内容摘要：Dover's Maison Dieu hall has reopened after a two-year refurbishment which cost £10.5m.

Dover's Maison Dieu hall has reopened after a two-year refurbishment which cost £10.5m.

"If you have a landing craft, it's much shorter than the length of the big swell waves that come off the Atlantic Ocean, so there was a risk that if it dived down in a swell wave it wouldn't come back up," explained the physical oceanography professor."Understanding whether there were going to be swell waves or just small choppy water was really important, so they could do the landing at the right time."

It was here that Darbyshire excelled within what was known as the top secret Group W in Teddington.He came up with a way to model wave patterns using iron buoys in the sea, and measuring their magnetic movements.His team even developed a computer, the first of its kind for rapid analysis of wave types.

They discovered they were able to predict wave patterns linked to weather events, even storms happening hundreds of miles away.Armed with that information and weather forecasts, the allied forces were able to pick their day. Or in the case of D-Day - as actually happened - delay it by 24 hours because of the predictions.

"It was absolute genius what they did," said Prof Rippeth.

But getting the right call on when to go is only part of the problem: how do you sustain the invasion once you land?Planning Officer Neil McBride explained that planning permission for the first plant had been granted in 2012 and operations had since expanded, and that the new plant would be identical to the original.

Conservative councillor Thomas Ashton insisted it was “reassuring” that it wouldn’t be taking up prime agricultural land.“I think it’s very clear that this is to be located alongside an existing anaerobic digestion plant,” he said.

Mr Ashton later pointed out that there had been no formal objections to the plans, which he felt was “quite unusual,” but showed there was no reason not to approve them.Like thousands of students from across the island of Ireland who head across the Atlantic every year, Callum O'Reilly had considered studying in the United States - but not any more.