ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend had become more and more important to the Germans as a base for their submarines. Their loss would be, as Admiral Scheer said, "a very disagreeable blow to the U-boat campaign." It was in November 1917 that the British Admiralty first planned a blow against these ports, but the favourable opportunity did not present itself until April 23, 1918. In the meantime, the Allies had succeeded in bringing the last German offensive to a standstill, and there was much anxiety as to its possible renewal. The blow struck by the Navy on St. George's Day was therefore a most timely one, for it not only increased Admiral Scheer's difficulties but resounded over the world as a daring feat of arms and a proof of unbroken national spirit.
The difficulties of the proposed attack were enormous, and real imagination was needed to cope with them. The coast was defended by batteries containing in all 120 heavy guns, some of them of 15-inch calibre. A battery of these was emplaced upon the Mole at Zeebrugge—a solid stone breakwater more than a mile long, which held also a railway terminus, a seaplane station, a number of large sheds for personnel and material, and, at the extreme seaward end, a lighthouse with searchlight and range-finder. The attacking force would also have to reckon with the batteries on shore, the troops who would reinforce the defenders on the Mole, and the destroyers which were lying in the harbour. It was not, of course, proposed to take and hold works so strongly defended; but an attack was indispensable, for the enemy's attention must be diverted from the block-ships, which were to arrive during the fight off both ports and sink themselves in such a position as to impede the passage of U-boats.
The offensive then was directed against Zeebrugge, and the plan of attack was to be the seizure of the Mole by a landing party. They must be strong enough to overrun it, capture the big guns, and keep off enemy reinforcements by destroying the railway viaduct which connected it with the shore. Then, when the block-ships had been sunk, the men must be re-embarked and brought away.
For the fighting itself there was little need to be over-anxious; the real problem was concerned with the difficulty of approaching, throwing the men ashore, and getting them away again without the transports being sunk by the enemy's fire. Nothing could be left to luck or the inspiration of the moment, and the conditions of success were extremely severe. First, the attacking ships must effect a complete surprise, and reach the Mole before the guns of the defence could be brought to bear upon them. The enemy searchlights must therefore be blinded, as far as possible, by an artificial fog or smoke-screen; but again this must not be dense enough to obscure the approach entirely. Secondly, the work must be done in very short time, and to the minute, for though the attack might be a surprise, the return voyage must be made under fire. The shore batteries were known to have a destructive range of 16 miles; to get clear of the danger zone would take the flotilla two hours. Daylight would begin by 3.30 a.m.; it was therefore necessary to leave the Mole by 1.30; and as, for similar reasons, it was impossible to arrive before midnight, an hour and a half was all that the time-table could allow for fighting, blocking, and re-embarking. To do things as exactly as this, a night must be chosen when wind, weather, and tide would all be favourable. The difficulty of finding so precise an opportunity caused four months' delay—the expedition had in fact twice started and been compelled to put back: once it had actually come within 15 miles of the Mole.
The attack was conducted by Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes, commanding at Dover; the force employed was a large and composite one, and required masterly handling. The Ostend expedition, though highly difficult and dangerous, was an affair of blocking only, and was comparatively simple; but for Zeebrugge there were needed, besides the principal ships, a fleet of smoke-boats for making fog, motor launches for showing flares and bringing off men in difficulties, monitors for engaging the batteries, and destroyers for looking after the enemy ships in harbour; lastly, there was an old submarine, C3, to be used as a self-propelling mine for the destruction of the viaduct. The landing on the Mole was to be made from the Vindictive (Captain A. Carpenter), an old light cruiser of 5,720 tons, and she was to be accompanied by two old ferry-boats from the Mersey, the Daffodil and the Iris; the three destroyers were the North Star (Lieutenant-Commander K. C. Helyar), the Phoebe (Lieutenant-Commander H. E. Gore-Langton), and the Warwick, flying the Admiral's flag.
The success which resulted was due not to fortune but to foresight, and to the accurate timing of the work of the various units employed. As the flotilla advanced the smoke-screen craft and motor-boats dashed ahead, laid their screens, drove in the enemy ships, and made it possible for the transports to approach the Mole. The Ostend force parted company at the agreed point, and the monitors opened fire on the shore batteries. Precisely at midnight the Sirius and the Brilliant arrived at Ostend, and at Zeebrugge the Vindictive, emerging from the thick fog of smoke into the brilliant light of German flares, saw the end of the Mole within 400 yards of her. She ran alongside at full speed, and returned the fire of the big guns with her 6-inch and 12-pound armament.
Zeebrugge.
To grapple the Mole was very difficult; the outer wall was high and there was a heavy swell rolling the ships. The Iris was ahead; but the Daffodil, being close astern of the Vindictive, was able to push her into place with her bows and hold her there most gallantly. The Vindictive ran out the "brows" or high gangways with which she was specially fitted, and the storming parties were ready to land. At this moment a shell fell among them and killed Colonel Bertram Elliot of the Marines, while Captain Henry Halanem, who was commanding the bluejackets, fell to machine-gun fire. But their men were unchecked. They rushed upon the brows, which were tossing and crashing on the wall, and with all their heavy accoutrements, bombs, and Lewis guns, cleared the leap down the steep fall to the floor of the Mole, and began fighting their way along it under cover of a barrage from the ship's howitzers. The Iris meantime was grappling the Mole farther ahead, with dearly bought success; the Daffodil's men jumped across to the Vindictive and joined her storming party.
The charge was irresistible; the batteries were taken, the dug-outs cleared, the hangars fired, the store-sheds blown up, and those of the enemy who escaped into a destroyer were sent to the bottom in her by a bombing attack from the parapet. All this was done in fifteen minutes; then followed a tremendous explosion at the shore end of the Mole. The C3, manned by half a dozen officers and men under Lieutenant R. D. Sandford, R.N., had made straight for the piles of the viaduct under the searchlights of the enemy, who seem to have thought that she was bent on passing through to attack the ships in the harbour, and was therefore sure to be trapped among the struts and piles. Then, when they saw her crew reappear in a tiny motor-boat they opened fire with machine-guns; but they had only wounded and not disabled their quarry, for immediately C 3 exploded and destroyed the viaduct and all upon it, cutting off the Mole from communication with the shore. Lieutenant R. D. Sandford, with his five companions, was picked up by a steam pinnace commanded by his brother, Lieutenant-Commander Sandford, and brought away safely. Both as tactics and as a moral reinforcement their exploit was of the highest value.
Ten minutes afterwards the block-ships, the Thetis (Commander R. S. Sneyd), the Intrepid (Lieutenant Stuart Bonham-Carter), and the Iphigenia (Lieutenant V. W. Billyard-Leake), were seen rounding the lighthouse and heading for the entrance of the canal. The Thetis was leading, and received the concentrated fire of the enemy; she ran aground on the edge of the channel and was sunk partially across it, signalling to her consorts, as she went down, to avoid the nets which had fouled her own propeller. The Intrepid and the Iphigenia thereupon passed straight up the canal to a point at which they were two or three hundred yards inside the shore lines and actually behind the German guns on the Mole. They were then blown up and sunk across the channel, and their crews took to the boats and got away out to sea, where they were eventually taken on board the destroyers.
An hour had now passed and the work was done. Even the lighthouse had been sacked, for Wing-Commander Brock, who was in charge of the smoke-screen operations, had not only led the charge into the big gun battery, but had made a special objective of the range-finder in the lighthouse top and
