In late July 1914, with war looming, 12 s arrived at
Dover to join the near obsolete destroyers already at anchor in the harbour, most of them built in the late 19th century. These destroyers formed the nucleus of the fledgling Dover Patrol, which, from its early beginnings as a modest and poorly equipped command, became one of the most important Royal Navy commands of the First World War. The Dover Patrol was established as an independent command on 12 October 1914 after the German capture of Antwerp, Zeebrugge and the impending fall of Ostend. German possession of Belgian Channel ports and rising activity of U-boats led the
Admiralty to consider the Dover Straits vital enough to be distinct from the
Admiral of Patrols. The first actions of the Dover Patrol included bombarding German coastal positions during the
Battle of the Yser and defeating a German Navy detachment in the
Battle off Texel. The Dover Patrol assembled
cruisers,
monitors, destroyers,
naval trawlers and
drifters,
paddle minesweepers, armed
yachts,
Motor Launches and
Coastal Motor Boats,
submarines,
seaplanes, aeroplanes and airships. With these resources it performed several duties simultaneously in the Southern
North Sea and the
Dover Straits, carrying out anti-submarine patrols; escorting merchantmen, hospital and troop ships; laying sea-mines and even constructing mine barrages; sweeping up German mines; bombarding German military positions on the Belgian coast and sinking
U-boats. The Dover patrol was often attacked and took many casualties as in the
action of 15 February 1918. During the war, the Dover Patrol was maintained by the
Dover Engineering Works, an Iron Foundry which employed and housed hundreds of workers in Dover Town and was managed by Vivian Elkington, nephew of
Walter Emden. The company still exists, operating from a reduced premises at Holmestone Road, under the name of Gatic. In March 1919 the Dover Patrol was renamed Dover Patrol Force. ==Commemoration==