Channel Dash Association

• Guest 651

  • Registered: 12 Mar 2008
  • Posts: 5,673
  17 April 2010     22:4147772
  #1      
  I read today that there are plans by the Channel Dash Association to (presumably when the Miner is moved) to erect a memorial at Granville Gardens in time for the 60th Anniversary in 2012.
  
  They recently put up a smaller memorial in Ramsgate
  
  

  
  Been nice knowing you :)
• Guest 690

  • Registered: 10 Oct 2009
  • Posts: 4,150
  17 April 2010     22:4647775
  #2      
  Sorry Paul, 60th anniversary of what please mate?
  Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
• Guest 651

  • Registered: 12 Mar 2008
  • Posts: 5,673
  17 April 2010     23:2247781
  #3      
  The Channel Dash was a major naval engagement during World War II in which a German Kriegsmarine squadron consisting of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Prinz Eugen, supported by a number of smaller ships, ran a British blockade and successfully sailed from Brest in Brittany to their home bases in Germany via the English Channel.
  
  English losses
  1 destroyer heavily damaged
  42 aircraft destroyed
  40 dead and missing
  21 wounded
  
  German losses
  1 battlecruiser damaged
  1 battlecruiser lightly damaged
  2 torpedo boats lightly damaged
  17 aircraft destroyed
  13 dead
  2 wounded
  Been nice knowing you :)
• Guest 690

  • Registered: 10 Oct 2009
  • Posts: 4,150
  17 April 2010     23:2847782
  #4      
  Thanks Paul. Despite a life long interest in WW2, that`s the first time I`ve heard of that mate.
  Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
• Guest 644

  • Registered: 12 Mar 2008
  • Posts: 1,214
  18 April 2010     00:0047783
  #5      
  If I remember the British response was, pardon me, an absolute balls up.
  
  The Germans slipped out of Brest at night undetected as the radars on the RAF reconnaisance aircraft failed. Only about 40 bombers found the ships and all missed, the coastal batteries missed, destroyers that should have been waiting were stationed out of range in the North Sea. The German flotilla was ultimately engaged by just six Swordfish, which of course, had no chance. A VC or two were awarded that day to those brave pilots.
  
  Ultimately a major German flotilla successfully slipped past Dover with very little damage.
• Guest 690

  • Registered: 10 Oct 2009
  • Posts: 4,150
  18 April 2010     00:2047785
  #6      
  I`ve got most of that on a BBC documentary I taped back in the 80s or 90s. It stated how surprised the germans were that they wern`t detected, as they knew the risks involved.
  Tell them that I came, and no one answered.