Operation Pluto - Pipe Lines Under The Ocean - was a highly ambitious engineering project to design, develop and construct undersea pipelines and huge pumping stations. These would pump petroleum fuel under the English Channel to support Operation OVERLORD, the Allied invasion of Normandy commencing on 6th June 1944. The route that PLUTO took across the Isle of Wight started at the Thorness beach terminal and a pumping station at Whippance Farm. Then over 14 miles it stretched across the Island, looping around Parkhurst Forest and Newport to eventually arrive at a huge storage tank hidden in Hungerberry Wood above Shanklin. From there pipes fed two pumping stations, one housed around a derelict hotel in Shanklin, the other in a part-demolished Victorian fort and a golf clubhouse at Sandown. From there, 72 miles away in Europe, the Allied forces desperately needed fuel. Today, 75 years on, the route of the pipeline and the buildings associated with PLUTO have all but disappeared. But if