in august 1917, part of the school was damaged during an air raid, and the decision was finally taken to evacuate the college from dover to leamington college in leamington spa in the midlands; the school returned to dover in 1919 with only 150 pupils. during world war i, in common with many other schools, old dovorians became officers in the british armed forces and as a result suffered high casualty rates. 177 former pupils died; 58 dovorians were awarded the dso and 89 the mc – of the foreign awards 8 were awarded croix de guerre and 6 the russian order of saint stanislas. one naval officer – arthur leyland harrison – posthumously received the victoria cross for the zeebrugge raid; another old boy, gen sir reginald dallas brooks, was also on that raid and won his dso before going on to become governor of victoria.