Dover Patrol Monument

The patrol covered the southern part of the North Sea and the eastern portion of the English Channel, including the Straits of Dover.

Its duties included escorting merchant ships, hospital ships and troop transports; anti-submarine patrols; sweeping for German mines, and laying British minefields and anti-submarine nets; and bombarding German land forces on the coast of Belgium and northern France.

It comprises a 75 feet (23 m) high obelisk of square section constructed from large granite blocks, with a pyramidal top.

The north-western unframed side is inscribed "THIS MONUMENT / TO THE / DOVER PATROL / WAS ERECTED IN THE YEARS 1920 & 1921 BY / PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION TOGETHER WITH THOSE / AT CAP BLANC NEZ, FRANCE / AND NEW YORK HARBOUR, / AMERICA.

The south-eastern side of the monument is inscribed "TO THE GLORY OF GOD / AND IN EVERLASTING / REMEMBRANCE OF / THE DOVER PATROL / 1914 - 1919 / THEY DIED THAT WE MIGHT LIVE / MAY WE BE WORTHY OF THEIR SACRIFICE / TO THE MEMORY OF THE OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE ROYAL NAVY AND MERCHANT NAVY / WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN SHIPS SAILING UPON THE WATERS OF THE DOVER STRAIT / 1939 - 1946".

A Book of Remembrance listing nearly the names of 2,000 war dead from the Dover Patrol is held at St Margaret's Church, near the monument.

Inscriptions on the New York memorial read: "THIS MONUMENT / TO THE DOVER PATROL / ERECTED AS A TRIBUTE TO THE / COMRADSHIP AND SERVICE OF THE / AMERICAN NAVAL FORCES / IN EUROPE / DURING THE WORLD WAR.

/ MONUMENTS OF IDENTICAL DESIGN AT / DOVER ENGLAND - CAP BLANC NEZ FRANCE - NEW YORK, NY.

/ ERECTED FROM FUNDS PROVIDED BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION / IN GREAT BRITAIN" and then: "TO THE GLORY OF GOD / AND IN EVERLASTING / REMEMBRANCE OF / THE DOVER PATROL / 1914-1919 / THEY DIED THAT WE MIGHT LIVE / MAY WE BE / WORTHY OF THEIR SACRIFICE" and the date "1931".