These were: first, the traffic in the Channel or the destroyers watching the Straits (the most important military objective); second, the merchant ships anchored in the Downs; third, the British monitors anchored off Dunkirk; fourth, the French ports, Dunkirk, Boulogne and Calais, and the British port of Dover; and fifth, the British undefended towns of Ramsgate, Margate, Lowestoft, etc., which German mentality did not hesitate to attack.
A glance at Chart F [Transcriber's note: Not preserved in book.] will show how widely separated are these objectives and how impossible it was for the small Dover force to defend them all simultaneously, especially during the hours of darkness.

Any such attempt would have led to a dispersion of force which would have been criminal.

The distance from Dunkirk along the French coast to Calais, thence to Dover and along the English coast to the North Foreland is 60 miles.

The distance at which an enemy destroyer can be seen at night is about a quarter of a mile, and the enemy could select any point of the 60 miles for attack, or could vary the scene of operations by bombarding Lowestoft or towns in the vicinity, which were only 80 miles from Zeebrugge and equally vulnerable to attack, since the enemy's destroyers could leave their base before dark, carry out their hurried bombardment, and return before daylight.

In whatever quarter he attacked he could be certain of great local superiority of force, although, of course, he knew full well that the first sign of an attack would be a signal to our forces to try to cut him off from his bases.