Sir Henry Percy Douglas had been Hydrographer of the Navy and then worked with the River Mersey, the House of Lords, Dover Harbour, and an Antarctic expedition. Recalling him as Commodore Superintendent at Dover placed a navigation and harbor specialist where his accumulated local knowledge was immediately useful. The same background could also have suited Mersey command because his civil work mapped directly onto wartime port needs. His death in November 1939 soon removed an unusually scarce combination of hydrographic and local harbor expertise.
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Henry Percy Douglas brought Dover expertise back to war
A retired hydrographer's civil appointments made him an unusually well-prepared wartime superintendent for Dover.