There was urgency but no hurry, a naval paradox which meant that while the Service fully realized the importance of bottling up the U-boats, it also understood that delay in executing the operation was preferable to a tragic anti-climax. Twice the armada set out and returned without having accomplished its purpose. On St George’s Day 1918 Keyes and his men showed their mettle in the most dashing naval exploit of the Great Conflict.
The cruiser Vindictive, accompanied by the Daffodil and the Iris, both Mersey ferry-boats, carried storming and demolition parties of bluejackets and ‘jollies,’ all picked men. The Vindictive, armed with various species of things Satanic, was to focus the attention of the enemy. The Intrepid, the Iphigenia, and the Thetis, cargoed with concrete, were to be sunk by explosives detonated from their respective bridges in the channels and entrances to Zeebrugge; the Brilliant and the Sirius were to perform similar operations at Ostend.
The night was hazy and overcast. Navigation in mined waters is not easy, but there were no casualties. As the Vindictive and her consorts headed for Zeebrugge Harbour they shrouded themselves in a smoke-screen so dense that the strongest search-light could not penetrate it. Everything went splendidly until the old cruiser and the ferry-boats were just off the mole. Then the wind turned Hun. The star-shells and search-lights that suddenly awakened, lighting up the harbour almost as though it were day, revealed the visitors to the enemy. Batteries thundered, machine-guns on the mole awoke to life, shells burst above, about, and on the incoming cruiser. In addition to the immediate din the boom of the guns of the supporting monitors and of siege guns in Flanders could be heard. The Vindictive held on her way through the inferno as though the reception was nothing more formidable than fireworks sent up to welcome her.
Commander Alfred F. B. Carpenter, standing on the exposed bridge of the cruiser, brought the bows of his ship alongside the mole, while the Daffodil ran a grave risk of bursting her boilers in a giant effort to shove her stern in. As the parapet of the mole was thirty feet high the Vindictive had been fitted with a temporary deck, from whence eighteen gangways were speedily run out. Before they had ordered their men to land both Colonel Elliot, of the Marines, and Captain H. C. Halahan, who was to lead the sailors, were lying dead. When the word was given the fighters moved down the brows in face of a withering fire, an operation made more difficult by the rolling of the ship in a heavy swell. Many were killed and wounded as they attempted to land. Lieutenant H. T. C. Walker, with one arm blown off, was trodden under before he could be dragged away. “Good luck!” he yelled, “good luck!”
The howitzer mounted forward in the Vindictive was fed and fought with uncanny precision, though two crews were wiped out. In the foretop a solitary man alone remained to work one of the Lewis guns, and he was grievously wounded. Near by, sitting in a little cabin, a mere landsman fired rockets for the guidance of the block-ships with as little concern as if he were managing a benefit performance at the Crystal Palace. Commander Carpenter’s coolness was infectious. There was no ‘panic party,’ real or fancied, on this mystery ship. The Daffodil, still holding the cruiser in position, was ordered to maintain her station and withhold landing her storming party. The Iris, owing to the failure of her grapnels to grip the parapet, fell astern of the cruiser, though Lieutenant-Commander Bradford and Lieutenant Hawkins clambered up and tried to fix them, sitting at work on the wall until they were shot dead.
The Thetis, with a nucleus crew—the others had been taken off by motor-boats—approached the mole, but failed to reach it. One of her propellers got entangled in a steel defence net. Becoming unmanageable, she struck the edge of a shoal and refused to budge. Shell after shell crashed against her old sides, but it was not until she was virtually a wreck that Commander R. S. Sneyd, D.S.O., exploded the charges in her hold and sank her. Then he signalled the course to the other ships.
The Intrepid and the Iphigenia came bowling along, sorry for their consort’s ill-luck but anxious only to get on with the immediate task in hand. Lieutenant S. Bonham-Carter beached the Intrepid on the muddy spot marked as her grave, blew a great hole in her side, and was smilingly told by the chief engineer, who had remained below, that the performance was eminently satisfactory. Surely that engineer was the embodiment of dignity and impudence, that peculiar combination that marks the true Briton. Lieutenant E. W. Billyard-Leake, in command of the Iphigenia, also entered the canal and carried out his task with splendid efficiency. Both ships were sunk about 200 yards up the fairway.
The officers and men of the block-ships were picked up with conspicuous gallantry by perky little motor launches that were all the while subjected to the attention of land batteries as they bustled about their business. Lieutenant Bonham-Carter sent away his boats before leaving the ship, trusting to a Carley float for his own salvation. The calcium flare, which is an integral part of this apparatus, showed him up to the Germans, who kindly turned on a machine-gun for his special benefit. Probably the smoke from his own vessel saved him. He was subsequently picked up by a launch.
The most dramatic incident was yet to come. Suddenly the shore end of the mole was lit up by a sheet of livid flame that seemed to sear the sky. C 3, an old submarine commanded by Lieutenant R. D. Sandford, R.N., had been jammed into the great piles that supported the jetty. No ordinary submarine this, but one loaded with several tons of high explosive. Her little crew of heroes got away in a boat before the charge was fired, but not before the craft had been driven right home. The explosion severed the communications of the mole with the shore, a break 60 feet wide being effected. The Germans crowding the wooden structure were blown to bits.
The landing parties, working under a galling fire, blew up buildings, destroyed gun-emplacements, and did as much damage as was possible before being recalled. Not a few of the enemy felt the cold steel of British bayonets, and at least two of their guns were captured and turned on them. Fifty minutes elapsed before the siren of the Vindictive sounded for the men to return.