He was Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey KCB KCE who served in WW I and was recalled from retirement at the outbreak of war in 1939. His statue stands overlooking the cliffs at Dover Castle where he planned and executed both Operation Dynamo (the Dunkirk evacuation) and Operation Overlord (the D Day invasions) from the operation rooms deep below in the cliff tunnels.
Underneath this verse appears
A great man, highly intelligent and self effacing. One of our little known commanders. A separate display explains his part in it all
And is followed by this verse of Masefield's
Today's problems are put into perspective. We could use his skills now.
5 comments:
Human intelligence, rather than Artifical Intelligence. We should use the former more often.
Thanks for calling by Helen, although you did not leave an address
It's true we rescued our army at Dunkirk and Ramsay deserves our unstinted praise for that. But note the rhetoric in the longer piece: "The evacuation... was one of the most successful in history."
True, but evacuation is a euphemism for retreat. Churchill's summary in the HoC was rather more sombre:
This was "a colossal military disaster...the whole root and core and brain of the British Army had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured."
Also: “We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations.”
I'm well aware about the cliff tunnels in Dover; VR spent much of the war in them, sheltering from bombs and (much more terrifying because they came with no warning) shells launched from big guns in Calais. But to say: "where he (Ramsay) planned and executed... Operation Overlord" without mention of any other nation's involvement is to distort by omission. The longer piece is more circumspect: "his preparations ensured that the invasion fleet, etc, etc."
Trump has done some distortions of his own and the result is, as distraction from our own hideous mishandling of The Plague, we look across the Atlantic and jeer at the USA. Deservedly, I admit it myself. But I hope I never forget the war cemeteries in Normandy. Nor am I keen to imagine the Dunkirk evacuation initially in the hands of a columnist from The Daily Telegraph. I worry he might have chosen the 1940s equivalent of Chris Grayling to do the job.
RR
Yes, I am well aware that the Dunkirk retreat was an absolute disaster, but the evacuation was a minor triumph, snatching most of the Expeditionary Force away from the advancing Germans.
The D Day invasions, too, would not have happened without the overwhelming support of the USA's men and materiel.
That does not demean Ramsey's superb organisational skills, especially as we were "on our own" for the Dunkirk episode.
I was in Dover last year, having a guided tour of its military history, we unfortunately missed seeing the statue
I was also planning to visit his grave in France and show my respects, for bringing the flower of our youth home
Sadly he was killed in an air crash by an over confident idiot, I recently read an Autobiography of his life, I had not realised that his guiding hand was behind the D Day invasions as well
it was nice too look up from the harbour and see his control room though
glad to hear you are on the mend, I often delve into your corner, although some years younger I am feeling my age, but still riding my little Moto Guzzi that I have owned for 20 years now, perhaps later this year all things being equal I will return to visit my friends in Mandello, along with my younger brother on his little guzzi
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