The Blocking of Zeebrugge

by Alfred Francis Blakeney Carpenter

The first act of the advance party, in accordance with the instructions, was to secure the ship to the wail by means of the grappling anchors. A great struggle to do this was undertaken. The foremost grappling anchors only just reached the Mole. Some men sat on the top of the wall and endeavoured to pull the grapnels over the top as they were lowered from the ship. These grapnels, by virtue of the use for which they were designed, were heavy. That fact, combined with the continuous rolling of the ship, made it exceedingly difficult to control them. Rosoman and a party of men on board joined in the struggle, but a heavy lurch of the ship broke up the davit on which the foremost grappling iron was slung and the latter fell between the ship and the wall.

Adams' party were followed out in great style by the remainder of the seamen storming parties led by their surviving officers, and then by the Marines. I propose to tell later of what occurred on the Mole itself in so far as I have been able to gather from the parties concerned.

Work of the Daffodil

As soon as it was clear that the grappling anchors had failed us owing to the heavy swell there was no other alternative than to order Daffodil to carry on pushing throughout the proceedings.

A curious incident which has never been explained occurred just previously. Some individual in Vindictive had hailed Daffodil and called to them to shove off, "By whose orders?" came the response shouted by Campbell from Daffodil's bridge. "Captain Halahan's orders," was the reply. As a matter of fact poor gallant Halahan had been killed some ten minutes earlier. "I take my orders from Captain Carpenter," shouted Campbell. "He's dead," was shouted back. "I don't believe it," responded Campbell, and incidentally he was right, though I have not the faintest idea what he based his belief on. As Mark Twain would have said, "the report of my death was much exaggerated." The incident was certainly curious, but of course (this for the benefit of those who, during the war, saw spies and traitors at every corner) there can only be the explanation that some poor wounded fellow must have been delirious.

Campbell had been shot in the face, but such a trifle as that did not appear to have worried him, and he continued to push the Vindictive alongside from the moment of his arrival until the whole hour and five minutes had elapsed before we left the Mole. Originally the Daffodil had been detailed to secure alongside Vindictive as soon as the latter was secured to the Mole and then to disembark her demolition parties for their work on the Mole. That part of the plan could not be carried out, however, though several of his parties climbed over her bows into Vindictive on their way to accomplish it.

The demolition charges had been stowed outside the conning tower ready for use; on the passage across we had come to the conclusion that this was a case of risking the success of the whole landing for the furtherance of a secondary object, and the charges had therefore been removed to a safer position. This change of arrangement was indeed fortunate, for the deck on both sides of the conning tower became a regular shambles during the final approach. Yeoman of Signals John Buckley, who had volunteered to take up a position outside the conning tower in readiness to fire illuminating rockets had remained at his post until killed. We found him there at the foot of his rocket tube in the morning, a splendid fellow who had been as helpful in the work of preparation as he was unflinching in the face of almost certain death. All the signalmen except one had been either killed or completely disabled, and almost every soul on the conning-tower platform had made the supreme sacrifice.

On the order being given to storm the Mole the storming parties had rushed up every available ladder to the gangway deck. At the top of the foremost ladder the men, in their eagerness to get at the enemy, were stumbling over a body. I had bent down to drag it clear when one of the men shouted: "That's Mr. Walker, sir, he's had his arm shot off." Immediately Walker, who was still conscious, heard this he waved his remaining hand to me and wished me the best of luck. This officer, Lieutenant H. T. C. Walker, survived.

The high wall, towering above our upper deck, was now protecting the hull of the ship from gun-fire; no vital damage could be sustained in that way so long as we remained alongside. The chief source of danger from which vital damage might accrue before we had completed our work at the Mole was that of the fast German motor boats stationed at Blankenberghe. The latter harbour was barely five minutes' steaming distance away, and, as the enemy would now be fully cognisant of our position, we might reasonably expect a horde of these craft to come to the attack with torpedo. It does not require much naval knowledge to realise that the difficulty of avoiding torpedo fire under such circumstances would be wellnigh insuperable. Where a torpedo craft of that description can suddenly rush in from the outer darkness a large vessel has to depend upon remaining unseen; but of course such tactics were now impossible, and, still further, a torpedo could not be avoided even if seen coming towards the ship. That we were not attacked in that manner was mainly due to the work of certain of our smaller craft specially detailed to deal with the Blankenberghe force; former experience of the latter also led us to believe that the German personnel in those boats had no stomach for a fight.