IMPORTANT FORTHCOMING BOOKS
The Dover Patrol—1915, 1916 & 1917
By Admiral SIR REGINALD BACON,
K.C.B., K.C.V.O., D.S.O
With over one hundred illustrations, maps and plans.
2 handsome volumes, 34s. net.
The history of the Dover Patrol is one of the outstanding romances of the war, and Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon’s forthcoming book sheds new light on the varied operations of the naval forces which he commanded for nearly three years.
The occupation and fortification of the Belgian coast by the enemy, changed dramatically the strategical situation, throwing upon the Dover Patrol heavier responsibilities than Nelson, or any admiral who commanded these narrow waters in previous wars, had had to bear. The enemy was in a position to threaten the left flank of the Allied armies besides menacing the enormous volume of sea traffic passing through the straits. The Dover Patrol consequently had to deny the use of these waters to the Germans, established on the Belgian Coast, while at the same time, rendering them safe for British shipping, and above all that, it had to protect the left flank of the Allied armies and safeguard the stream of storeships and transports passing across the Channel within seventy miles of the fortified bases of the enemy.
Sir Reginald Bacon in this important book, which is very fully illustrated with charts and photographs, gives a detailed account of the work of the Dover Patrol, with its ships manned, not only by the Navy, but drawing their personnel from all classes and composed of monitors, destroyers, submarines, drifters, trawlers, mine sweepers, motor boats and motor launches. He describes the ceaseless watch and ward, maintained for so long off the Belgian coast which was patrolled daily within sight of Ostend and Zeebrugge; a feat unparalleled in the war for hardihood and daring in view of the danger from mines and submarines. The methods whereby this work was accomplished and the precautions taken against loss form an interesting portion of the narrative. Admiral Bacon also gives some account of the landing of heavy guns at Dunkirk—great engineering achievements—and of the many bombardments carried out on the enemy’s positions from the sea.
The book will be regarded as the crowning vindication of the naval aptitudes of the British people, for the Dover Patrol was in the main an improvised force created to meet a great national peril.
If the Germans had dominated the Straits of Dover in the early months of the war, who could then have prophesied that the Allies would have triumphed?