Dover Patrol

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The Dover Patrol was a Royal Navy command during the First World War, based at Dover and Dunkirk. Its main job was to stop German ships, especially submarines, from entering the English Channel and heading to the Atlantic. If German ships passed through the Dover Straits, they would have to take the much longer route around Scotland via the Northern Patrol. The force is best known for the Zeebrugge Raid on 22 April 1918. In March 1919 it was renamed the Dover Patrol Force.

The patrol began to take shape in July 1914 when 12 Tribal-class destroyers joined older ships in Dover harbor. It was made an independent command on 12 October 1914 after Germany captured Antwerp, Zeebrugge and Ostend, making the protection of the Channel an urgent task.

The Dover Patrol used a wide mix of ships and aircraft, including cruisers, monitors, destroyers, trawlers, drifters, minesweepers, armed yachts, motor launches, coastal motor boats, submarines, seaplanes and airships. Its duties covered anti-submarine patrols, escorting merchant ships and hospital or troop transports, laying and sweeping mines, bombarding German positions on the Belgian coast, and sinking U-boats.

The force often faced attacks and suffered casualties, such as in the action of 15 February 1918. It was supported by local industry, notably the Dover Engineering Works run by Vivian Elkington. In March 1919 the Dover Patrol was renamed the Dover Patrol Force. After the war, funds were raised for a memorial; a monument was unveiled at Leathercote Point near St Margaret’s Bay, with similar memorials at Cap Blanc Nez in France and at John Paul Jones Park in New York. Reginald Bacon is noted as a notable commander of the force.