The British Navy in Battle

by Arthur Joseph Hungerford Pollen

SIR ROGER KEYES’S TACTICS

The purposes of the expedition, as we have seen, were to block the exit of the canal at Zeebrügge and the entrance of the small, narrow harbour at Ostend with old cruisers filled with cement, the removal of which would be an operation of a lengthy and tedious kind. Incidentally, the plan was to effect the maximum destruction of war stores and equipment at Zeebrügge and to sink as many as possible of the enemy vessels found in either port, and finally, to inflict on the enemy the maximum possible losses of personnel. By blocking the canal the value of Zeebrügge was reduced from being an equipped base to being a mere refuge. As there were two points of attack, the expedition naturally resolved itself into two distinct, but simultaneous, undertakings. The simpler, the less dangerous, the less ambitious, but, as the event showed, the more difficult operation of the two, was the attempt to block Ostend. The larger, more complex, and infinitely more perilous undertaking, but because of its very complications, ultimately easier, was the attempt at Zeebrügge. In its broad outlines, the scheme was to get the ships as near as possible without detection, and then to trust to a final rush to gain the desired position. Concealment up to the last moment was to be secured by smoke screens. At Ostend the problem was simply to run two or three ships into the entrance—that is, to get them into position before the enemy’s artillery made it impossible to manœuvre. If the Ostend attempt failed, it was largely because a sudden change in the weather conditions robbed the smoke screens, which were to hide the ships, of their value, so that the operation of placing the block-ships accurately was made almost impossible. The operation of blocking such entrances has, of course, long been familiar. The exploit of Lieutenant Hobson in the Spanish-American War, is fresh in the memories of all sailors. This failed through the steering gear of the blocking-ship being destroyed by gunfire at the critical moment. The Japanese attempted the same thing on a large scale at Port Arthur but with anything but complete success. If the first Ostend effort, then, fell short of finality, we have the experience of these earlier precedents to explain and account for it.

I have dealt with Ostend first because, after the preliminary bombardment, nothing more could have been attempted than to force the ships into the harbour entrance and sink them there. But at Zeebrügge a far more intricate operation was possible. Zeebrügge is not a town. It is just the sea exit of the Bruges Canal, with its railway connections, round which a few streets of houses have clustered. The actual entrance to the canal is flanked by two short sea walls, at the end of each of which are guide lights. From these lights up the canal to the lock gates is about half a mile. A large mole protects the sea channel to the canal from being blocked by silted sand. The mole is connected to the mainland by five hundred yards of pile viaduct. The mole is nearly a mile long, built in a curve, a segment amounting to, perhaps, one-sixth of a circle, the centre of which would be a quarter of a mile east of the canal entrance, while its radius would be three-quarters of a mile. It is a large and substantial stone structure, on which are railway lines and a railway station, and has been turned to capital military account by the enemy, who erected on it aircraft sheds and military establishments of many kinds.

The general plan was to bombard the place for an hour by monitors and, under cover of this fire, for the attacking squadron to advance to the harbour mouth. Then, when the bombardment ceased, Vindictive was to run alongside the mole, disembark her own landing party and those from Iris and Daffodil, who were to overpower the enemy protecting the guns and stores while the old submarines were run into the pile viaduct to cut the mole off from the mainland, thus isolating it. Meanwhile, other forces were to engage any enemy destroyers or submarines that might be in the port. Finally, the block-ships were to be pushed right up into the canal mouth and there sunk. The success of the latter part of these operations turned upon the extent to which the enemy could be made to believe that the attack on the mole was the chief objective.

To ensure success against the mole, several very ingenious devices were brought into play. The main landing parties were placed in Vindictive. This cruiser—which displaced about 5,600 tons, and had a broadside of six 6-inch guns—was fitted, on the port side, with “brows,” or landing gangways, that could be lowered on the mole the moment she came alongside. All the vessels of the squadron were equipped with fog- or smoke-making material, which would veil the force from the enemy until he sent up his star shells and, in the artificial light, would conceal the character, numbers, and composition of the force as completely as possible. It seems that a shift of wind at the critical moment—here, as at Ostend—robbed this plan of some of its anticipated efficiency. At some point of the approach, then, apparently just before Vindictive rounded and got abreast of the lighthouse, the presence of the invaders was detected, and they were saluted first by salvoes of star shells and next by as hot a gunfire as can be conceived. Vindictive lost no time in replying. Her six 6-inch guns—and no doubt her 12-pounders as well—swept the mole as long as they could be fired, and, once alongside, the “brows”—only two out of eighteen seem to have survived the heavy gunfire—were lowered, and officers and men “boarded” the mole.

The earlier accounts stated that this landing was effected in spite of the stoutest sort of hand-to-hand fighting, that the enemy was overcome and driven back, and that the landing party then proceeded to the destruction of the sheds and stores. The plans had included the blowing-up of the pile viaduct, which connects the stone mole with the mainland—by means of one or two old submarines charged with explosives, and so virtually converted into giant torpedoes. These did their work most effectively, and had the enemy been in occupation of the mole, his force would have been isolated. But, as a fact, the mole was not occupied, and the enemy relied upon machine- and gun-fire organized from the shore end of the mole for making the landing impossible. In spite of a withering fusillade, a considerable landing party of marines and bluejackets got ashore, though Colonel Elliott and Commander Halahan and great numbers of their men were killed in the attempt. Those that got on the mole proceeded to destroy, as far as possible, the sheds, stores, and guns, and then turned their attention to the destroyers moored against its inner side.

Meantime, the only enemy destroyer that seems to have had steam up tried to escape from harbour, and was either rammed or torpedoed and instantly sunk. Others, less well prepared, were either boarded, after the resistance of their crews had been overcome, and, it must be presumed, sunk also. Others, again, were attacked by motor launches, which preceded and helped clear a way for the block-ships. Whether an attempt on the lock gates was made or even contemplated, we have not been told; but the main purpose of the expedition, the sinking of at least two out of the three old Apollos in the right place, was achieved with precision. The moment the block-ships were in place, the purpose for which the mole was occupied was gained, and the order was rightly given for an immediate retreat. The work had been done, and there was no knowing what new resources the enemy could have brought to bear had time been wasted. Many of the vessels, including Vindictive, had been holed by 11-inch shells. But Vindictive’s damages were not of a serious kind, and the whole force was able to withdraw in safety, with the exception of one destroyer and two motor launches. The destroyer is known to have been sunk by gunfire. The successful withdrawal of the expedition is conclusive evidence that the enemy was demoralized.

For such close-quarters work Admiral Keyes, naturally enough, armed his forces as for trench fighting. Vindictive carried howitzers on her forward and after decks, and her boarding parties were liberally armed with grenades and flame-throwers as well as with rifles, bayonets, and truncheons. Machine guns also seem to have been landed, so that hand-to-hand fighting was prepared for in the full light of the most recent war experience. The plan, it should be noted, was to have included aeroplane co-operation to supplement, if not to assist, the work of the monitors; but the change in the weather appears to have interfered with this part of the programme, and may quite easily have made any accurate work by the monitors impossible also.

It is, first of all, patent that the expedition was thoroughly thought out in all its details, and therefore closely planned. An accurate study of the enemy’s defences had been made, and suitable means of avoiding his attack or overcoming his defences had been elaborately worked out. It is equally clear that almost to the moment when the attack was made, the weather conditions were those which the plan contemplated as necessary to success, and that it was only the sudden, unexpected change in the wind that threatened the Ostend part of the operations with partial failure and made the Zeebrügge operations more costly in life than they should otherwise have been. When it is remembered that the approaches to Ostend and Zeebrügge are commanded by very formidable batteries, armed with no less than 120 guns of the largest calibre, and that the mole and the sides of the canal bristled with quick-firing 12-pounders and larger pieces, it will be realized that, to the enemy, any attempt actually to bring an unarmoured vessel, with her cement-laden consorts, right up either to the mole or to the actual mouth of the canal must have appeared an undertaking too absurdly hare-brained for any one but a lunatic to have attempted. It was just because Sir Roger Keyes had evaluated the enemy’s defences with exactitude and had thought out and adopted, first, methods of evading his vigilance and, next, manœuvres that would for the necessary period make his weapons useless, that it was possible not only to make the attempt, but to realize the very high degree of success that has apparently been won.

The essence of the matter, of course, was to take the enemy by surprise. At first sight, it may appear a curious way of putting him off his guard, that he should for an hour be bombarded by monitors and aeroplanes. But the Vice-Admiral probably reasoned that this would lead, as it often does, to the crews of the big guns taking shelter underground until the attack is over. If the monitors were placed at their usual great distance from ports, and were concealed by smoke or fog screens, the enemy gunners would know that it was merely idle to attempt to reply to their fire. If nothing was to be possible in the way of response until daylight, the gun-layers were just as well in their shell-proofs as anywhere. Under cover, then, of this long-range bombardment, and concealing his squadron by the ingenious fog methods invented by the late Commander Brock, Sir Roger Keyes made his way within a very short distance of the veiled lights at the end of the mole. It was at this point that the wind shifted and the presence of the squadron was revealed to the enemy. There was a brief interval before the big guns could be manned, and it was doubtless owing to this that Vindictive got alongside before more than one 11-inch shell had struck her. Once under the shelter of the mole, she was safe from the larger pieces, and only her upper works could be raked by the smaller natures.