JAMES GRASBY: In front of us there on the skyline is the

medieval castle of Dover, and it was said to be the key to

England.

At the start of the Second World War, Britain is ill-prepared to

fight.

Uncovered history shows just how close it was to being invaded by

the Germans.

How did Dover's Fan Bay Battery artillery defences and tunnels

help protect Britain from disaster and change the course

of history?

Have you ever imagined being a fly on the wall of history? Join

me for an inside view of the stories of people, places and

moments that made us.

I'm historian James Grasby. Lean in for a tale from time. Back

When.

Today we are journeying back to the tense days of World War II,

to the rediscovery and restoration of the Fan Bay

Battery, a crucial part of the coastal defences of Britain.

Along the way we will delve into the lives of the personnel who

served here, explore the extraordinary engineering of the

site, and understand why preserving this history is so

important.

This is the remarkable story of Dover's Fan Bay Battery.

So I'm heading along the seafront now. I mean, to my

right is rather a gracious, curving crescent of what looked

like Regency Seaside villas.

To the left is the harbour with an enormous ferry heading over

to, I guess, Calais with a shingle beach and a steely grey,

rather chilly-looking sea.

And I think that's my friend John Barker, who's going to give

me a tour of the Fan Bay Battery.

John!

JOHN BARKER: Good to meet you.

JAMES GRASBY: Hello, pleased to meet you.

Now look, in front of me, I can see a fascinating looking

monument which I think illuminates some dark days in

the history of Dover.

JOHN BARKER: It does. So this is the Lindemann Monument. It was

actually cut from one of the German cross-channel guns that

particularly harassed Dover during the war years.

JAMES GRASBY: There's a piece of painted metal which you say was

dismantled from one of the German long-range guns in France

that was firing on Dover.

JOHN BARKER: Yes. And on it you've got the number of shells

and all of the dates that were fired. On to Dover and St

Margaret's.

JAMES GRASBY: Different gun emplacements at Calais fired

around 2,200 shells in total at Dover during the Second World

War.

Scars on the townscape remain to this day. But let's step back to

1940 and set the scene.

In front of us there on the skyline is the medieval castle

of Dover, and it was said to be the key to England.

Dover is the nearest point to continental Europe in Great

Britain. The year is 1939. Hitler invades Czechoslovakia,

Poland, takes Norway.

There's the fall of Holland and Belgium, and then France.

And by June of 1940 German forces are 20 miles away.

They've set up an artillery emplacement, and they are firing

direct over the water, firing shells over the Channel and

pounding Dover.

JOHN BARKER: Yes.

After the fall of France, there was a very famous incident when,

if you look up at the castle, you might just be able to make

out a balcony up there, and it was said that Churchill was in

Dover, and he witnessed German ships freely moving through the

Channel.

And at that point in time, we didn't have the naval ships, we

didn't have the artillery to prevent that from happening.

So he writes this typically Churchillian memo to all the

Joint Chiefs Of Staff saying we must fight for the command of

the Dover Straits.

So he instructs the formation of technologically advanced, very

heavy artillery on the Dover Cliffs.

Some people in the military referred to them as Churchill's

pets.

JAMES GRASBY: British forces were facing the threat of the

most formidable European army since Napoleon's in the 1800s.

America at this time had not yet joined the war, and Britain was

under great pressure.

These were desperate times, and the people of Dover knew the war

was going badly, as they could see injured service personnel

being brought back on boats before the news of the fall of

France even hit the media.

Would it have been possible to see the German forces in France

from the clifftops here and see the smoke of Dunkirk from here?

JOHN BARKER: Absolutely.

JAMES GRASBY: So it would have been vivid.

JOHN BARKER: Yes. Even now you can actually stand on the cliffs

on a clear day and with binoculars read the Calais Town

Hall clock.

JAMES GRASBY: That is terrifying.

JOHN BARKER: Obviously much more worrying times then in the war.

And if you're serving on one of the batteries on the cliffs and

you saw a flash, that meant a shell had been fired at you.

And after that, you've got 70 to 90 seconds before it arrives.

JAMES GRASBY: In June 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill

declared that an invasion of Britain was highly likely.

Securing air and naval superiority was paramount, and

the Battle of Britain was fought.

Hundreds of planes clashed in the skies against the Royal Air

Force, and Dover was extensively hit.

JOHN BARKER: They would dive-bomb on the harbour to

attack ships. Take out barrage balloons as well.

JAMES GRASBY: So here in front of us, I've seen footage of

Stuka dive bombers attacking merchant vessels in this harbour

in front of us.

JOHN BARKER: Yes, yeah.

JAMES GRASBY: And it was here, vivid, and conceivably watched

from the rooms of these gracious Regency villas, in fear.

JOHN BARKER: Yeah, and there's some interesting stories of

journalists that were embedded within Dover, frantically moving

from guesthouse to guesthouse, pub to pub, sometimes sitting

and working in bombed-out buildings because the town was

such a ruin.

So would you like to come to Fan Bay and see the next chapter in

the story?

JAMES GRASBY: I'd love to, John, lead the way!

A short drive from the seafront are the White Cliffs of Dover.

The Fan Bay Battery is a group of huge guns that were installed

on the top of the cliffs, and they were part of the wider

defenses of Britain's coast.

The Royal Engineers began construction of the site in

October 1940, and despite extremely challenging weather

conditions, completed the many parts of the site needed for the

soldiers to live and operate the guns by mid-February 1941.

We've come right up onto the top of this chalk cliff, really.

I mean, there's South Foreland Lighthouse, I think, just

peering over the horizon. And rather a craggy, open landscape

of a wonderful chalk downland with the sea extending as far as

I can see.

I guess that's France.

JOHN BARKER: Yeah, that's France. And also, the tide is

quite low. Can you see those pieces of metal sticking up?

JAMES GRASBY: Yes, I can.

JOHN BARKER: So that's a shipwreck. That's the Preussen.

A five mast German ship.

JAMES GRASBY: Really? My goodness.

There were three, six-Inch guns, installed at the Fan Bay site on

the cliffs. It was one of many installations of big guns around

Dover.

A Six-Inch gun means the diameter of the inside of the

gun's bore, and each gun weighed six to seven tonnes and was 24

feet from breech to muzzle or from end to end.

Operating a six-Inch coastal gun typically required a crew of

about seven or ten personnel, including loaders, gunners, a

range finder or director operator and a commanding

officer.

JOHN BARKER: If you come down here, you can see where this was

the crew shelter.

JAMES GRASBY: The crew shelter, so we're now descending a cast,

shuttered concrete steps, down onto a lower level. So broadly

speaking, we're now looking over the top, the sight line that the

gunners probably would have got.

The guns fired shells, which I suppose are about the size of a

small fire extinguisher, pointed at one end, and were roughly 45

kilograms each.

The shells were packed with explosives and could fire

between 12 and 14 miles. So what were the crew doing when they

weren't working?

JOHN BARKER: So when they weren't on the gun they would

have been taking refuge in their crew shelter. You can just about

see the remains of the door there.

JAMES GRASBY: Right, so this was a subterranean, bomb-proof,

blast-proof shelter.

JOHN BARKER: Yeah, built into the emplacement. So there would

have been a bench in there, there would have been a little

fire in the back corner where they would have tried to keep

warm.

Imagine being up here, you know, this time of year during the

war.

JAMES GRASBY: The soldiers who operated the gun battery started

the war living in a huge network of deep tunnels.

They are located a short walk from the Fan Bay Six-Inch gun

battery. If you were one of the personnel, you would have taken

shelter inside these excavations.

One of the key volunteers at Fan Bay who can help give us a

clearer understanding of the lives of the soldiers in these

tunnels is Gordon.

GORDON WISE: We are now about to descend 125 steps into the deep

shelter itself.

We're about to head down three staircases with two landings.

All right, here we go then, all the way down.

JAMES GRASBY: It's very much got the atmosphere of descending

into a mine.

GORDON WISE: You've now done the two longest staircases you're

now coming up to the third one which will bring us to the point

23 meters inside the White Cliffs of Dover.

The troops when they moved down here in March of 1941 these

tunnels would have been completely open.

JAMES GRASBY: Gordon, I can't quite believe the space that you

brought me down into.

We've descended the flight of steps. There are now two tunnels

going off at right angles.

I mean, it's about seven, eight feet to the top with these

rusting I-beams. These colliery arches coming down, texture of

corrugated iron, very low light, concrete floor.

It's a oppressive sort of space isn't it?

GORDON WISE: It is indeed and the lighting that we've actually

got down here is actually about five to six times brighter than

what the troops would have had when they were down here in

1941.

JAMES GRASBY: So give me a sense of what it would have been like

for me coming down here in 1941.

GORDON WISE: What I want to do is point you to a painting. Now

this painting is done by a gentleman called Captain Anthony

Gross.

Gross is a war artist, he's a prolific war artist. And what

you can see, you have your colliery arches and your steel

sheeting in there, but also you can see beds.

The beds would have been all the way down both sides of the

tunnels and you can see on the end of this bed there's the

outline of the soldier's webbing equipment.

This is all his backpack, his kidney pouches, his army belt

and what have you, which indicates that this is living

accommodation.

This is not just down here for shelter.

We've got a soldier here standing probably, oh yeah, he

is standing on a stepladder, but he's changing the light bulb.

Probably the 160 watt light bulb had failed, so they've got to

get another one in.

Soldier sitting on the beds, writing home, doing what

soldiers do.

JAMES GRASBY: So Gordon, this is very tightly packed, isn't it? I

mean, the width of this space is about-

GORDON WISE: Nine feet.

JAMES GRASBY: Nine feet. So you've got beds opposed to one

another running the full length. What's that 40 feet?

GORDON WISE: And full length of all of the tunnels.

JAMES GRASBY: It must have been extremely cramped. Extremely

cramped.

GORDON WISE: And very smelly as well.

JAMES GRASBY: And extremely smelly. And I wouldn't enjoy

being in the top bunk, really. There's very little air up here.

It feels slightly as if you're in a submarine.

GORDON WISE: The analogy is absolutely excellent.

JAMES GRASBY: Despite the high-tech weaponry, the living

conditions for the soldiers were extremely difficult.

With scarce records of the soldiers serving here existing,

every small memento tells a story.

And you just stopped at what looks like a coat hook. I don't

believe it.

GORDON WISE: And it is exactly a coat hook. And it tells a lovely

story. Because what we do know is the tunnels were never ever

completed fully.

On the plans, in between each set of two double bunks should

have been a space for a coat rack and rifle rack. Those coat

racks and rifle racks was never fitted.

This soldier has obviously wanted his own coat hook. So

he's probably gone off to the officer's toilet, unscrewed it

off the wall, brought it back, and there we are, the soldier is

now happy he's got his own coat hook.

JAMES GRASBY: That's lovely. I was going for a time of Lawrence

Of Arabia's place, Clouds Hill, and this lovely expression of

our army life. He said, give me the luxuries and I can live

without the necessities.

And I guess it must have been a great luxury to have somewhere

to hang your dripping coat.

GORDON WISE: To hang your great coat yeah!

JAMES GRASBY: That must have been such a boon, mustn't it?

The soldiers not only spent their time painting, but also

amused themselves etching some toilet humour onto the walls of

the caves, most of which is unrepeatable.

GORDON WISE: On the back of these bricks, there are two

pieces of, shall we say, Second World War soldiers' toilet block

humour.

We won't necessarily go into it for fear of offending people,

but if you wish to have a look at them on your way through.

JAMES GRASBY: Oh come on Gordon, let's have a look! What does it

say?

GORDON WISE: When you come into these halls, use the paper, not

the walls. If no paper can be found, run your arse along the

ground.

Anyway!

JAMES GRASBY: Gordon this is unbroadcastable material!

But it does speak of the time, doesn't it? And in a revolting

way.

The sacrifice of the servicemen and women began to pay off as

many other coastal defences were constructed around Dover.

The huge guns provided a very credible deterrent and fewer

German ships began to enter the Channel, which disrupted their

logistics and the war effort.

Tell me more about the sort of personnel who would have been

serving here.

GORDON WISE: So down here, you would have had at least 136

Royal Artillery soldiers, officers, NCOs and other ranks.

JAMES GRASBY: So 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, surveying,

looking out to sea, looking out for enemy shipping, but most of

the time in a state of readiness, not actually firing

their guns.

GORDON WISE: And the thing is that it also brings in another

story because although they do do visual lookout, the main

source of spotting of moving targets for these gun sites is

Radar.

Radar was, in 1941, absolutely the most top secret thing you

could have.

JAMES GRASBY: Radar worked by sending out radio waves from an

antenna. A signal would bounce back to the Radar from a plane

or ship. And by measuring the returning signal, allied forces

could work out how far away ships were.

The radars were linked to the guns and would help them aim.

Now many leaders from around the world visited to view this

technology, including American leaders, Indian Maharajas, Saudi

Arabian sheikhs, and even the Burmese Prime Minister.

Whilst the soldiers were safe from enemy fire in the tunnels,

other dangers awaited them inside.

GORDON WISE: We know there was ill health down here. In fact,

we've got the battery commander's records out, a

gentleman called Major Baker Carr.

He was the one that wrote the letter saying, I don't like my

troops living down here, it's bad for their morale. And the

word morale has been crossed out, the word health written in.

JAMES GRASBY: Baker Carr's records were classified by the

army and no-one knows exactly what happened to him.

GORDON WISE: And we think that what happened was that he was

taken out very ill with respiratory problems. And he was

treated at the chest hospital at Maidstone.

JAMES GRASBY: The incident was a turning point and the tunnels'

use was changed.

GORDON WISE: At that point, the tunnels are then evacuated. That

is when the remedial work is then done. But the soldiers do

not come down here to live anymore.

By this time, they are now in very nice, warm Nissen huts on

the surface, under camouflage.

And they're probably quite happy.

Right lads we're going to move you back down under the tunnels

no you're not!

JAMES GRASBY: What a wonderful tour but that was fantastic,

memorable.

GORDON WISE: Thank you very much!

JAMES GRASBY: So grateful to you.

And with that it was time to return to the surface and visit

the final significant part of the Fan Bay gun battery site

John we've left the sea by 300 meters inland or something

around this chalky upland.

And there's an area of coarse grass that you brought me to,

which I have to say looks pretty unpromising.

JOHN BARKER: Well, this is actually one of the most

exciting parts of the site.

So this is the battery plotting room and command post. So this

is the heart of the operation that's here. And all of this

site, it's all covered over. Early in the 1960s, after the

site is decommissioned, it's completely buried.

JAMES GRASBY: Returning to the present, much of the history was

in danger of being lost forever. The site was in fact a treasure

trove of wartime technology and heritage, and was excavated by

John and his team a few years ago.

But you're telling me under our feet is an underground plotting

room?

JOHN BARKER: Yeah, that's right.

JAMES GRASBY: Wow. We're going to have a look?

JOHN BARKER: So we're going to go in the emergency entrance,

and then we'll go down and have a look.

JAMES GRASBY: After descending into the plotting room, it is

clear that it is a Second World War heritage site that is

similar to the discoveries in Bletchley Park.

It is the only surviving plotting room, largely untouched

since the Second World War, and a time capsule.

Wow. That is astonishing.

JOHN BARKER: Imagine how exciting it was the first time

that we came in here.

We'd excavated the deep shelter and we'd been wondering for some

years whether this structure still remained because we knew

that it was very, very important.

And we had this dig where all of a sudden we find the hatch cover

and it's intact. So it's this real sort of Tutankhamun moment.

JAMES GRASBY: That is staggering. That is staggering.

I can't believe what I'm looking at, John.

I mean, the space that we've walked into, it has the sort of

air of those who know the South Bank and that sort of brutalist

post-war architecture. It's all of shuttered concrete.

There's no sense of giving any consideration to how it looked.

It's just entirely practical. It's brutal, isn't it? And

pretty claustrophobic.

Here you get a little bit of paint, I guess, that sort of

wartime green with a little strip of colour here.

Now we go back to 1941. The officer responsible for the

whole of the site was named Captain Lionel Strange.

He was a remarkable man whose ascent through the ranks was

rapid. He was only 23 years old when commanding the site. And

photos of him meeting Winston Churchill are displayed in the

Fan Bay Tunnels.

So Captain Strange-

JOHN BARKER: Was the battery commander

JAMES GRASBY: Battery commander.

And from this room he would have been commanding 150 plus people.

JOHN BARKER: That's right. So from here, Captain Strange would

have been commanding the whole of the Fan Bay Battery.

JAMES GRASBY: Now, come on, John. What is going on in this

room? Plotting room. This is the nerve center.

JOHN BARKER: So this is the most important place. This room would

have been filled full of equipment.

This is using mechanical computers, so they're using

something called an admultifier control table. Would have been

located over here. Can you see what the sign says next?

JAMES GRASBY: Isn't that wonderful and very evocative?

Unauthorized persons are forbidden to interfere with

equipment by order.

The control table, through a system of mechanical computers,

was connected through cables to the gun battery.

Moving the controls and dials on the control table would directly

give coordinates and move the settings on the Six-Inch guns.

The Fan Bay Battery acted as a significant deterrent to the

invasion of Britain, along with the other coastal artillery and

defences in the area, and helped prevent invasion.

The guns were fired many times and helped maintain control of

the Channel, just as Churchill envisioned.

What is this?

JOHN BARKER: So this very large metal box here. That is full of

filters.

It has the ability to shut off air to the surface. It's got the

ability to recycle air, but more importantly, it's got the

ability to clean air if there was a gas attack.

JAMES GRASBY: Wow. What a prospect to be sealed in in here

and without air.

With that, it was time to return to the surface.

That was the most fabulous tour you've given me. It's really

intoxicating and it meets sort of all my cravings for

archaeology and investigation and history and real people.

It's all here, isn't it?

JOHN BARKER: And there's still more to find, so you'll have to

come back.

JAMES GRASBY: I would love to.

The discovery and restoration of Fan Bay Battery is a reminder of

the hidden stories that lie beneath our feet, waiting to be

uncovered and shared.

It's been an incredible journey from wartime necessity to

rediscovered treasure.

Thank you for listening to Back When. If you enjoyed this

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others who might find it interesting. Stay tuned for more

stories that bring history to life.