PLUTO pump comes home

The fort in which the IOW Zoo is housed has been a well-known feature of Sandown seafront for many years. What many visitors don’t realise, however, is that the fort played a critical role in the final stages of the Second World War.
For the liberation of Europe that followed the D-Day landings to be successful, a vast reliable source of fuel was required for the hundreds of vehicles involved in the allied advance through France. This was supplied by an ingenious mechanism, designed by Lord Mountbatten, which pumped petrol across the English Channel through pipes laid along the seabed from Sandown and Shanklin to Cherbourg. This secret pipeline was named PLUTO (Pipeline Under The Ocean) and some of the original pipe can still be seen at Shanklin Chine.
Huge pumps (5+ tons each) were required to power the transfer of up to 330,000 gallons of fuel a day to France. 16 pumps were located in Sandown. Local historians have discovered that 11 pumps were situated in the fort (now the Zoo) and 5 more were at Brown’s, next door. The control centre for the whole PLUTO pipeline was located in the Grand Hotel.
After the war, the pumps were removed and presumably sold off for a variety of uses.
Now, though, one has returned to the Isle of Wight.
The prodigal pump is to be restored at the IOW Zoo during the winter months and, when restoration is complete, will be displayed at the Zoo alongside an exhibition telling the story of the amazing feat of mechanical ingenuity that was PLUTO.