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Dover cliff bunker that guided coastal guns opens to visitors
A clandestine command bunker inside Dover’s white cliffs is opening to the public for the first time, revealing a little-known part of Britain’s second world war defences. The Fan Bay plotting room housed an early computer-assisted system that directed artillery against German ships in the Channel, helping defend the strategically important strait.
Winston Churchill ordered the coastal guns after seeing enemy ships pass through the strait unchallenged; they were ready within 100 days, and the bunker followed 64 days later. Its 1.8-metre electromechanical fire direction table calculated where moving ships would be when shells arrived and sent instructions to gun crews, with up to 10 people working in the room. The computer was destroyed in 1957, and the bunker was classified until 1981; it was rediscovered in 2017 and is now accessible on National Trust guided tours.
In short
- Dover bunker reveals a secret wartime targeting system.
- Churchill’s guns were ready within 100 days.
- The 1.8-metre computer directed fire at moving ships.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “Second world war ‘brain’ bunker in cliffs of Dover opens to public”.