John Holmes Jellett

John Holmes Jellett Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), DSc, MA (20 April 1905 – 17 June 1971) was a British civil engineer. Jellett started his career as a bridge and canal engineer before joining the Admiralty, where he specialised in docks. He made improvements to the Royal Navy dockyards and depots at Chatham, Singapore, Devonport, Gibraltar and Milford Haven in the 1930s. During the Second World War Jellett was responsible for works in Egypt and Malta as superintendent civil engineer for the Eastern Mediterranean. After service in the Mediterranean, he was superintending engineer for Mulberry Harbour B that supplied the allied forces in France after the Normandy Landings. Jellett was appointed an OBE for this work in late 1944. After the war he worked for the Southern Railway and then the British Transport Commission in Southampton Docks. Jellett served as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1968–69.

Early life and career Jellett was born on 20 April 1905 in Darjeeling, India. He was educated at Shrewsbury School in England and graduated with a first class Bachelor of Arts degree in the mechanical sciences tripos, from the University of Cambridge in 1927. He was responsible for siting the blockships and Phoenix breakwaters that protected the harbour. Mulberry B was in use for five months after the invasion and landed two million men, half a million vehicles and four million tons of supplies for the Liberation of Europe. Mulberry A, under control of American forces and more exposed to the weather, was wrecked by a storm in late June and abandoned, leaving Jellett's harbour as the main landing point for supplies to the allied forces in France. In recognition of Jellett's work with the Mulberry harbour he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 28 November 1944. The citation in the London Gazette referred to his "distinguished service in operations which led to the successful landing of allied forces in Normandy". In 1966 he was elected a first class engineer member of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers. He had been a member of the institution since 1932 and a member of its council since 1956. Jellett lived in Southampton in Hampshire, from 1946 until his death on 17 June 1971. He was married with two sons.