THE ZEEBRUGGE RAID ANNIVERSARY SUPPLEMENT, NAVY NEWS, APRIL 2008 i
‘An immortal deed’
TThe Zeebrugge Raidhe Zeebrugge Raid
ETERNAL WATCH
allotted targets.
If the grapnels were inadequate,
NOISES IN THE NIGHT
Vindictive had an ace up her sleeve;
two Mersey ferries, Iris and Daffodil,
AN ENGLISH CRUISER!
were hastily requisitioned, the prefix
‘HMS’ added – plus grappling hooks,
IN THE dark of a bitingly-cold April
steel plate, guns and other military
night, figures clad in thick coats
kit. Like Vindictive, the two boats
covered by a canvas cloak paced up
were expected to deposit troops on to
and down the concrete and granite
the Mole. But if all else failed, they
structure, occasionally pausing to
could push the cruiser against the
stand at a parapet and stare at the
Mole to hold her in place.
waves crashing below.
Once the storming parties were
The warm spring weather had
ashore, they were certain to face
given way to the return of winter.
a strong garrison of German naval
Rain fell incessantly. The bitter North
infantry – the Marinekorps Flandern
Sea wind drove the damp cold down
– and reinforcements would surely
to the very bone.
rush from the shore along the pier
There was no noise this night,
to bolster the defence. To stop them,
save for the waters of the North
Keyes proposed ramming two old
Sea breaking against the pillars and
submarines, C1 and C3, into the
wooden and metal viaduct which
granite of this great triumph of Man
linked the Mole with the mainland,
over Nature.
then exploding the craft.
The Mole of Zeebrugge arched
All this would provide sufficient
into the North Sea for more than a
distraction to occupy the defenders
mile, a huge shield which protected
while the blockships rounded the tip
a narrow lock and canal to the great
of the Mole.
city of Bruges.
The cork in the Zeebrugge bottle
The Mole was more than a mere
came in the form of three obsolete
breakwater, more than a mere pier. It
cruisers with a combined age of
was a marvel of Victorian/Edwardian
more than 80 – Thetis, Iphigenia and
engineering, 80 yards across at its
Intrepid. The trio were expected to
widest point, carrying a road and
rush the narrow canal entrance then
rail line, goods sheds, cranes and
sink themselves at an angle, before
derricks, a railway station.
their sailors abandoned ship and fled.
To these peacetime features, the
Only single men could volunteer to
Germans had added at least half a
crew these venerable vessels, Roger
dozen guns, bunkers, a flying boat
Keyes decreed. The war had created
base, barbed wire and machine guns.
enough widows already without the ● ‘The one naval exploit of the war that moved and still moves the imagination of the nation...’ Blockships Iphigenia (nearest the camera),
It wasn’t just the Mole which was
Intrepid and Thetis scuttled in the entrance to the Zeebrugge canal need to offer more husbands for
a fortress. There was no coastline on
Death’s ravenous appetite.
earth better safeguarded by steel and
“Nein, nichts Neue.” night. Suddenly they caught a dark defences established by Vice Admiral would smash into the railway
concrete.
It was now approaching 1am on shadow, racing at full speed for the Sir Reginald Bacon, Keyes argued. viaduct which linked the Mole with
Along a 15-mile stretch of
‘REAL DANGER’
Tuesday, April 23 1918 German time Mole. And too little was being done about the shore and blow it up, cutting
Belgium’s shores, the Marinekorps
– a few minutes before midnight on Alarm! Ein englischer Kreuzer! the lair of the beast. Roger Keyes off the defenders and preventing
Flandern stood watch with more
‘A GOOD HAMMERING’
Monday April 22 in Britain. Thus began the first commando demanded action. reinforcements arriving.
than 225 guns – calibres ranging
One German sentry seized raid. Bacon had dismissed a raid The attack on the Mole
from small 3.5in to fearsome 15in.
ELABORATE PREPARATIONS
another. on Zeebrugge as dangerous and was elaborate, but it was also a
Fifteen batteries ringed Zeebrugge
“Horch, didn’t you hear
NEW MAN AT HELM
impossible which would achieve diversion. Throughout February and March
alone.
anything.” nothing more than posthumous The Zeebrugge raid would dockyard workers in the Garden of
They protected the lair of the beast,
“There’s a growling noise
BRAWN NOT BRAINS
medals for gallant young offi cers rise or fall on whether the England prepared the assault ships
the home of Unterseebootsflotille
somewhere.” seeking immortal glory. Unterseebootsflotille Flandern was for their dangerous charge. As they
Flandern, the Flanders U-boat
It was difficult to distinguish
CORKING THE BOTTLE
To Reginald Bacon, there was corked in its bottle. did, men who had put their names
Flotilla. The beast was safe in his
anything above the crashing of the only one way to bottle up the Hun While fighting raged on the Mole, forward for an “undertaking of real
lair: huge concrete ‘pens’ protected
waves against the granite wall of
The old year had just three days to
in his hideout – build an impregnable three blockships would charge around danger” began to arrive at Chatham.
these undersea monsters from the
the Mole.
run as Roger Keyes waited outside
wall across the canal entrance at its tip, head for the canal entrance at They found strange forms taking
guns of the Grand Fleet and the
But the rumble grew louder, a
the offi ce of the First Sea Lord in the
Zeebrugge... but the Hun would full speed, then scuttle themselves. shape in the naval base. Vindictive
bombs of the newly-formed Royal
constant, rhythmic sound, a noise
Admiralty. 1917 had not been a good
hardly afford their foe time for such It was a plan, Roger Keyes bore little relation to the cruiser
Air Force.
made by Man, not by Nature.
year for the Royal Navy. The U-boat
a move. believed, which was redolent of of old. A succession of narrow
Even outside his lair, the beast
“That’s the sound of an engine,” a
menace had seriously undermined
Bacon was cool, rational, success. But if it miscarried? gangways were swung out along
seemed invulnerable. For every two
guard yelled.
public confi dence in the world’s
calculated. He possessed a brilliant “If it fails, it will be better to have one side of the ship, held in place
merchant ships sunk in Atlantic
A star shell lit up the April night,
grandest navy. The submarine peril
mind. Keyes was everything that tried and failed than never to have by a lattice of wires and chains,
waters by German submarines, at
slowly fading before being devoured
had cost the First Sea Lord his
Bacon was not. He was dynamic, tried at all,” the admiral argued. while the fighting top had turned
least one fell victim to boats of the
by the grey-black heavens.
job. Lionised at the war’s opening
warm-hearted, enthusiastic, energetic. It would not fail, for Keyes would into a steel dumpling. There were
Flanders Flotilla.
The sentries stared out across the
as a 20th-Century Nelson, John
He was a man of deeds, not thoughts, see to it that the preparations were additional guns, demolition parties,
But the beast had an Achilles heel.
Mole wall. The rain ran in small
Rushworth Jellicoe had failed to
a man determined to do “something elaborate. flamethrowers. “Every mortal form
His lair was eight miles from the
streams down their faces.
deliver a modern-day Trafalgar and
striking and brilliant”. Extra guns were crammed aboard of frightfulness” had been welded
sea. A canal bore him from his pen
In the distance, somewhere over
then failed to counter the German
Rosslyn Wemyss needed such the obsolete cruiser Vindictive: or fixed to the old hull, Surgeon G F
to open waters at Zeebrugge. Block
the horizon, a slight, brief flicker, men. He called Keyes in to his office.
submarine. Jellicoe buckled. The war
11in and 7.5in howitzers, mortars, Abercrombie observed.
the canal and the beast would be
then nothing. “Well, Roger, you have talked a hell machine-guns in the foretop, plus a
was all but lost, he had warned the
There was no denying that
trapped.
Seconds later a huge fountain of of a lot about what ought to be done handful of pom-poms. The broadsides Vindictive was ugly, Able Seaman
It was too simple a plan for
earth was tossed up as a shell crashed
Cabinet that summer.
in the Dover area, and now you must from this imposing arsenal would W Wainwright conceded, “a veritable
the ordinary German marine to
into a meadow behind one of the 15
Jellicoe’s pessimism and an
go and do it,” Wemyss told the young silence any foe on the Mole – but if a floating fortress, a death trap fitted
comprehend. Rumours circulating
batteries ringing Zeebrugge.
increasingly hostile popular press
admiral. didn’t, there was a wall of protective with all the ingenious contrivances
the Marinekorps Flandern were far
“There! There! Alarm! Alarm!”
forced Lloyd George’s hand. On the
Keyes set about his task steel which grew around most of the of war that the human brain could
more grandiose, far more outlandish,
Bunkers and dugouts along the
night before Christmas, the axe fell
immediately. He turned night into upper deck. think of.
far more believable.
Mole emptied as the men of the
on the admiral. Into his shoes stepped
day at Dover with elaborate series An artificial wall of fog would “We took unholy pride and a
“Over there, on the other side of the
Marinekorps Flandern rushed for
Admiral Rosslyn ‘Rosy’ Wemyss,
of searchlights, floodlights and hide her approach to the Mole. Ships fiendish delight in her and if it were
Channel, they’re up to something,”
their guns.
a rather affable, monocled chap.
pyrotechnics which illuminated the in the attacking force were fitted possible for men to love a ship, we
the men convinced themselves.
The men seized their binoculars
Wemyss was more courtier than
strait “from end to end as bright as with elaborate devices: powerful fans loved her.”
“Tommy is readying a great fleet
and scoured the ocean, but all they
sailor. He mixed in the right circles,
Piccadilly”. would blow a chemical – and rather To engineer Lt Cdr Ronald
– hand-picked assault troops and
could see was a billowing, surging
he was a close friend of the king, he
Every imaginable vessel was pungent – concoction towards the Boddie, Vindictive “looked more
landing forces, 20,000 men in all.”
mist which hid everything.
spoke fluent French, he could – and
pressed into service, ploughing the shore, cloaking the force. like a Christmas tree than a cruiser.”
Tommy would roll up the Flanders
Flares raced into the heavens but
did – charm guests thanks to his
waters between Dover and Calais. Of course, no kindly German Boddie was assigned to the lead
coast from east and west, smoking did little more than give the mist a
talents as a raconteur.
The concentrated barrage worked – would allow Vindictive to come blockship, HMS Thetis.
out every bunker, battery and dugout yellow-brown hue.
Wemyss was not a master of the
to a point; U-boat losses rose, but not alongside the Mole and none would If there was the whiff of death and
with flamethrowers. “Can you hear that?” one sentry battlefield. He did not pretend to dramatically... and not dramatically certainly help her berth. The solution glory about Vindictive, there was
The men’s leaders did nothing asked. “The noise of engines. Utterly be. But he sought men who would enough for Roger Keyes. was ingenious. Two huge grappling merely the whiff of death about the
to dispel or quash such rumours. clear!” re-invigorate the Navy, and Roger There was an obvious solution: hooks were fixed to derricks fore three antiquated cruisers picked to
Warnings from above merely Alarm! Keyes was just such a man. block Zeebrugge and Ostend. and aft. The derricks would swing plug the canal entrance. The skeleton
confirmed the marines’ doubts: In the signals bunker, a telegraphist Keyes was one of the Admiralty’s Reginald Bacon had dismissed the out over the Mole wall, the hooks crews who volunteered for them
crews of coastal batteries shall die hurriedly tapped out a curt message young Turks. ‘Action’ was Roger idea as sheer folly; “dumping down – “like gigantic fish hooks five feet were certainly disappointed; just
at their posts! to headquarters: Z E E B R U G G E Keyes’ watchword. To every problem ships” would not bottle up either long” – would lower and dig into the days before they had served in the
But when? Not tonight. No B E D R O H T. Zeebrugge in there was an offensive solution, the port. concrete structure, fixing Vindictive queens of the seas, the dreadnoughts
tonight was like every other night in danger. 45-year-old rear admiral reasoned as Keyes and his staff disagreed. As in place. of the Grand Fleet. Worse was to
Flanders. The luminous hands of the The batteries on the coast opened the Royal Navy’s Director of Plans. February 1918 drew to a close, their Eighteen boarding gangways come. Leave was cancelled and they
guards’ wrist watches lethargically fire, hurling a curtain of steel into Keyes’ gaze fell upon the Dover plans were ready – and they were barely two feet wide would then were told nothing of their mission.
crept around. the mist. The guns on the Mole Patrol, the command which barred elaborate: an old cruiser, Vindictive, bridge the gap between the ship Unsurprisingly, they grumbled and
“Nichts Neue?” joined in. the famous strait to the foe. Except would charge the Mole and disgorge and the Mole. The assaulting troops groused.
Nothing new? the guards asked The beams of lamps and that it did not. Too many U-boats a 900-strong storming party; would scurry across then climb Most men did not yet know what
each other as they passed routinely. searchlights danced in the April were slipping through the elaborate submarines packed with explosives down a 20ft parapet and attack their Continued on page iimarina
ZZeebrugge.indd 1eebrugge.indd 1 117/3/08 14:38:507/3/08 14:38:50
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