Dover Strait coastal guns
Artillery batteries
The Dover Strait coastal guns were long-range coastal artillery batteries that were sited on both sides of the English Channel during the Second World War. The British built several gun positions along the coast of Kent, England while the Germans fortified the Pas-de-Calais in occupied France. The Strait of Dover was strategically important because it is the narrowest part of the English channel. Batteries on both sides attacked shipping as well as bombarding the coastal towns and military installations. The German fortifications would be incorporated into the Atlantic Wall which was built between 1942 and 1944.
German installations
After the Fall of France in June 1940, Adolf Hitler personally discussed the possibility of invasion with Großadmiral (Grand Admiral) Erich Raeder, the Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) on 21 May 1940. Almost a month later on 25 June he ordered Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, supreme command of the armed forces) to begin preparation and feasibility studies, which had to be completed by 2 July, for the invasion of Britain. In an OKW directive on 10 July, operational coastal batteries under the control of the Kriegsmarine would support the invasion fleet.
All preparations are to be made to provide strong frontal and flank artillery protection for the transportation and landing of troops in case of a possible crossing from the coastal strip Calais–Cape Gris Nez–Boulogne.
On 16 July Hitler issued Führer Directive 16 to have guns in place to support Operation Sea Lion:
Strong forces of coastal artillery must command and protect the forward coastal area.
The public source identifies “Dover Strait coastal guns” as artillery batteries. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dover, Strait and coastal.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2936513. Authority coordinates are 51.000, 1.450. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1944 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dover Strait coastal guns” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.