With my school we went on a day excursion to Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, England and Dover Castle in Dover, England. The day started off early at 8:00 AM and with me sprinting to catch the bus. I had to run because I spent at least five minutes frantically looking through everything I brought from the states to find something I hadn't needed to use yet: my sunglasses. It was a miracle..sun in London! Our first stop was at Canterbury Cathedral. The Cathedral's history goes back to 597AD when Augustine, a monk, sent by Pope Gregory the Great as a missionary, established his seat in Canterbury. The Cathedral is most known for the even in 1170 when Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in the Cathedral.
Outside of Canterbury Cathedral
Beautiful stain glass windows
Cloister
The second stop of the day was Dover Castle where I learned a lot and saw beautiful views. Located in front of Dover Castle there are three levels of
underground tunnels. The top level,
located 15 meters below the ground, was a hospital created during WWII. The second level were the wartime tunnels,
located 30 meters below the ground.
These were originally created during the Napoleon era and during WWII
were reopened and renovated to be used as a safe place people could hide during
bombing strikes. The third level of
tunnels was the lowest located at 45 meters below the ground and was called the
dumpy level. This level was where people
of the British military would meet and make important war decisions. While on a tour, I was able to walk through
the hospital tunnel and the wartime tunnel, and it was unlike anything I had
experienced before. A private world was created
under the ground to protect the people of Dover from the war, specifically the
bombings. I felt like a sewer rat walking
in the tunnels because there was no sunlight and it was very damp and moist. It
is hard to believe people were in the tunnels for extended periods of
time. I wonder if I would have gone
crazy, or was it easy because it was a life or death decision, stay or risk
being killed by a bomb. To make the
uneasy feeling of being trapped in the tunnels worse, if the land above was
being bombed, the lights would often flicker or go out completely and the tunnels
would start shaking. As I sat in the
same room people escaped to for safety during a bombing strike and saw the equipment
used in surgery to save soldiers lives, it hit me how real these tunnels were. Being in the physical rooms and tunnels and
experiencing a simulation of what a bombing strike would have been like allowed
me learn what it was like in the city of Dover during WWII more than any museum
or picture ever could.
The most interesting fact I learned
in Dover was about the Battle of Dunkirk, which took place in May of 1940 in
Dunkirk, France. Britain knew the Allied
forces had lost the battle, and now it was a matter of how many soldiers could
be evacuated before their resistance was crushed. This battle resulted in Operation Dynamo,
which was prepared in the city of Dover by Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay and was
the evacuation of around 350,000 British, French and Belgian troops from
Dunkirk. If this evacuation had not been
a success, the Allies may not have been able to continue the war. This battle
was very significant to the city of Dover because with the German victory they
had now successfully taken France, and Britain feared it was next. Dover is the closest city to France, so Dover
believed it would be the Germans first attack.
It was then that the wartime tunnels were reopened as bomb shelters.
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