An attack of this nature, involving the use of very light craft, smoke screens, air-craft, and a disembarkation alongside a pier in an open seaway, necessarily depended for success upon a variety of factors. Sea, tides, wind, and visibility all played their part, a conjunction of ideal conditions being such that it could only occur at rare intervals, and then by chance. The ships and men having been selected, and the entire scheme rehearsed, perfected, and elaborated, ships and men settled down to the long wait. The men in the front-line trench waiting to go “over the bags” are not expansive in describing their sensations. Something of that tense grim anticipation should have found a place on board those crowded ships. Nevertheless, a spirit of pure picnic appears to have reigned, coupled with a discipline maintained by the awesome threat of not being allowed to participate in the “show” when it came off.
The day came at length, and on May 22nd—St. George’s Eve—the force proceeded from its place of assembly and, escorted by destroyers and air-craft, passed up Channel. It was a brave and unusual array that swept to the north-east as the light faded from the sky. Modern destroyers steamed on the wings of the columns, one of which flew the flag of Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., M.V.O., the old Vindictive in the van of the centre column with the Iris and Daffodil in tow, for all the world like veteran hound on the trail with her two puppies on her flanks; the five valiant blockships followed, each with specially detailed parties below stoking for all they were worth, that their old ships’ last voyage should be made at a seemly speed. A cloud of motor launches filled the waterways between the columns, and the two obsolete submarines, with their escorting picket-boat, proceeded in tow of destoyers.
Meanwhile, from far and wide below the misty horizon the storm was gathering. Monitors, supported by British and French destroyers, moved quietly towards their allotted stations preparatory to the attack. From the Grand Fleet’s eyrie in the far north to the base of the East Coast Striking Force, covering and supporting squadrons were under weigh as the night wore on. The destroyer flotillas swung into position like cats round a mouse-hole lest any of the enemy’s torpedo-craft should be tempted to bolt for the open when the attack began. The night air was resonant with the drone of aerial craft on the wing.
Once the motley little fleet stopped, while the surplus steaming parties were disembarked, with many a fierce hand-grip and the muttered “Good luck, mate!” that is the fighting man’s Ave atque vale! At the prearranged parting of the ways the force divided, steering separate courses for Ostend and Zeebrugge, where, under the respective commands of Commander Ion Hamilton Benn, M.P., R.N.V.R., and Captain Ralph Collins, R.N., the motor launches were already close inshore, trailing their smoke screens across the eyes of an uneasy and apprehensive enemy. A cloud of Coastal Motor Boats, under the command of Lieutenant Welman, R.N., had preceded them and were busily laying smoke floats and aids to navigation.
Half an hour before the Zeebrugge force arrived at its destination, star-shell began to curve skyward from the menaced harbour, fruitlessly searching the darkness and artificial mist that enveloped the mole and batteries. A little later, however, the wind (on which the smoke screen depended for its success) wavered, died down, and awoke lightly again from a contrary direction. Groping through the white billows of fog rolling back upon her, the Vindictive came out into a clear space lit by star-shell, and saw, a cable ahead, her destination. A single gun on the mole opened fired with a bark like a challenge, and the next instant loosed a hellish uproar of guns from ship and shore. Through a tornado of shrapnel and machine-gun fire, Captain Carpenter brought his veteran command alongside the mole, and before St. George’s Day was a minute old the Vindictive, blazing defiance from battery and top, was grating against her fenders in the swell that surged across the outer wall.
According to the carefully thought-out scheme, Lieutenant Campbell in the Daffodil thrust the bows of his ship against the Vindictive’s quarter and held her bodily alongside, enabling the already splintered and shattered “brows,” or gangways, to reach the mole.
By this time the point-blank fire had taken heavy toll amid the closely packed ranks awaiting disembarkation. Colonel Elliot and Major Cordner, the two senior officers of the Royal Marine storming parties, and Captain Halahan, Royal Navy, were already dead. Commander Valentine Gibbs brought the Iris alongside in the wake of the Vindictive and endeavoured to grapple; Lieutenant Hawkins, R.N., reached the mole, secured the grappling anchor, and died. He was instantly followed by Lieutenant-Commander Bradford, R.N., who was swung from a derrick with a second anchor, and succeeded in securing it before he, too, was killed, his riddled body falling into the water. A number of his men laboured with fruitless devotion to recover his corpse, one, Petty Officer Hallihan, giving his life in the attempt.
No sooner had the two foremost brows been launched from the Vindictive than the storming parties, led by Lieutenant Commanders A. L. Harrison and B. F. Adams, and Major B. G. Waller, Royal Marines, hurled themselves across. The men were burdened with Lewis guns, bombs, and demolition impedimenta; the scend of the swell caused the Vindicitve to plunge heavily, and the brows rocked above a dizzy 30 feet drop, rising and falling as the ship rolled. Yet the landing was accomplished in the face of a gusty machine-gun fire that swept the face of the mole like the breath of Death.
The first stormers of the mole found themselves on a pathway about nine feet wide inside, and about four feet below the parapet of the mole. Two German destroyers were alongside the mole on the harbour side, but showed no activity, and the handful of the enemy found on the mole who subsequently attempted to regain these vessels were killed, the destroyers being liberally bombed. One of these craft was torpedoed alongside by a Coastal Motor Boat.
Followed by his men, Lieutenant-Commander Adams captured the look-out station on the mole, and was joined here by Wing-Commander F. A. Brock, R.N.A.S., who had come in search of certain information, risking the hazard of that bullet-swept mole to gain it. This gallant and public-spirited officer was missed shortly after, and not seen again.