CHAPTER X
THE SEALING OF ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND
Manifold as were the duties, and various as was the composition of the Dover Patrol, it was in the sealing of Zeebrugge and Ostend—among the last naval operations of the war—that its qualities of enterprise, courage, and ingenuity found their most notable expression. How the possession of these places advantaged the enemy has already been indicated in the last chapter; and their continual threat to our communications was a sufficient justification of the proposed attempt. But it was not the only one, as a brief consideration of the general position will show. Robbed of these two ports, or with their usefulness so impaired as to render them abortive, the enemy would be thrown back, from the offensive standpoint, upon his Frisian estuaries, some three hundred miles distant; while the duties of the Patrol would be so sensibly lightened as to release an appreciable number of mosquito-craft. There would in fact be fewer exits to watch; these would be more distant by many hours' steaming; and there would at once be placed at our disposal more forces with which to watch them.
On the other hand, it was an enterprise as liable to complete disaster as any that could easily have been imagined; and but little instruction and no great encouragement could be drawn from similar adventures in the past. Though scarcely comparable, perhaps, Nelson's expedition against Boulogne, while commanding in the Straits, had lamentably failed, resulting in the death of his close friend and valued subordinate, Captain Parker; while the sinking of block-ships both by Lieutenant Hobson at Santiago in the Spanish-American War, and by the Japanese at Port Arthur in their campaign against Russia, had shown how innumerable were the possible mischances that could rob such efforts of success.
Nor had our own experiences, during the war, against land-fortifications, been very satisfactory; and both Zeebrugge and Ostend, and particularly the former, were, as was well known, armed to the teeth. On the other hand, neither was a natural harbour. Each had been carved, as it were, out of the sand; and, given but a chance, nature was always ready to obliterate the channels upon which they depended. Let us consider for a moment the problem that they presented to an Admiralty desirous of sealing them.
Situated on the Belgian coast, some twelve miles apart and facing a little to the west of north, each was in reality but a sea-gate of the inland port of Bruges—the latter being the station to which the enemy destroyers and submarines were sent in parts from the German workshops; where they were assembled; and whence, by canal, they proceeded to sea by way of Zeebrugge and Ostend. Of these two exits, Zeebrugge, the northernmost, was considerably the nearer to Bruges and the more important—Zeebrugge being eight, while Ostend was eleven miles distant from their common base—and to receive an adequate impression of what was subsequently achieved there it is necessary to bear in mind its salient features.
Unlike Ostend, apart from its harbour, it possessed no civic importance, merely consisting of a few streets of houses clustering about its railway-station, locks, wharves, and store-houses, its sandy roadstead being guarded from the sea by an immensely powerful crescentic Mole. It was into this roadstead that the Bruges canal opened between heavy timbered breakwaters, having first passed through a sea-lock, some half a mile higher up. Between the two light-houses, each about twenty feet above high-water level, that stood upon the ends of these breakwaters, the canal was 200 yards wide, narrowing to a width, in the lock itself, of less than seventy feet.
Leading from the canal entrance to the tip of the Mole, on which stood a third light-house, and so out to sea, was a curved channel, about three-quarters of a mile long, kept clear by continual dredging; and this was protected both by a string of armed barges and by a system of nets on its shoreward side. It was in its great sea-wall, however, some eighty yards broad and more than a mile long, that Zeebrugge's chief strength resided; and this had been utilized, since the German occupation, to the utmost extent. Upon the seaward end of it, near the light-house, a battery of 6-inch guns had been mounted, other batteries and machine-guns being stationed at various points throughout its length. With a parapet along its outer side, some sixteen feet higher than the level of the rest of the Mole, it not only carried a railway-line but contained a seaplane shed, and shelters for stores and personnel. It was connected with the shore by a light wood and steel viaduct—a pile-work structure, allowing for the passage of the through-current necessary to prevent silting.
Emplaced upon the shore, on either side of this, were further batteries of heavy guns; while, to the north of the canal entrance, and at a point almost opposite to the tip of the Mole, was the Goeben Fort containing yet other guns covering both the Mole and the harbour. Under the lee of the parapet were dug-outs for the defenders, while, under of the lee of the Mole itself was a similar shelter for the enemy's submarines and destroyers. Nor did this exhaust the harbour's defences, since it was further protected not only by minefields but by natural shoals, always difficult to navigate, and infinitely more so in the absence of beacons.