Dover Patrol Obelisk - Escalles, France
N 50° 55.493 E 001° 42.597
31U E 409333 N 5642263
An obelisk situated on the French coast, overlooking the Dover Strait and English Channel.
Waymark Code: WMDHDT
Location: Hauts-de-France, France
Date Posted: 01/17/2012
Views: 25
The original obelisk was built in 1922 as World War I
memorial and damaged during World War II and was rebuilt in 1962.
"A walker on the cliffs of Cap Blanc-Nez cannot help
but notice the obelisk erected in 1922 to honour 'the glorious cooperation and
frank comradeship of the French and British Navies during the Great War'. As
with its counterpart on the English side of the Channel, at Leatercote Point
near St Margaret's Bay, the memorial is dedicated to the Royal Navy command
which defended the Strait of Dover during the First World War.
From the outset of the war, in 1914, German submarines turned the Strait of
Dover into a veritable battlefield. The U-boats passed through the Strait to
carry out attacks on the military and merchant navies of the Allies as they
sailed across the Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. British forces on the
Continent relied on these shipping routes to carry supplies and reinforcements
from the faraway Dominions of the Empire to the French ports of Boulogne, Calais
and Dunkirk.
Comprised of a mixture of ships, from armed yachts to destroyers, and supported
by air and submarine forces, the Dover Patrol was entrusted with keeping the
Strait of Dover and the North Sea navigable. Its duties entailed escorting
merchant, hospital and troop ships, clearing the sea of German submarine mines
and maintaining a barrage of mines between the coasts of England and France. In
what was probably its finest hour, the Patrol carried out a raid on 23 April
1918 to block the ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend which were harbouring the German
submarines. Despite its limited success, the raid greatly contributed to the
fame of the Patrol.
With bases in Dover and Dunkirk, the Patrol received precious help from the
French Navy in its fight against the German U-boats and its mine-sweeping
operations, and it is for this reason that complementary monuments were erected
on Leatercote Point and on Cap Blanc-Nez. A third obelisk was later erected at
the entrance to the port of New York in honour of the Patrol's combined actions
with the American Navy in the Atlantic Ocean."
Source
Remembrance Trails website.