BLOCKING OSTEND PORT

Waipa Post, Volume 37, Issue 2227, 27 October 1928, Page 3

BLOCKING OSTEND PORT

END OF THE VINDICTIVE. In Blackwood’s Magazine for August, Mr B. Meakins tells the story of the blocking of Ostend Haibour by the Vindictive. “On the evening of May 10, 1918, two monitlors cleared the devastated harbour of Dunkirk. At the same time the Vindictive weighed her anchor in the Roads and steamed for Ostend Harbour, says Mr Meakins. “We are steaming along the sanVSi old channels t|hat Drake used when he drove the Armada into the Northern Seas. No bells are rung nor are bugles sounded. Lights are doused to a bare necessity. Anything may happen now, for we are within range of the shore batteries and there may be hostlile ships on guard. Men are therefore sent to their action stations in turret and stokehold. At last everything is ready. It is curious how quiet the men grow when going into action. They do not wish to talk; they carry out their work in detached, thoughtful manner. Now the telegraphs jangle below. The ship slows to a stop, and then the anchors are lowered quietly fore and aft, thus making a fixed target and fort. While we wait for the action to commence our thoughts go out to the gallant Vindictive steaming through the night to her goal and grave. Time slips towards zero, and now the 12-inch gun turret comes sliding noiselessly round pointing towards the unseen target of the 11-inch gufns of the Tirpitz battery on the end of the Ostend front. With a loud hiss one of the huge barrels rises up into the night—‘Ready! Fire!’—crash. The red tongues. of the flame lick along the low banks of the smoke screen that hides us. Our eyes and mouths are filled with the acrid burning dust of the discharge. Half stunned, we clap our hands to our ears. Now away to port our sister ship joins in the action. The four-inch guns below our bridge join in with rapid firing, and the peaceful night has become a sudden hell of noise and flame.

“Suddenly away in the night ahead leap out the sword-like beams of the German searchlights. Anxiously they sweep across the dark waters, searching for the attacker at their very gate. Now with a swiftt leap they ‘bunch’ into one great glowing spot and halt. They have found the Vindictive at the harbour entrance. Now, with every gun thatl he can get to bear, the enemy opens fire on her, and to our anxious eyes the place has become a volcano of flame. There drifts out to our ears the muffled fury of the guns, menacing, deathly. God help her! Our fingers clinch in their helplessness; our eyes ache as we watch the tragic fate of our shipmates going to their certain death unarmed. Our guns redouble their efforts to try and beat down those deadly guns, but not for one instlant does the terrible drumfire cease. High up above our heads a star shell bursts with a mighty crack, shedding a fierce glare and showing us up as if in broad daylight. We know what it portends. Suddenly through the night comes thundering and shrieking the first of the enemy shells. Faster and faster they come, and we can see by the gigantic slashes that they are solvoes of about a dozen large shells. Nearer and nearer the ghostly columns of water creep toward the ship, for it is the enemy’s method to rake a whole area so that' nothing can possibly escape. The captain for the first time makes himself known. ‘Tell that motor boat to put up more smoke,’ he orders, and the signalman flashes his lamp into the foggy blackness, but without result. The tension grows greater, and an uncanny silence seems to brood on the ship. The gunners of the four-inch guns squeeze into their gun shields. We on the bridge lie down on the flat steel deck and wait. A solvo arrives and dropped ‘dead’ by the stern, making the lifeboats slung over there leap and rattle with the concussion. We catch a glimpse of towering columns of foam and water rising like gigantic mushrooms into the night. Another salvo we heai its heightening roar —surely this will be the end! Terrific explosions on both sides of the ship; a shock that runs her whole length; the sudden snapping out of lights; the clatter of shell splinters against the mast and funnel; the falling of water from a height—and we breathe again.' By a miracle all 'have escaped destruction Then the ship gets under weigh and steams towards the enemy, a manoeuvre that outwits him completely. With greaJ relief we hear her shells go roaring overhead. “We cruise about until with the pale lemon streaks of dawn there comes towards us out of the haze a riddled and sinking motor boat filled with dead and wounded survivors oi the Vindictive. A lieutenant of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, in charge of a motor boat that went to Hake off the crew of the Vindictive, managed to save many men, and was escaping out of the harbour when he thought he heard a cry for help come from the sinking ship. He turned