The operation against Ostend was not so successful. Owing to the change of wind the Sirius and the Brilliant were revealed by means of the calcium flares lit to guide them, which had previously been hidden by the smoke-cloud. These lights were promptly extinguished by the enemy’s gunners. Unable to find the entrance, the two ships grounded east of the piers, and were there sunk.
Taking all things into consideration, the casualties in these two dare-devil actions were small, although they totalled over 600. Vice-Admiral Keyes, who was present in the destroyer Warwick, was knighted in recognition of his distinguished service, and Commander Alfred F. B. Carpenter was promoted to Captain and received the V.C. Sandford, of C 3, Lieutenant P. T. Dean, R.N.V.R., who performed wonders in rescuing men from the Intrepid and the Iphigenia, Captain E. Bamford, D.S.O., who landed three platoons of the Marines on the mole, Sergeant N. A. Finch, who fought in the foretop of the Vindictive, and Able Seaman A. E. Mackenzie, who worked a machine-gun in an exposed position, were also decorated with the Victoria Cross.
Battle-scarred and holed in many places, the Vindictive was patched up at Dover for a final exploit. The British Navy does not like leaving things half done. The affair at Ostend had miscarried through sheer bad luck. It must be completed. In the early hours of the morning of the 10th May, 1918, the brave old cruiser, now rigged up as a block-ship, faced 15–in. guns and found the entrance, though twice she lost her way. She got a terrible pasting from the defenders of the port. The after-control was wiped out, the conning-tower struck by a heavy shell. On reaching the eastern pier she swung round to an angle of about forty degrees to the structure, the charges were fired, and she settled down. The casualties reached 136 officers and men.
That these stirring episodes in the War in the Underseas aided and abetted in the final surrender of the U-boats in November 1918 cannot be doubted.
CHAPTER XVI
The Great Collapse
“The Board of Admiralty desire to express to the officers and men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines on the completion of their great work their congratulations on a triumph to which history knows no parallel.”
They came in flying the White Ensign, which was the cleanest thing about them. Only a few weeks before the commanders of these same bedraggled U-boats had boasted of defying the world; now they had been brought to heel like a pack of whipped curs. German officers and men were taking part in the biggest collapse in naval history; their conquerors in the greatest triumph. At Beatty’s bidding they meekly surrendered their piratical craft at the rate of a score a day for a week or more. The bluejackets at Harwich rechristened the Stour “U-boat Avenue” when the captives were given floating-room in its sluggish waters.
Entry of the Surrendered U-Boats into Harwich, November 20, 1918
E. S. Hodgson
On the 9th November, 1918, Sir Eric Geddes gave it as his opinion that the High Sea Fleet had “gone mad” because it “dared not fight” and because it “had not got a good cause.” That is the psychological explanation, true to fact and experience. Its moral broke down, which is another way of saying that it lost its nerve. When ordered to put to sea on the 28th October, 1918, ostensibly for manœuvres, but in reality as a gambler’s last hazardous throw of the dice, the German Fleet mutinied in a far more thorough manner than had obtained a few months previously.