A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

me to get them under way , we 're going to sink them for you . '' The broadcast 

sent panic through the Allied high command . If the Germans understood the Mulbe

rry concept , they 'd have a window into the invasion strategy possibly enough t

o undermine the elaborate deception efforts long employed to convince them that 

the real invasion would come north of Normandy in the Pas de Calais . There the 

Germans had positioned the bulk of their troops and armor . If those troops were

 moved to Normandy it would be disastrous on D-Day . How much did the Germans re

ally know ? The high command turned to its intelligence ace in the hole , the co

de-breaking unit at Bletchley , which had been reading `` ultra''-secret Wehrmac

ht radio signals throughout the war . After some sleepless nights the answer cam

e back by circuitous route . American cryptographers in the Pacific , who were r

eading Japanese radio traffic , had intercepted a report to Tokyo from the Japan

ese ambassador in Berlin . While briefing him on their French coastal defenses a

nd the Allies ' surmised invasion plans , the Germans had mentioned the concrete

 units being built on the British coast . But they appeared , the Germans said ,

 to be anti-aircraft gun towers . Allied relief was palpable . But just to be on

 the safe side , an early prototype caisson was towed up and parked across from 

Calais . The `` Haw-Haw '' broadcast made Allied security so jittery a major inv

estigation was launched the following month when the word `` mulberry '' turned 

up in a crossword puzzle in the Daily Telegraph . That mulberry turned out to re

fer to trees . -O- Operation Mulberry , meanwhile , was marching on . The towing

 aspect of it alone was a logistical snake pit . Every conceivable size and type

 of towing vessel had been drafted for the operation , one dating back to 1880 .

 Each had to be matched with an appropriate load lest a gale-propelled 6,000-ton

 caisson end up towing its towing vessel . Then all the speeds and distances had

 to be coordinated so the 85 tugs would not arrive with their huge loads all at 

once amid the barely controlled chaos of the 7,000-ship invasion fleet . The tow

ing was not without incident . One troubled caisson flooded prematurely and sank

 off Hayling Island near here , where it can still be seen today . Half the pier

 sections intended for Mulberry B were lost in rough seas on the way over . The 

first units arrived off Omaha Beach June 7 , and three of the block ships were s

unk in place for the northern breakwater that afternoon . The following day the 

first caissons arrived . The block-ship breakwater was completed June 10 , despi

te being targeted sporadically by German artillery fire . The first ships docked

 at Mulberry A pier six days later , three full days ahead of schedule . Mulberr

y B , in the British sector at Arromanches , was less than half finished . Up to

 that time , the bulk of the unloading had been handled by LSTs `` drying out ''

 beaching themselves at high tide , opening their bow doors and rolling vehicles

 right onto the sand . While this proved far more practical than envisioned by t

he invasion planners , it had the immense disadvantage of immobilizing ships for

 a full 12 hours until they could be refloated on the next high tide . The first

 LST at the Mulberry dock discharged 78 vehicles its entire load in just 38 minu

tes . In the 11 additional hours it would have spent on the beach drying out , i

t could now return to England , load up again and be halfway back . The cargo ca

pacity of the invasion beaches had suddenly more than doubled . By June 18 , wit

h its third dock still uncompleted , Omaha Beach had landed 197,444 troops , 27,

340 vehicles and 68,799 long tons of supplies . Mulberry A was not only living u

p to its projections , it was now the busiest port in all of Europe . -O- Then d

isaster struck . Allied weather forecasters , who inarguably had made the greate

st tactical contribution to D-Day by spotting a brief window amid what appeared 

to the Germans to be invasion-proof weather , missed an oncoming cold front that

 descended on the Mulberrys like a bomb . On June 19 , during an unusually high 

spring tide , the winds stiffened , backing to the northeast , and blew from the

 one point on the compass that built the waves over 100 miles of open water and 

aimed them into the harbor entrance . By midday the wind was blowing steadily at

 20 knots and gusting regularly to 30 . Eight-foot waves began washing over the 

tops of the block ships and caissons and running wild in the harbor . Anchors be

gan to drag and moorings to part . Small craft , then bigger ships began driftin

g into the floating piers . The bombardon breakwater dragged anchor , came apart

 and began battering the caissons , which in turn began to shift and capsize . I

t was the worst summer storm in the channel in 40 years . It blew for four days 

. When it was over , 21 of 35 caissons in one breakwater had capsized or been be

aten in and the piers and docks were little more than twisted wreckage . Only th

e block-ship breakwater at Omaha had held . The British Mulberry , still uncompl

eted and partially protected by the capes north of Le Havre , survived with litt

le damage . Appalled by the damage at Omaha , Allied planners decided to move an

y salvageable parts of Mulberry A to Arromanches . The discharge of cargo had vi

rtually stopped during the storm , and shortages ashore were becoming critical .

 Fortunately , Cherbourg was captured June 26 , but it was another 20 days befor

e the harbor there could be cleared of wreckage and booby traps enough for the f

irst ships to unload . Meanwhile , supply logistics were rebuilt around the inte

nsified beaching and drying out of LSTs at Omaha plus the operation of a finally

 finished and greatly storm-reinforced Mulberry B at Arromanches . It operated t

hrough November 1944 . Its block ships and caissons still stand today . -O- Fift

y years after D-Day , historians tend to view Operation Mulberry as something of

 a quaint sideline to the invasion of Europe , some citing it as a cautionary ta

le of man 's technological arrogance in the face of nature , rather like the sin

king of the Titanic . For all the immense expense and effort that went into the 

Mulberrys , the `` British Report to the Chiefs of Staff '' on D-Day suggested t

hey were a waste of steel and labor and said the invasion could probably have su

cceeded without them . Eisenhower 's chief of staff , Gen. Walter Bedell Smith ,

 however , strongly disagreed . Though the Mulberrys may have only contributed 1

5 percent to the flow of needed materiel to the invasion forces , he said after 

the war , `` that 15 percent was crucial . '' What many overlook is that the Mul

berrys marked a historical benchmark in the evolution of waterborne transportati

on . They were designed by engineers and architects still discovering how best t

o employ the then-novel LST , the first ship built almost entirely for the rapid

 loading and discharge of cargo . The mating of the Mulberry docks and the LST m

arked the prototype of the roll-on , roll-off concept of cargo-handling that gov

erns today 's containerized ports and shipping . Like so much that D-Day brought

 to Europe and the world , the Mulberry harbors were the face of the future .

 In preparation for Monday 's commemoration of the 50th anniversary of D-Day , C

BS ' `` Sunday Morning , '' ABC 's `` Good Morning America/Sunday '' and NBC 's 

`` Weekend Today '' will provide extensive reports . NBC 's `` Meet the Press ''

 and a 90-minute edition of ABC 's `` This Week with David Brinkley '' also will

 be devoted to D-Day . Live TV coverage from Normandy , France and other Europea

n sites critical in the invasion will dominate regular and elongated news progra

ms on Monday . ABC anchor Peter Jennings and NBC anchor Tom Brokaw are on the sc

ene for their evening newscasts through Monday ; CBS and CNN chose to send senio

r correspondents . The networks ' anchors and reporters also will be on Monday b

eginning at 7 a.m. , when there will be five continuous hours of coverage on eac

h of the networks ' morning shows . -0- PBS ' new `` The Steven Banks Show '' wi

ll air Monday nights from July 11 to Aug. 8 and , after a pledge break , return 

Aug. 22 to Sept. 5 . It takes place in `` the cluttered mind and apartment '' of

 Banks , who manages to be distracted by most anything . We find him doing comic

 monologues ; parodying Rex Harrison , Elvis Presley , Katharine Hepburn , Jerry

 Lewis , Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan ; writing music ; singing ; and playing ne

arly a dozen instruments . There will be guests , Penn and Teller among them , a

nd two regulars , Teresa Parente and Michael Kostroff , who play six recurring c

haracters and more than 50 onetime roles . -0- Here 's more light summer fare : 

NBC finally will show `` TV Nation , '' the comedic investigative magazine from 

filmmaker Michael Moore ( `` Roger & Me '' ) . It will air Tuesday nights beginn

ing July 19 . Moore says his show departs from all the other news magazines in t

hat `` we don't have the credentials or the wardrobe of most TV correspondents .

 '' Moore 's on-air team includes Merrill Markoe , former writer for David Lette

rman ; MTV veejay Karen Duffy ; author Ben Hamper ( `` Rivethead '' ) ; Roy Seko

ff , Spy magazine 's Louis Theroux ; and comic Jonathan Katz . Topics include re

al-estate sales near the Love Canal ; catching a cab in New York City if you 're

 African-American ; the lighter side of Dr. Kevorkian , and `` Pets on Prozac . 

'' -0- Except for the Peabody , duPont-Columbia and Emmy awards , this space nor

mally steers clear of reporting the many awards handed out to TV people . We mak

e an exception to note that `` All My Children '' star Susan Lucci , our favorit

e non-Emmy winner , has received the 1994 Crystal Apple Award , presented to a p

ersonality who `` has distinguished him or herself in the entertainment business

 and has made lifetime contributions to the film and TV industry in New York . '

' Past winners are Dustin Hoffman , Michael J. Fox , Spike Lee and Robert De Nir

o . Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will present Lucci with a Tiffany Crystal Apple June 

13 . -0- Viewers for Quality Television is asking fans of Fox Broadcasting 's ca

nceled `` South Central '' to write to Fox Broadcasting Chairwoman Lucy Salhany 

and ask that the series be reinstated . The series about black family life , one

 critic wrote , deals with `` a healthy , functional family trying to get by in 

a dysfunctional society . '' Salhany 's address : Fox Broadcasting , Box 900 , B

everly Hills , Calif. 90213 . VQT wants copies of the letters sent to its office

 : P.O. . Box 195 , Fairfax Station , Va. 22039 .

 WASHINGTON Sketching a picture of an emerging work force no longer well served 

by employment laws that date back to the Great Depression , a special White Hous

e commission issued a report Thursday that the Clinton administration will use t

o try to overhaul the fundamental rules of the U.S. workplace . The fact-finding

 report by the 10-member Commission for the Future of Worker/Management Relation

s will serve as the starting point for what promises to be a bitter and lengthy 

legislative fight over labor law reform . Unlike the U.S. work force of the past

 six decades , the report said , today 's workers are as `` more educated ; more

 female , often part of a two-earner family ; more likely to be members of a min

ority group ; and getting older as the baby boomers age . '' This , it said , ``

 poses challenges to the traditional modes of compensation and organization of w

ork schedules and makes provisions of equal opportunity for all increasingly cri

tical to our economic success . '' Labor Secretary Robert B . Reich called the r

eport `` an attempt to begin the process of dialogue . '' Reich said the questio

n that has to be answered is whether the current system of laws governing the wo

rkplace is `` appropriate to the times . `` The American workplace has undergone

 extraordinary transformation over the last six decades and will be evolving sti

ll more dramatically in the future , '' he said . `` But our legal framework and

 many of our notions about worker-management relations were made for a 1930s wor

ld not the 21st century . '' Headed by former Labor Secretary John Dunlop , the 

commission will use the report to make recommendations by the end of the year fo

r changing a wide range of laws governing the workplace , covering such diverse 

subjects as collective bargaining rights , overtime pay rules , anti-discriminat

ion rules and unpaid medical leaves . The commission includes two other former s

ecretaries of labor as well as the chairman of Xerox Corp. . Business , labor an

d civil rights groups generally hailed the report Thursday , each group singling

 out the finding that best suited its constituency . The Labor Policy Associatio

n , which represents more than 200 Fortune 500 corporations , called the report 

a first step toward building a consensus for change . Brad Cameron of the LPA sa

id the report comes at a `` pivotal period '' in the history of U.S. labor law .

 Thomas Donahue , AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer , predicted the commission finding

s would `` launch a debate that has not been had in this country in 40 years , a

bout the relationships between workers and owners . '' Several major women 's gr

oups and the presidents of four other national women 's organizations all praise

d the commission for recognizing the changes that have taken place in the workpl

ace . They said the report underscores the need to change the laws to accommodat

e the problems women face in the workplace as more and more families are depende

nt on two incomes to survive . The commission was created by the White House mor

e than a year ago to look into the possible need for labor law reforms . Unions 

want the laws changed to make it easier to organize new members . Many business 

groups want changes to remove current legal obstacles to cooperative efforts in 

the workplace . But the report may prove to have a broader impact on the overwhe

lming majority of U.S. workers who do not belong to labor unions . For the last 

30 years , as union membership has declined along with the percentage of workers

 covered by collective bargaining agreements , Congress and state legislatures h

ave increasingly been enacting laws to protect individual rights on the job . ``

 American employees have now been promised a wide variety of legal rights and pr

otections by both federal and state lawmakers , '' the report said . `` These in

clude minimum wages and maximum hours , a safe and healthy workplace , secure an

d accessible pension and health benefits once provided adequate notice of plant 

closings and mass layoffs , unpaid family and medical leave and bans on wrongful

 dismissal : these and all other employment terms and opportunities are to be en

joyed without discrimination on account of race , gender , religion , age or dis

ability . '' The result of this shift in employment law away from collective bar

gaining and labor-management relations to a system of legal intervention has bee

n an explosion in litigation . The commission said there was a 400 percent incre

ase in the number of employment cases in the federal courts from 1971 to 1991 . 

And regulatory agencies charged with administrating the laws have been swamped w

ith complaints . Reich said that last year alone the Equal Employment Opportunit

ies Commission , which governs discrimination in the workplace , had to deal wit

h 90,000 cases . One of the commission goals is to look closely at possible priv

ate dispute resolution alternatives for a broad range of issues , as well as the

 possibility of creating a single labor and employment court with jurisdiction o

ver the employment laws now on the books . Speaking for the administration , Rei

ch would not comment Thursday on most of the specifics in the report . He said h

e would wait to comment until the commission issued its recommendations later th

is year .

 BERLIN As legions of statesmen and aging warriors gather along Normandy 's beac

hes this weekend to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D-Day , their 1944 enemy G

ermany will be represented almost exclusively by her dead . Nearly 78,000 German

 soldiers lie in Norman graves , more than twice the number of all Allied troops

 buried there . Otherwise , Germans will be conspicuous by their absence . Excep

t for a low-key memorial service on Saturday at the German war cemetery in La Ca

mbe , where Bonn 's ambassador to France will lay a wreath , Germany has been po

intedly excluded from the festivities . Despite this snub by their closest postw

ar friends and allies , Germans for the most part have accepted the exclusion wi

th graceful forbearance . The national attitude appears to hover somewhere betwe

en puzzled bemusement and mild irritation at the American , British and French p

reoccupation with events of a half-century ago , long before the shared values o

f peace and democracy lashed Western Europe and the United States together in an

 enduring alliance . `` D-Day is not something that 's very much on people 's mi

nds in Germany , '' said Christoph Bertram , diplomatic correspondent for Die Ze

it newspaper . `` There will be thoughtful articles noting that the invasion was

 the beginning of Hitler 's end and hence a contribution to the liberties and de

mocracy we enjoy today . But it will be more a distant spectacle than anything G

ermans feel part of , or even feel that they should be involved with . '' Chance

llor Helmut Kohl , although reportedly miffed last winter when it became clear h

e would not be invited to join other world leaders in Normandy , has recently ma

intained an air of amiable understanding . `` Let these people celebrate this da

y . Let the survivors commemorate it in honor of their fallen comrades . That 's

 absolutely right , '' Kohl said in a BBC interview last week . `` I have deep r

espect for that . But on the other hand , this is no day for us Germans to join 

in the commemoration . '' The event has hardly been ignored in Germany . Der Spi

egel magazine is running a long series on the Allied invasion , newspapers have 

provided ample coverage of the festivities , and the movie `` The Longest Day ''

 will be shown on German television . Commentators have noted that the German ar

my suffered 200,000 casualties and lost 200,000 prisoners in the Normandy campai

gn . `` But it has very little emotional resonance , '' Bertram said , `` and in

 that sense I think we Germans have become true Europeans . '' Noting that the c

atastrophe of the Third Reich has imprinted German society with a deep and endur

ing aversion to martial topics , a Foreign Ministry official added , `` When it 

comes to celebrating battles , we are reluctant at best . '' Still , it is not d

ifficult to find expressions of hurt feelings at being locked out of the party o

r of bewilderment that the commemoration has focused more on the military epic t

han on the decades of harmony engendered by the invasion . `` The war is over , 

and as a result the world has been changed for the better , '' Hildegard Frank ,

 president of the Association of German-American Clubs in Duisburg , said in an 

interview . `` It 's really a shame that they willn't make that the focal point 

. '' Added Thomas Kielinger , editor in chief of the Rheinischer Merkur newspape

r : `` I understand fully the desire to commemorate the sacrifices that were mad

e . But I would have wished that those who sacrificed so much for liberating Eur

ope could recognize that they won much more than the defeat of the Nazis . They 

reclaimed for Germany the rule of law and due process . In other words , D-Day w

as a double victory : the defeat of Hitler and the resuscitation of democracy. .

. . It 's just a pity that the politicians who engineered these festivities did 

not ( include ) this notion . '' Although a few German veterans are likely to ma

ke private pilgrimages to Normandy , others voice regret at having to slip in th

rough the back door . `` What harm can be done by inviting the Germans ? '' aske

d Ewald Feldhaus , 74 , a former paratrooper captured in 1945 . `` It 's sad thi

ngs haven't come to that yet . It would be a nice gesture , and it should come f

rom the victors . '' But an officer now serving in the German army , Capt. Joerg

 Bestehorn , said : `` German veterans have no place there because many of them 

were SS ( Nazi paramilitary ) people who didn't just serve the military but also

 served a regime. .. . We have to respect the fact that if ( the Allies ) want t

o celebrate and don't want us there , that 's fine . '' It is possible , however

 , to detect some vexation that Germany 's ostensible friends , particularly the

 British , appear to be reveling so robustly in bygone glory . `` There 's a fee

ling , '' Bertram said , `` that obviously a number of countries who are not doi

ng terribly well at the present time hanker after the past and try to celebrate 

it in order to compensate for the dismal present . '' Holger Schwendler , 23 , a

 student of history and politics at the University of Cologne , suggested that G

ermany 's exclusion `` is a sign that the European countries are still afraid of

 Germany or afraid again . '' No public-opinion poll has specifically examined G

erman attitudes on the D-Day commemoration , according to a spokesman for the go

vernment press office in Bonn . But a Forsa Institute survey published this week

 by the newspaper Die Woche provides some insights into latter-day feelings abou

t the war in general . For example , nearly two-thirds of those surveyed 64 perc

ent said they consider it a good thing that Germany lost the war ; a comparable 

percentage said they would not have wanted to live in Germany had Hitler won . A

lmost seven in 10 believe the destruction of Hitler 's Third Reich should be vie

wed as a liberation , while only 13 percent consider it a defeat . More than thr