A DARING FEAT

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1935, Page 18

A DARING FEAT

RAID ON ZEEBRUGGE

moral; effect on the , NATIONS

BASE NOT BLOCKED

Innumerable accounts have been written of the British naval raids on Zeebrugge and Ostend, but it has been left to Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes to pen the most comprehensive, detailed, and vivid narrative of this great feat of arms which has so far appeared, writes Hector By water in the "Daily Telegraph."

Extracts from his forthcoming book J present a singularly clear picture of what really happened on St. George's Day, 1918. We have been taken behind the ' scenes when the plan was beginning to ' mature, and have watched it develop '• from a more or less nebulous scheme ( into a vast undertaking of which the ( smallest detail demanded and received ■ meticulous attention. On this occa- ' sion, at least, the Navy's staff work : was impeccable. After two false starts, frustrated by a sudden change in the weather, Admiral Keyes and his gallant band sailed across on April 22. TO SEAL THE CANAL. All that afternoon the ships taking part were streaming out of port. Less than twenty-four hours, later they were back again, minus the blockships which had been purposely scuttled, and the destroyer North Star, sunk by gunfire. Our total casualties were 170 killed, 400 wounded, and forty-five missing. As Admiral Keyes has told us, the underlying purpose of the raids was to seal the canal at Bruges and the fairway at .Ostend, thereby rendering them inaccessible to submarines. Had this been completely accomplished the German U-boat campaign would have lost much of its sting, for the submarine flotilla based on Bruges was responsible not only for most of our shipping losses in the Channel but for laying, the mines .with which the east and south coasts were infested. The.attack on Zeebrugge Mole was incidental to the blocking operation, and was, indeed, planned purely as a diversion to enable the blockships to attain'their objective. Both at Zeebrugge and Ostend our sailors showed courage, fortitude, and seamanship of the highest order. They achieved what friend and foe had deemed well-nigh impossible—an irruption into one of the strongest fortresses in the world, garrisoned by resolute and vigilant troops lavishly provided with the most deadly weapons of war. BLOCKSHIPS SUNK. They burst into this stronghold with one- old cruiser and two ferry-boats, which actually lay alongside the Mole for over an hour while Bluejackets and Marines scaled the parapet and exchanged fire with the defenders.

Meanwhile' two of the Zeebrugge blockships, Intrepid and Iphigenia, penetrated the canal entrance and sank themselves diagonally across it. The third ship, the Thetis, was so badly mauled by gunfire that her engines were disabled and she grounded on the eastern side of the channel.

The Intrepid and Iphigenia were navigated right into the actual entrance for a distance of 800 to 1000 yards, an

astounding feat in view of the galling fire to which they were subjected and the darkness, relieved only by gun flashes, searchlights, and rockets.

The Ostend expedition was less fortunate. Not only did the wind change at the critical moment, blowing the smoke screen back into the faces of the officers conning the blockships, Sirius and Brilliant, but, unbeknown to them, the Stroom Bank buoy, on which they relied to guide them into the harbour, had'been moved a mile to the eastward. As a result the Sirius and Brilliant grounded to the eastward o£ the entrance and were there scuttled, in no way obstructing the fairway.

British aircraft flying over Zeebrugge at dawn photographed the sunken blockships. The Intrepid, which was furthest in, lay well athwart the channel, but in spite of this there was a considerable clearance between her bows and the eastern bank. On the other hand, it looked as if the Iphigenia completely blocked the navigable channel, through which the submarines had made exit. U-BOATS P.iSS OUT. For once, therefore, the teaching of experience seemed to be falsified. Modern naval history had afforded no instance of a blocking operation being carried out successfully in the teeth of formidable opposition. In the RussoJapanese War Admiral Togo sacrificed many merchant vessels in attempts to seal up Port Arthur, but the navigation of the entrance was never seriously impeded. Had, then, the British Navy demonstrated at Zeebrugge its power to carry through an undertaking hitherto regarded as impossible? For some days after the attack events suggested that it had. On the morning after the raid a German signal was intercepted, warning all U-boats that Zeebrugge was blocked and ordering them to return by way of Ostend. What we did not know was that this signal , was cancelled the next day. More careful examination by the 1 Germans showed that submarines and ' torpedo boats could still pass in and ■ out at high tide. Forty-eight hours ' after the raid UB 16 went to sea past i the blockships, and from then till June ■ two submarines were entering and •■ leaving the Flanders bases— Zeebrugge • and Ostend—every day. But the Germans had to cut away • two piers on the western bank and to ' dig a channel before anything save : the smallest craft could pass out, and this took them about six weeks, s A second attempt to block Ostend, , this time by sinking the Vindictive in i the channel, was made on May 9, but > again without success. The speedy resumption of U-boat traffic to and " from Bruges was conclusive - evidence 1 that these exceedingly gallant attempts f completely to seal the hornets' nest on I the Flanders coast had miscarried. MATERIAL EFFECTS. Nevertheless, the material effects j were by no means negligible. Although . small submarines, of the type employed almost exclusively at Bruges, and light surface craft could still pass i in and out, the vaunted security of ;, Zeebrugge itself as a naval stronghold c had been successfully impeached, and I it was no longer considered safe for :- heavy destroyers. Yet these were the very ships that the Germans needed for c attacking the Dover barrage, and i, thereby blasting a passage through the 'x. Straits for their U-boats.

Before the Zeebrugge blocking expedition many such attacks had been delivered, almost always by fast and powerful destroyers using Zeebrugge as their base. After the expedition' not a single further attack was attempted.

To this important extent, therefore.

the Zeebrugge raid had succeeded, and bow important it was must be briefly explained. When Admiral Keyes took command of the Dover Patrol early in 1918 the Straits were mined right across to the French coast, but in spite of this German U-boats continued to pass freely. They went through at night on the surface, thus avoiding the deep-laid mines.

The obvious remedy was to span the entire Straits witli brilliant flares and searchlights, thus turning night into day and compelling the U-boats to dive through the minefields instead of cruising on the surface.

This plan was adopted, and its efficacy soon became apparent, for four German submarines were blown up in the minefields between January 26 and February i. But the brilliantly illuminated line of barrage vessels offered a tempting target, and on February 14 a flotilla of; big German destroyers struck heavily at it, sinking eight drifters and damaging many others. THE WORLD THRILLED. Had these attacks been repeated at frequent intervals the barrage must have been rendered ineffectual and the U-boat menace proportionately intensified. That they were not repeated was due mainly, if not entirely, to the closing of Zeebrugge as a sally port and retreat for the big German destroyers. But the raid on Zeebrugge is not to be measured solely by its material consequences. In war the moral effects of an operation1 may well transcend the physical, and that they did so on this occasion is beyond dispute. The news that British naval forces had twice penetrated German positions boasted as impregnable sent a thrill, not only through the Empire, but all over the world. Coming at a time when the military situation in the West was critical, if not desperate, it acted as a strong tonic, infusing the British people and their Allies with fresh hope and confidence. To quote the official British history, "Naval Operations":—

"After more than three years of deadlocked and alternating war, our force both for attack and defence seemed to have been enfeebled to the last point of exhaustion, when beyond all expectation the great Service which had already borne and accomplished so much for the Allies was seen to rise like a giant from among the wounded and dying, and to deliver a blow which resounded with power and significance, the blow of a people whose heart was still: unbroken. Possunt quia posse videntur—the great achievement of Admiral Keyes and his force was this light in the darkest hour

. . . by which they, nerved again the moral power for victory in five great nations and two continents."