Dover : Britain’s Front Line

Why does Dover deserve the George Cross Medal for civilian gallantry?

 

Ignoring a proud history going back to the Bronze Age, the Roman period and its role as a Saxon Fort defending against invasion, the twelfth century siege of Dover Castle, the associations with the Knights Templar, its role as one of the original Cinque Ports, it suffering the first aerial bombing in the First World War and the nervous sleepless nights listening to the constant fire from the trenches, what has Dover done to deserve a medal?

 

What about World War Two?

On September 3rd 1939 Great Britain declared war on Nazi-controlled Germany in response to their invasion of Poland. Although no action was taken to defend Poland, the British Expeditionary Force was sent to help defend France.  There they waited until May of 1940 when German forces attacking through the Ardennes forest cut them off, leaving only one escape route.  Over the space of less than a week 338,000 British and French troops were plucked from the beaches of Dunkirk in a staggering rescue mission co-ordinated from tunnels beneath Dover Castle.  Over 220,000 of the rescued troops were landed in Dover and passed through Marine Station, now the cruise terminal, on their way to various military camps or back to France. The people of Dover acted as voluntary ambulance personnel transporting the wounded to hospitals at Buckland and the Western Heights.

 

Not long after the fall of France land based guns in France began to shell Dover.  Accompanied by aerial bombing and attacks by fighter aircraft, this assault was to be almost continuous for the rest of the war.  The people of Dover had to get used to living in the front line of the war against Nazism.  To quote from the sermon delivered by the Reverend A S Cooper, shortly after the guns were silenced,

“We all felt we must see this thing through. Somehow it was not you or me personally. There was Dover – the spirit of Dover to be taken into consideration. And not Dover alone, for somehow what happened here was something that mattered to England as a whole.”

In 1944 the news agency Reuters estimated that the German guns at Cape Gris Nez were firing between 40 and 50 rounds a day at the Dover coast.

 

The years between 1940 and 1944 saw the people of Dover living and working under a virtual siege. Two brothers standing at their doorway chatting with the local air raid warden would find themselves blasted to the back of their house by an exploding shell.  Those working along the seafront, taking care of the forces personnel stationed in the town, would have to make their way to work hopping from doorway to doorway to avoid the Messerschmitts strafing the town.  Too many died while waiting for trains or buses.  Using tunnels in and through the cliffs for shelter or a safer route to work or school became habitual and life went on.  Dover continued on with its daily rhythm in as normal a way as possible while living under ‘Hellfire’.

 

As June 1944 drew closer a fresh burst of activity made the town even more of a target.  A top secret operation, codenamed ‘Fortitude South’, saw the installation of fake landing craft in the harbour and a complete fuel pumping system being built along miles of the seafront, consisting of little more than spit, sawdust and hope.  Phoney radio transmissions and the presence of the American General Patton added to the efforts to convince the Germans that a totally fictitious army group was massing around Dover, ready to invade France.  On 6 June 1944 operation ‘Overlord’ was launched against the beaches of Normandy while Dover’s sacrifice saw vital Nazi tank groups stalled outside Calais waiting for an army the had never existed.

 

By 25 August Paris had been liberated and the French government was making plans to return to its capital. Meanwhile the shells were still falling on Dover.  Not until the end of September did the last shell fall, destroying Hubbard’s umbrella shop at the bottom of Castle Street.  Official estimates made at the time estimated that 99 percent of the buildings in the town had been damaged by shelling and bombing while over 200 civilians had lost their lives to those same weapons.  Dover survived the war with its infrastructure in ruins but its spirit intact.

 

When the Canadian forces advancing along the French North coast finally took the guns at Cape Gris Nez the Lord Mayor of London sent Dover’s Mayor a telegram of congratulations. In this telegram he said,

“The City of London sends heartfelt congratulations to your citizens on the cessation of devastating and unceasing attacks.  The world now realises all that your people and sister coast towns have suffered over the years and the epic courage of the people.”

For over three thousand years Dover has stood as the front line of this Great Britain.  Who can honestly say that it does not deserve the recognition it has earned with its strength and courage through wars, disasters and all the trials and tribulations of the long history of this country?  Far from being ‘too late to consider’, it is far too long in coming.

 

Cllr Chris Precious

Chairman

The George Cross for Dover Campaign

 

Now it is time for Dover to receive the George Cross for the people of Dover past and present and to turn St. James Church Ruin into a garden of Remembrance.