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Articles
Shelling in World War II - the Last Day
"THE
UNLIKELY DEATH OF PATIENCE RANSLEY" by John Vaughan
The 26th of September 1944 was a day that
was to be remembered by the residents of Dover, for it was on
this day that their long ordeal at the hands of the German naval
gunners in the batteries along the coast of France was to
finally come to an end. Huge air raids had saturated the Nazi
guns in the previous weeks, the British guns (the 14" 'Winnie'
and 'Pooh' manned by the Royal Marines at St. Margaret's, and
the 15" 'Jane' and 'Clem' manned by the Royal Artillery at Wanstone Farm) had kept up a steady counter-battery barrage in
an attempt to suppress the German fire, and now Canadian troops
were advancing to attack and silence the heavily fortified
positions.
But the enemy were not yet defeated.
During the course of that terrible last day over 50 shells
landed in the Dover area as the desperate gunners on the
opposing shore, facing an uncertain future at the hands of the
Canadian soldiers, followed orders and attempted to use up their
remaining stocks of ammunition against innocent civilians.
Several deaths resulted in the town from this indiscriminate
firing - houses collapsed into the streets pinning their
unfortunate occupants in the rubble, a soldier died in a
bungalow at Broadlees Road, a sailor died in Snargate Street
when a pub was hit, an airman died in Frith Road, civilians died
in their homes or out in the open. But surely the most unlikely
and therefore most tragic death was that of 63 year old Patience
Ransley… unlikely because she was sheltering deep underground,
protected inside a tunnel lined with reinforced concrete and
beneath 38 feet of chalk. This was the 900 foot long 'Barwick's
Cave' shelter that ran from Snargate Street to Durham Hill.
There were many such deep shelters in Dover during the war and
on this day they were all busy as the local populace sought
cover from the ruthless bombardment above. They had every reason
to feel safe and 'normal' life continued underground with
conversations, playing cards, reading, knitting or just
contemplative silence while the sound of distant explosions
marked the arrival of yet another shell and the end of yet
another property. But it was now that the bizarre,
million-to-one incident occurred.
A one ton, 16" shell fired from Lindemann Battery, situated
below the Noires Mottes escarpment near Sangatte, completed its
curve high above the town and whistled down from the sky at a
speed of 1500 feet per second and an angle of 35 degrees. It
penetrated a grave in the old cemetery above the shelter and
bored its way down through a further 24 feet of solid chalk
before exploding a mere 7 feet above the thick reinforced
concrete roof of the tunnel. The blast chamber formed by the
explosion ruptured the roof over a length of 12 feet and poor
Patience, sitting quietly in this spot, was killed instantly.
A few hours later the gun batteries had all been silenced as
nearly 30,000 Germans surrendered in the Pas de Calais area to
the advancing Allies, and at last Dover was free from the almost
daily shelling that had devastated the town over the past years.
In 1954 a section of painted armour plating from one of the
turrets of Lindemann Battery was erected on the sea front at
Dover - visitors and residents alike pass by daily with scarcely
a glance or a thought about how Dover suffered during those dark
days.
This article first appeared with
John Vaughan's Dover
Underground website
Reproduced with permission and thanks
Five people are
recorded as killed on this last day
(1944)
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