The Attack on Zeebrugge and Ostend
At the Channel exit of the North Sea, a vigorous blow at the German submarine nests on the Belgian coast was finally struck on April 22-23, 1918, by the Dover Force under Vice Admiral Roger Keyes, in one of the most brilliant naval operations of the war. Of the two Belgian ports, Ostend and Zeebrugge, the latter was much more useful to the Germans because better protected, less exposed to batteries on the land front, and connected by a deeper canal with the main base 8 miles distant at Bruges. It was planned, however, to attack both ports, with the specific purpose of sinking 5 obsolete cruisers laden with concrete across the entrances to the canals. The operation required extensive reconstruction work on the vessels employed, a thorough course of training for personnel, suitable conditions of atmosphere, wind, and tide, and execution of complicated movements in accordance with a time schedule worked out to the minute.
At Ostend the attack failed owing to a sudden shift of wind which blew the smoke screen laid by motor boats back upon the two block ships, and so confused their approach that they were stranded and blown up west of the entrance.
At Zeebrugge, two of the three block ships, the Iphigenia and the Intrepid, got past the heavy guns on the mole, through the protective nets, and into the canal, where they were sunk athwart the channel by the explosion of mines laid all along their keels. To facilitate their entrance, the cruiser Vindictive (Commander Alfred Carpenter), fitted with a false deck and 18 brows or gangways for landing forces, had been brought up 25 minutes earlier—to be exact, at a minute past midnight—along the outer side of the high mole or breakwater enclosing the harbor. Here, in spite of a heavy swell and tide, she was held in position by the ex-ferryboat Daffodill, while some 300 or 400 bluejackets and marines swarmed ashore under a violent fire from batteries and machine guns and did considerable injury to the works on the mole. Fifteen minutes later, an old British submarine was run into a viaduct connecting the mole with the shore and there blown up, breaking a big gap in the viaduct. Strange to say, the Vindictive and her auxiliaries, after lying more than an hour in this dangerous position, succeeded in taking aboard all survivors from the landing party and getting safely away. Motor launches also rescued the crews of the blockships and the men—all of them wounded—from the submarine. One British destroyer and two motor boats were sunk, and the casualties were 176 killed, 412 wounded, and 49 missing. For a considerable period thereafter, all the larger German torpedo craft remained cooped up at Bruges, and the Zeebrugge blockships still obstructed the channel at the end of the war.
| ZEEBRUGGE HARBOR WITH GERMAN DEFENSES AND BRITISH BLOCKSHIPS |
Of all the anti-submarine measures employed, prior to the North Sea Barrage and the Zeebrugge attack, the adoption of the convoy system was undoubtedly the most effective in checking the loss of tonnage at the height of the submarine campaign. Familiar as a means of commerce protection in previous naval wars, the late adoption of the convoy system in the World War occasioned very general surprise. It was felt by naval authorities, however, that great delay would be incurred in assembling vessels, and in restricting the speed of all ships of a convoy to that of the slowest unit. Merchant captains believed themselves unequal to the task of keeping station at night in close order, with all lights out and frequent changes of course, and they thought that the resultant injuries would be almost as great as from submarines. Furthermore, so long as a large number of neutral vessels were at sea, it appeared a very doubtful expedient to segregate merchant vessels of belligerent nationality and thus distinguish them as legitimate prey.
| BRITISH, ALLIED AND NEUTRAL MERCHANT SHIPS DESTROYED BY GERMAN RAIDERS, SUBMARINES AND MINES |
| (Figures in thousands of gross tons) |
| The accompanying chart shows the merchant shipping captured or destroyed by Germany in the course of the war. After 1914 the losses were inflicted almost entirely by submarines, either by mine laying or by torpedoes. According to a British Admiralty statement of Dec. 5, 1919, the total loss during the war was 14,820,000 gross tons, of which 8,918,000 was British, and 5,918,000 was Allied or neutral. The United States lost 354,450 tons. During the same period the world's ship construction amounted to 10,850,000 tons, and enemy shipping captured and eventually put into Allied service totalled 2,393,000 tons, so that the net loss at the close of the war was about 1,600,000 tons. |
But in April, 1917, the situation was indeed desperate. The losses had become so heavy that of every 100 ships leaving England it was estimated that 25 never returned.[1] The American commander in European waters, Admiral Sims, reports Admiral Jellicoe as saying at this time, "They will win unless we can stop these losses—and stop them soon."[2] Definitely adopted in May following, the convoy system was in general operation before the end of the summer, with a notable decline of sinkings in both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The following table, based on figures from the Naval Annual for 1919, indicates the number of vessels sunk for each submarine destroyed. It shows the decreased effectiveness of submarine operations after September 1, 1917, which is taken as the date when the convoy system had come into full use, and brings out the crescendo of losses in 1917.
[Footnote 1: Brassey's Naval Annual, 1919.]