The Chinese & North Koreans Were About to Invade Dungeness – But It’s OK, England was Ready

Dungeness is a beautiful but slightly bleak headland on the Kent coast. Romney Marsh lies to one side and the massive Dungeness nuclear reactors to the other. In between lies the old Dungeness  lighthouse. With a nuclear reactor, Lydd airport, a coast along the English Channel and road access across the South East of England Dungenesss was considered a prime target for the Soviet bloc in the Cold War, should they decide to invade England.

The lighthouse keepers in the 1950s were clearly on the look out for Communist vessels attempting to land. As you can see below the keepers could refer to the essential “Communist Merchant Marine Identification” sheets and also had silhouette outlines of all Eastern bloc naval vessels to identify Soviet ships and subs from our own. While the lower image includes the various flags of the East European Communist bloc, the upper image includes all those of the PRC and our good friends in North Korea and Cuba – rather unlikely attackers. The sharp eyed will note that among the many merchant marine flags of the PRC on the third (bottom) row, eight flags along is the dashing red ensign of the Shanghai pilots who traditionally brought shipping up the Whangpoo from the sea into Shanghai proper. If ever spotted then that was a very lost Shanghai pilot indeed!!