Throughout the First World War, the many announcements of British and Commonwealth gallantry awards appeared in the various issues of The London Gazette. As part of our major monthly series covering the period of the Great War commemorations, we examine some of the actions involved and summarise all of the awards announced in March 1918.
The awards announced in The London Gazette during March 1918 included a good number relating to the events of the night of 14/15 February 1918, when the German Navy launched its last destroyer raid on the Dover Strait.
The raid was the result of increasing enemy frustration at the efforts of the Royal Navy’s Dover Patrol in blocking the entrance into the English Channel through the creation of the Dover Barrage. The latter was a series of defences which included minefields of varying depths and deep barrage nets laid across the Dover Strait from Folkestone to Cap Gris Nez. This, notes the auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb, included ‘a series of buoys which were used to assist the patrols to maintain their positions. About two and a half miles on either side of this line were stationed trawlers, paddlers and other small craft, to either burn flares or to use searchlights. T…
