Channel Dash Remembered – Seventy years on the brave efforts of the Channel Dash heroes with a granite memorial erected in the Marine Parade Gardens in Dover.   It  commemorates the brave but forlorn attempt to stop German ships breaking through into the North Sea in 1942.   The First Sea Lord attended and the Type 23 Frigate, KENT paid a three day visit to the ship’s affiliated port, to co-incide with this anniversary.

The Channel Dash (Operation Fuller) saw aviators from the Fleet Air Arm, lead by Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde, set out against the odds in February 1942 to prevent the breakthrough of German Battle Cruisers SCHARNHORST and GNEISENAU, supported by the Heavy Cruiser PRINZ EUGEN pass from Brest to the North Sea.      The six SWORDFISH of 825 Naval Air Squadron lead by Lieutenant Commander paid a fearful price for their efforts to stop that breakthrough - the three German warships were shielded by nearly 300 fighters and bombers, while the British response was poorly co-ordinated – much of the fighter cover promised failed to materialise.   Despite that lack of cover, the attack went ahead, Lieutenant Commander being a veteran of the attack on the German Battleship BISMARK nine months earlier.   Although some torpedoes were got away, none hit the ships, and all the SWORDFISH were downed with only five of the eighteen aircrew rescued, their leader was not sadly one of them.   Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde received a posthumous Victoria Cross.

A flypast from a vintage SWORDFISH Torpedo Bomber of the RN Historic Flight was a poignant reminder of events seven decades before.   The last operation Type 42 Destroyer EDINBURGH, known as the “Fortress of the Sea” called at Dover (itself a Fortress) when outward bound on a final deployment before being withdrawn.