MEMORIAL AT ZEEBRUGGE

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 39, 14 August 1926, Page 20

MEMORIAL AT ZEEBRUGGE

UNVEILED BY PEINCB LEOPOLD OF BELGIUM.

A tablet, marking the exact spot where the Vindictive, the Iris, and the Daffodil lay alongside the Mole at Zeebrugge on St. George's Day (23rd April), 1918, was unveiled recently by Prince Charles Leopold of Belgium. Captain A. T. B. Carpenter, V.C., who commanded the Vindictive, was present, and also Mrs. Gibbs, the mother of Commander V. F. Gibbs, of the Iris, who died from wounds received in the engagement. There were loud cheers when Colonel Stinglhamber, D.5.0., the director of the Zeebrugge Museum, in his speech requesting the Prince to unveil the tablet, referred to the presence of these two. They were presented to the Prince after the unveiling, and Mrs. Gibbs received a bouquet. The members of the Institute of Naval Architects, with their president, the Duke of Northumberland, had made the journey from Antwerp down the Scheldt, and along the coast in the steamer Princesse Marie Jose, which was to take 1 them on to Dover after the ceremony. The members of the Institute had a week fully occupied with conferences and sightseeing. As the Duke of Northumberland said at the banquet which the Institute gave at the Zoological Gardens at Antwerp, the members had been able to see mora of Belgium than one would have thought could be possible in a singlo week.

In the Zeebrugge Museum Captain Carpenter graphically described and explained the undertaking of which the action of his ship, the Vindictive, formed part. Hg compared the Zeebrugge action with a glorified trench raid, modestly suggesting that what the Navy had done on that occasion was nothing more than was done day after day, night after night, by the Allied soldiers on the land fronts. He paid a great tribute to Sir Roger Keycs's qualities as a leader.

There followed presentations to the Prince, to Captain Carpenter, and to Mrs. Gibbs on behalf of the Zeebrugge authorities, and then the members of the Institute of Naval, Architects retorned to the Princesse Marie Jose for their voyage to Dover.

The tablet unveiled is intended to be the first of a series to complete the main memorial erected on the shore end of the Mole. It ia.hoped shortly to mark the spot whore the submarine "03" was blown up to make a breach in the viaduct and also the place where the canal was blocked by the entry; of the three block ships.