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Defence of Britain – Kent in Two World Wars

Tour Includes

4 nights hotel with English breakfast
4 evening meals
1 lunch
Specialist Battlefield Guide
Convenient regional joining points

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Local departure by coach or Door-to-Door service, then to our hotel in Kent for a four-night stay.

Includes Dinner

Today we look at the role Kent had in the Great War, which one contemporary book described as ‘the Dark Days’. We begin in Folkestone, at the heart of the wartime role of the county, discussing Shornecliffe Camp and visiting the Military Cemetery here with over 500 burials.

We then go down to Folkestone Harbour Station, a main route to and from the trenches on the Western Front and now a memorial space to the thousands of soldiers who passed through here. We also see the ‘Road of Remembrance’, a route to the harbour used in WW1 with a memorial built after the war to commemorate those who passed through Folkestone and never returned. After lunch in Hythe, we look at Dover in the Great War, discussing the role of the Dover Patrol at Dover Harbour, visit the Memorial to the Zeebrugge Raid in the town as well as the plaque to the first bomb dropped on Britain in WW1, and then we visit the large British Cemetery with graves from the Zeebrugge Raid in 1918.

On the cliffs above the English Channel, we see the memorial to the Royal Flying Corps, and then return via Ashford where we see on the of the last remaining First World War tanks used as a town war memorial.

Includes Breakfast

Includes Dinner

Folkestone Zeebrugge Graves and Memorial Folkestone Harbour

Today we follow the story of ‘The Few’ – men from many nations who flew in the skies above Sothern England in the summer of 1940. We start at the Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel le Ferne (entrance included) and visit the ‘Scramble Experience’, and then go to Hawkinge, an import airfield in 1940, and see the superb Battle of Britain Museum (with included lunch). In the afternoon we travel up to ‘Biggin on the Bump’ – Biggin Hill. Many famous pilots flew from here in 1940, including Douglas Bader.

We see the site of the airfield and visit the Biggin Hill Memorial Museum (entrance included). We then the day at the Runnymede Memorial, close to London, where the missing of the Battle of Britain are commemorated, including many shot down in combat over Kent.

Includes Breakfast

Includes Lunch

Includes Dinner

Biggin Hill Memorial Museum Battle of Britain Memorial Runnymede Memorial Hawkinge Memorial

We start today at Chatham, one of the main home ports of the Royal Navy in both World Wars. Here we visit the Chatham Memorial to the Missing, which commemorates over 18,000 sailors who died in WW1 and WW2 and were lost at sea.

Many famous battles are represented here, and among the names is talented war artist Eric Ravilious, lost in action in 1942. We then visit the Royal Engineers Museum (entrance included) in Chatham and look at the role of the Royal Engineers on the Home Front and on D-Day. After lunch, we travel to the north Kent coast to Reculver, where some of the bouncing bomb trials took place before they were used in the Dambusters Raid. We end the tour by spending the rest of the day at Dover Castle, now an English Heritage site (entrance included). Here we have plenty of time to explore the castle and its wartime defences, the museum, the wartime tunnels and look at where Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay planned Operation Dynamo in 1940, and then discuss his role in Operation Neptune for D-Day in 1944.

Includes Breakfast

Includes Dinner