America's band of roughnecks fueled Allied D-Day mission

By DON C. BRUNELL

Contributor

When thinking of England’s fabled Sherwood Forest, the medieval images of Robin Hood and his band of archers and swordsmen hiding in the woods giving the Sheriff of Nottingham a hard time comes to mind.

Who would envision a crew of young American oil workers concealed among the giant oaks drilling oil wells? However, the crude production from those wells was essential in helping fuel the D-Day invasion launched from English shores in 1944.

Until Guy Woodward and Grace Steele Woodward published “The Secret of Sherwood Forest — Oil production in England during World...