One may be pardoned for thinking that the blocking operation, with all its complicated requirements, should have received undivided attention, but such a thing was impossible. Those were busy days at Dover. Special material, such as artificial fog apparatus, had to be constructed and fitted in the craft concerned. The use of the apparatus had to be practised with a view to discovering the conditions under which the best results could be obtained. Neighbouring commands, such as at Portsmouth and The Nore, were exceedingly helpful in this latter respect. The use of howitzers, flame projectors, bomb-mortars, grappling irons, scaling ladders, and many other fighting appliances not usually found in men-o'-war had to be investigated.
Production of Smoke
A special factory was established at Dover under Wing-Commander Brock—of whom I shall have much to tell—mainly in connection with the developments and use of artificial fog, but also to further the design and production of other material. Sixty men worked at this factory. Their output, both in quality and quantity, was most satisfactory in spite of the many handicaps with which such innovations have to contend. The difficulty of obtaining special material, when the output of every large firm in the country was already earmarked for other purposes, was not lessened by the fact that our urgent demands could seldom be supported, owing to the necessity for secrecy, by explanations as to the purposes in view.
The use of artificial fog in war was by no means an entirely new idea. The device had already been utilised by our naval forces off the Belgian coast, and a quantity of data on the subject was available as a result of its use in fighting on land. But all forms of fog screens—and there were many—had hitherto possessed disadvantages which would militate against satisfactory results in an enterprise such as we contemplated. The main difficulty attached to the smoke apparatus at Dover was that a very visible flame was emitted; this would have completely given our presence away as the smoke was intended to hide our presence and cover our advance. Some attempts had been made to surmount this difficulty, but experiments proved the apparatus to be hopelessly unsuited to our requirements. The reader, however, will not desire to be introduced to a highly technical treatise on this subject. Suffice it to say that, as a result of prolonged experimental work, a new type of fog was evolved which satisfied all requirements. The trials were not altogether devoid of humour. It is rumoured that on one occasion a fog produced in the Dover Straits refused to dissipate itself for three days, with the result that mercantile captains said some very hard things about the clerk of the weather.
The blockships and Vindictive were fitted out at Chatham. That dockyard was already being taxed to its utmost. The situation demanded that every man should strive to exceed his previous utmost efforts—one of the few points on which our enemies may congratulate themselves. Secrecy was, of course, essential. Yet in the case of the ships fitting out at Chatham the number of men who played an indirect part in the operation ran into four figures. The same thing applied at Portsmouth where the Iris, the Daffodil, and the submarines destined to attack the railway viaduct at Zeebrugge were fitted out. The director of Naval Construction, Sir Tennyson D'Eyncourt, and the Director of Dockyards, Rear-Admiral L. E. Power, brought all their valuable knowledge, and that of their respective staffs, to bear on the problem. Much of the usual formality governing inter-departmental procedure was waived. Paper work was reduced to a minimum. The real nature of the operation was made known to few at that period. The war had taught men not to ask questions unless the information was an absolute necessity. Nevertheless many must have wondered what was afoot; special steps had to be taken, therefore, to prevent leakage of information, of which more anon.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PERSONNEL. SECRECY. TRAINING. SOME PERSONALITIES.
No naval or military training is necessary to realise that the success of any war operation is mainly dependent upon the personnel. In these days of machinery and munitions, however, we are apt to become ultra-materialistic in our imagination. We read of so many million rounds of ammunition, so many thousand tons of merchant shipping, such and such new-fangled weapons. But the necessity for efficient personnel is, after all, the crux of the whole matter. What use a ship without a crew, or an aeroplane without a pilot? Truly the question of personnel is paramount. No belligerent state ever suffered from a surplus of fighting men in the midst of a war. How strange it seemed to us in those critical days that we had ever been content to rely on an overseas expeditionary force of only 150,000 men.