ZEEBRUGGE RAID

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19783, 26 April 1934, Page 11

ZEEBRUGGE RAID

SIXTEENTH ANNIVERSARY Whenever naval incidents of the Great War are recalled the Zeebrugge Raid, carried out on April 23, 1918, inevitably crops up and no need of praise can be too high for the courage and dauntless audacity of the British Naval Force under Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. In his book. “The Crisis of the Naval War,” Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa points out that the fact had to be recognised that effective permanent blocking operations against destroyers and submarines were not practicable mainly because of the great rise and fall above low water at ordinary spring tides, which is 14ft at Ostend and about 13ft at Zeebrugge for about half the days in each month. Whether it was due to the British aerial attacks on bridges that the German destroyers in the autumn months of 1917 frequently left that base and lay at Zeebrugge could not be known, but they did so, and as soon as the fact was discovered by aerial photographs, plans were laid by Sir Reginald Bacon for a combined naval and aerial night operation. On the first occasion that the operation was carried out one German destroyer was sunk and another believed to have been damaged. These operations finally culminated in the famous Zeebrugge raid. In order to restrict the range of the German submarines which were using the canals at Zeebrugge and Ostend as bases the British decided to block the entrances to those shelters. With these canals blocked, the Germans would be forced to use Emden, 600 miles away, as a base. The fleet for the raid on Zeebrugge consisted of three ships, the Intrepid, Iphigenia and Thetis, filled with concrete, which were to be sunk in the entrance of the canal, a light cruiser, the Vindictive, to land troops on the mole, and two Liverpool ferry-boats, the Daffodil and the Iris. Admiral Keyes was in the destroyer Warwick, and with him were the destroyers North Star and Phoebe. In the face of a terrific fire from the shore-end, the Vindictive, Iris and Daffodil landed their men on the moie. The buildings on the mole were blown up, and a destroyer moored under its protection was sunk. Meanwhile the three block-ships steered into the canal entrance. The Thetis fouled her propeller in the defence-nets, and was sunk in the channel. The Intrepid, with all her guns belching, steered into the channel and was sunk in the desired position. The Iphigenia, following the Intrepid, fouled a dredger, and continued up the channel with the dredger, beached on the eastern side, and was blown up. An old submarine, with only a lieutenant in charge, was steered at the bridgs connecting the mole with t? o shore. When it was wedged in the steel curtain protecting the opening, the commander set off the fuse, and escaped in a small boat. The submarine blew up, causing great destruction. The expedition against Zeebrugge was a complete success, but a second attempt was needed at Ostend. The whole operation at Zeebrugge occupied only an hour and a half, as the expedition, timed to make the attempt at midnight, had to be out of range of the coast batteries before dawn.