THE CEMETERY AT ZEEBRUGGE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 1223, 12 June 1919, Page 2

THE CEMETERY AT ZEEBRUGGE.

MEMORIES OF HUNS' "STUPID CATABTROPHE." j A visit to the cemetery the Germans left at Zeebrugge tells a talc of the coast fighting of which in England only one side is known. There are 200 graves in it, all marked with identical cement crosses, whether for Germans. English, or 'unknowns," and there are one or two blue stone memorials over the spot where victims of particular disasters are laid lo rest. There are the graves or i 4 British, who fell in the Vindictive attack on the Mot*. The German inscription describes them as three officers, seven marines, two sailors, two llremen. Other bodies were washed ashore and are buried hßre and there along the coast, notably two at Heysl. There is a large undated cross erected to the memory of "Kameraden" of the cyclist corps. This indicates some heavy losses sustained by the Germans when Sir Roger Keyes gave the Dragon's tail a twist last St. George's Day, as it has been ascertained at Zeebrugge that a cyclist company rushed up to drive the British off the Mole and fell into the sea through the gap made by the blowing up of the approach. There are also about, 40 victims of what is known locally as Ihc "stupid catastrophe." A splendid military banquet took place at German Headquarters, the Kursaal at Heysl. on September 26, 1015. Most of the guests, accompanied by their ladies, came from Blankenberghe and Ostend, and after a merry evening look the train, composed of three or four carriages, for home. It was a gay party, singing and laughing, and it is suggested that the train driver was also under enlivening influences. In any case he did not see that Hie bridge over the maritime canal at Zeebrugge was open, and drove the whole or the train into the water. It is slated that there were over 200 drowned, ami that a great number of coffins went to Germany.