water levels today?

GREG DUSEK: “The importance of tides and currents for NOAA and the nation really comes down to a couple of things. One is safe and efficient navigation. So if you’re pulling in a large commercial vessel or Navy warship, you need to know precisely when low and high tide are going to be, and high it’s going to be, so you know you’re not going to run aground or run into a bridge, things like that. On top of that, tide predictions are really important to things like high tide flooding. So one of the benefits of being able to predict the tide really well means that we can figure out what days you’re likely to see flooding in certain locations. So it’s really important for public safety and or providing awareness regarding potential hazards. So tide predictions is something we know how to do really well, but it remains something that is really important for a wide range of uses.”

HOST: That was Greg Dusek, a physical oceanographer and senior scientist at the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, or CO-OPS — the tides and currents office of the National Ocean Service. And that’s all for this episode. If you like what you hear, head to iTunes and leave us a rating. It’ll help more people find our show. And head to oceanservice.noaa.gov or check your podcast app for our show notes — and be sure to subscribe to the NOAA Ocean Podcast so you don’t miss any episodes.