First Ostend Raid
Encyclopedia
The First Ostend Raid was the first of two attacks by the Royal Navy
on the German-held port of Ostend
during the late spring of 1918 during the First World War
. Ostend was attacked in conjunction with the neighbouring harbour of Zeebrugge
on 23 April in order to block the vital strategic port of Bruges
, situated 6 mi (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) inland and ideally sited to conduct raiding operations on the British coastline and shipping lanes. Bruges and its satellite ports were a vital part of the German plans in the battle of the Atlantic because Bruges was close to the troopship lanes across the English Channel
and allowed much quicker access to the Western Approaches
for the U-boat
fleet than their bases in Germany.
The plan of attack was for the British raiding force to sink two obsolete cruisers in the canal mouth at Ostend and three at Zeebrugge, thus preventing raiding ships leaving Bruges. The Ostend canal was the smaller and narrower of the two channels giving access to Bruges and so was considered a secondary target behind the Zeebrugge Raid
. Consequently, fewer resources were provided to the force assaulting Ostend. While the attack at Zeebrugge garnered some limited success, the assault on Ostend was a complete failure. The German marines who defended the port had taken careful preparations and drove the British assault ships astray, forcing the abortion of the operation at the final stage.
Three weeks after the failure of the operation, a second attack
was launched which proved more successful in sinking a blockship at the entrance to the canal but ultimately did not close off Bruges completely. Further plans to attack Ostend came to nothing during the summer of 1918, and the threat from Bruges would not be finally stopped until the last days of the war, when the town was liberated by Allied land forces.
. Bruges was situated 6 mi (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) inland at the centre of a network of canals which emptied into the sea at the small coastal towns of Zeebrugge
and Ostend
. This land barrier protected Bruges from bombardment by land or sea by all but the very largest calibre artillery and also secured it against raiding parties from the Royal Navy. Capitalising on the natural advantages of the port, the German Navy constructed extensive training and repair facilities at Bruges, equipped to provide support for several flotillas of destroyers, torpedo boats and U-boats.
By 1916, these raiding forces were causing serious concern in the Admiralty
as the proximity of Bruges to the British coast, to the troopship lanes across the English Channel and for the U-boats, to the Western Approaches; the heaviest shipping lanes in the World at the time. In the late spring of 1915, Admiral Reginald Bacon
had attempted without success to destroy the lock gates at Ostend with monitors
. This effort failed, and Bruges became increasingly important in the Atlantic Campaign, which reached its height in 1917. By early 1918, the Admiralty was seeking ever more radical solutions to the problems raised by unrestricted submarine warfare, including instructing the "Allied Naval and Marine Forces" department to plan attacks on U-boat bases in Belgium.
The "Allied Naval and Marine Forces" was a newly formed department created with the purpose of conducting raids and operations along the coastline of German-held territory. The organisation was able to command extensive resources from both the Royal and French
navies and was commanded by Admiral Roger Keyes and his deputy, Commodore Hubert Lynes
. Keyes, Lynes and their staff began planning methods of neutralising Bruges in late 1917 and by April 1918 were ready to put their plans into operation.
To block Bruges, Keyes and Lynes decided to conduct two raids on the ports through which Bruges had access to the sea. Zeebrugge was to be attacked by a large force consisting of three blockship
s and numerous supporting warships. Ostend was faced by a similar but smaller force under immediate command of Lynes. The plan was for two obsolete cruisers— and —to be expended in blocking the canal
which emptied at Ostend. These ships would be stripped to essential fittings and their lower holds and ballast filled with rubble and concrete. This would make them ideal barriers to access if sunk in the correct channel at the correct angle.
When the weather was right, the force would cross the English Channel
in darkness and attack shortly after midnight to coincide with the Zeebrugge Raid
a few miles up the coast. By coordinating their operations, the assault forces would stretch the German defenders and hopefully gain the element of surprise. Covering the Inshore Squadron would be heavy bombardment from an offshore squadron of monitors and destroyers as well as artillery support from Royal Marine artillery near Ypres
in Allied-held Flanders
. Closer support would be offered by several flotillas of motor launches, small torpedo boats and Coastal Motor Boats which would lay smoke screens to obscure the advancing blockships as well as evacuate the crews of the cruisers after they had blocked the channel.
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Artillery support was also provided by Royal Marine heavy artillery in Allied-held Flanders. The force was covered in the English Channel
by seven light cruisers and 16 destroyers, none of which saw action.
" battery, which carried 11 in (279.4 mm) guns. As a long range artillery duel developed, the cruisers began their advance towards the harbour mouth, searching for the marker buoys which indicated the correct passage through the diverse sandbanks which made navigation difficult along the Belgian coast.
It was at this stage that the attack began to go seriously wrong. Strong winds blowing off the land swept the smoke screen into the face of the advancing cruisers, blinding their commanders who attempted to navigate by dead reckoning
. The same wind disclosed the Inshore Squadron to the German defenders who immediately opened up a withering fire on the blockships. With their volunteer crews suffering heavy casualties, the commanders increased speed despite the poor visibility and continued groping through the narrow channels inshore, searching for the Stroom Bank buoy which directed shipping into the canal.
Commander Alfred Godsal led the assault in HMS Brilliant and it was he who stumbled into the most effective German counter-measure first. As Brilliant staggered through the murk, the lookout spotted the buoy ahead and Godsal headed directly for it, coming under even heavier fire as he did so. Passing the navigation marker at speed, the cruiser was suddenly brought to a halt with a juddering lurch, throwing men to the decks and sticking fast in deep mud well outside the harbour mouth. Before warnings could be relayed to the Sirius following up close behind, she too passed the buoy and her captain Lieutenant-Commander Henry Hardy was shocked to see Brilliant dead ahead. With no time to maneuvere, Sirius ploughed into the port quarter of Brilliant, the blockships settling into the mud in a tangle of wreckage.
Artillery and long-range machine gun
fire continued to riddle the wrecks and the combined crews were ordered to evacuate as the officers set the scuttling charges which would sink the blockships in their current, useless locations. As men scrambled down the side of the cruisers into Coastal Motor Boats which would relay them to the Offshore Squadron, destroyers moved closer to Ostend to cover the retreat and the monitors continued their heavy fire. Godsal was the last to leave, picked up by launch ML276 commanded by Lieutenant Rowley Bourke. With the main assault a complete failure, the blockading forces returned to Dover
and Dunkirk to assess the disaster.
When the forces had reassembled and the commanders conferred, the full facts of the failed operation were revealed. The German commander of Ostend had been better prepared than his counterpart at Zeebrugge and had recognised that without the navigation buoy no night attack on Ostend could be successful without a strong familiarity with the port, which none of the British navigators possessed. However, rather than simply remove the buoy, the German commander had ordered it moved 2400 yd (2,194.6 m) east of the canal mouth into the centre of a wide expanse of sandbanks, acting as a fatal decoy for any assault force.
A second operation
was planned for 10 May using the cruiser and proved more successful, but ultimately it also failed to completely close off Bruges. A third planned operation was never conducted as it rapidly became clear that the new channel carved at Zeebrugge was enough to allow access for U-boats, thus calling for an even larger double assault, which would stretch the resources of the "Allied Naval and Marine Forces" too far. British losses in the three futile attempts to close Bruges cost over 600 casualties and the loss of several ships but Bruges would remain an active raiding base for the German Navy until October 1918.
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
on the German-held port of Ostend
Ostend
Ostend is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke , Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the largest on the Belgian coast....
during the late spring of 1918 during the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Ostend was attacked in conjunction with the neighbouring harbour of Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with hotels, cafés, a marina and a beach.-Location:...
on 23 April in order to block the vital strategic port of Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
, situated 6 mi (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) inland and ideally sited to conduct raiding operations on the British coastline and shipping lanes. Bruges and its satellite ports were a vital part of the German plans in the battle of the Atlantic because Bruges was close to the troopship lanes across the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
and allowed much quicker access to the Western Approaches
Western Approaches
The Western Approaches is a rectangular area of the Atlantic ocean lying on the western coast of Great Britain. The rectangle is higher than it is wide, the north and south boundaries defined by the north and south ends of the British Isles, the eastern boundary lying on the western coast, and the...
for the U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
fleet than their bases in Germany.
The plan of attack was for the British raiding force to sink two obsolete cruisers in the canal mouth at Ostend and three at Zeebrugge, thus preventing raiding ships leaving Bruges. The Ostend canal was the smaller and narrower of the two channels giving access to Bruges and so was considered a secondary target behind the Zeebrugge Raid
Zeebrugge Raid
The Zeebrugge Raid, which took place on 23 April 1918, was an attempt by the British Royal Navy to neutralize the key Belgian port of Bruges-Zeebrugge...
. Consequently, fewer resources were provided to the force assaulting Ostend. While the attack at Zeebrugge garnered some limited success, the assault on Ostend was a complete failure. The German marines who defended the port had taken careful preparations and drove the British assault ships astray, forcing the abortion of the operation at the final stage.
Three weeks after the failure of the operation, a second attack
Second Ostend Raid
The Second Ostend Raid was the latter of two failed attempts made during the spring of 1918 by the United Kingdom's Royal Navy to block the channels accessing the Belgian port of Ostend as a part of their conflict with the German Empire during World War I...
was launched which proved more successful in sinking a blockship at the entrance to the canal but ultimately did not close off Bruges completely. Further plans to attack Ostend came to nothing during the summer of 1918, and the threat from Bruges would not be finally stopped until the last days of the war, when the town was liberated by Allied land forces.
Bruges
Bruges had been captured by the advancing German divisions during the Race for the Sea and had been rapidly identified as an important strategic asset by the German NavyGerman Navy
The German Navy is the navy of Germany and is part of the unified Bundeswehr .The German Navy traces its roots back to the Imperial Fleet of the revolutionary era of 1848 – 52 and more directly to the Prussian Navy, which later evolved into the Northern German Federal Navy...
. Bruges was situated 6 mi (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) inland at the centre of a network of canals which emptied into the sea at the small coastal towns of Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge
Zeebrugge is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with hotels, cafés, a marina and a beach.-Location:...
and Ostend
Ostend
Ostend is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke , Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the largest on the Belgian coast....
. This land barrier protected Bruges from bombardment by land or sea by all but the very largest calibre artillery and also secured it against raiding parties from the Royal Navy. Capitalising on the natural advantages of the port, the German Navy constructed extensive training and repair facilities at Bruges, equipped to provide support for several flotillas of destroyers, torpedo boats and U-boats.
By 1916, these raiding forces were causing serious concern in the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
as the proximity of Bruges to the British coast, to the troopship lanes across the English Channel and for the U-boats, to the Western Approaches; the heaviest shipping lanes in the World at the time. In the late spring of 1915, Admiral Reginald Bacon
Reginald Bacon
Admiral Sir Reginald Hugh Spencer Bacon, KCB, KCVO, DSO was an officer in the Royal Navy noted for his technical abilities who was described by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jacky Fisher, as the man "acknowledged to be the cleverest officer in the Navy".-Family:Reginald was born at Wiggonholt in...
had attempted without success to destroy the lock gates at Ostend with monitors
Monitor (warship)
A monitor was a class of relatively small warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns. They were used by some navies from the 1860s until the end of World War II, and saw their final use by the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.The monitors...
. This effort failed, and Bruges became increasingly important in the Atlantic Campaign, which reached its height in 1917. By early 1918, the Admiralty was seeking ever more radical solutions to the problems raised by unrestricted submarine warfare, including instructing the "Allied Naval and Marine Forces" department to plan attacks on U-boat bases in Belgium.
The "Allied Naval and Marine Forces" was a newly formed department created with the purpose of conducting raids and operations along the coastline of German-held territory. The organisation was able to command extensive resources from both the Royal and French
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
navies and was commanded by Admiral Roger Keyes and his deputy, Commodore Hubert Lynes
Hubert Lynes
Rear Admiral Hubert Lynes CB, CMG was a British admiral whose First World War service was notable for his direction of the Zeebrugge and Ostend raids designed to neutralise the German-held port of Bruges, which was used as a raiding base against the British coastline by German Navy surface and...
. Keyes, Lynes and their staff began planning methods of neutralising Bruges in late 1917 and by April 1918 were ready to put their plans into operation.
Planning
Blockship
A blockship is a ship deliberately sunk to prevent a river, channel, or canal from being used.It may either be sunk by a navy defending the waterway to prevent the ingress of attacking enemy forces, as in the case of HMS Hood at Portland Harbour; or it may be brought by enemy raiders and used to...
s and numerous supporting warships. Ostend was faced by a similar but smaller force under immediate command of Lynes. The plan was for two obsolete cruisers— and —to be expended in blocking the canal
Canal
Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...
which emptied at Ostend. These ships would be stripped to essential fittings and their lower holds and ballast filled with rubble and concrete. This would make them ideal barriers to access if sunk in the correct channel at the correct angle.
When the weather was right, the force would cross the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
in darkness and attack shortly after midnight to coincide with the Zeebrugge Raid
Zeebrugge Raid
The Zeebrugge Raid, which took place on 23 April 1918, was an attempt by the British Royal Navy to neutralize the key Belgian port of Bruges-Zeebrugge...
a few miles up the coast. By coordinating their operations, the assault forces would stretch the German defenders and hopefully gain the element of surprise. Covering the Inshore Squadron would be heavy bombardment from an offshore squadron of monitors and destroyers as well as artillery support from Royal Marine artillery near Ypres
Ypres
Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres and the villages of Boezinge, Brielen, Dikkebus, Elverdinge, Hollebeke, Sint-Jan, Vlamertinge, Voormezele, Zillebeke, and Zuidschote...
in Allied-held Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
. Closer support would be offered by several flotillas of motor launches, small torpedo boats and Coastal Motor Boats which would lay smoke screens to obscure the advancing blockships as well as evacuate the crews of the cruisers after they had blocked the channel.
Offshore Squadron
- Lord Clive-classLord Clive class monitorThe Lord Clive class, sometimes referred to as the General Wolfe class, of monitors were ships designed for shore bombardment and were constructed for the Royal Navy during the First World War.-Design:...
monitors with 12 in (304.8 mm) guns:
}, , and
- M15 class monitorM15 class monitorThe M15-class comprised fourteen monitors of the Royal Navy, all built and launched during 1915.- Design :The ships of this class were ordered in March, 1915, as part of the Emergency War Programme of ship construction...
s with 7.5 in (190.5 mm) guns:
}, ,
- Destroyers:
}, and
-
- French Navy , and
- Light craft:
- 4 torpedo boats, 4 French motor launches
Inshore Squadron
- Blockships:
},
- Destroyers:
}, (destroyer leader), , , , ,
- Light craft:
- 18 Motor LaunchMotor LaunchA Motor Launch is a small military vessel in British navy service. It was designed for harbour defence and submarine chasing or for armed high speed air-sea rescue....
es, 8 Coastal Motor BoatCoastal Motor BoatDuring the First World War, following a suggestion from three junior officers of the Harwich destroyer force that small motor boats carrying a torpedo might be capable of travelling over the protective minefields and attacking ships of the German Navy at anchor in their bases, the Admiralty gave...
s
- 18 Motor Launch
Artillery support was also provided by Royal Marine heavy artillery in Allied-held Flanders. The force was covered in the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
by seven light cruisers and 16 destroyers, none of which saw action.
Attack on Ostend
The assaults on Zeebrugge and Ostend were eventually launched on 23 April, after twice being delayed by poor weather. The Ostend force arrived off the port shortly before midnight and made final preparations; the monitors took up position offshore and the small craft moved forward to begin laying smoke. Covering the approach, the monitors opened fire on German shore defences, including the powerful "TirpitzAlfred von Tirpitz
Alfred von Tirpitz was a German Admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussia never had a major navy, nor did the other German states before the German Empire was formed in 1871...
" battery, which carried 11 in (279.4 mm) guns. As a long range artillery duel developed, the cruisers began their advance towards the harbour mouth, searching for the marker buoys which indicated the correct passage through the diverse sandbanks which made navigation difficult along the Belgian coast.
It was at this stage that the attack began to go seriously wrong. Strong winds blowing off the land swept the smoke screen into the face of the advancing cruisers, blinding their commanders who attempted to navigate by dead reckoning
Dead reckoning
In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating one's current position by using a previously determined position, or fix, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time, and course...
. The same wind disclosed the Inshore Squadron to the German defenders who immediately opened up a withering fire on the blockships. With their volunteer crews suffering heavy casualties, the commanders increased speed despite the poor visibility and continued groping through the narrow channels inshore, searching for the Stroom Bank buoy which directed shipping into the canal.
Commander Alfred Godsal led the assault in HMS Brilliant and it was he who stumbled into the most effective German counter-measure first. As Brilliant staggered through the murk, the lookout spotted the buoy ahead and Godsal headed directly for it, coming under even heavier fire as he did so. Passing the navigation marker at speed, the cruiser was suddenly brought to a halt with a juddering lurch, throwing men to the decks and sticking fast in deep mud well outside the harbour mouth. Before warnings could be relayed to the Sirius following up close behind, she too passed the buoy and her captain Lieutenant-Commander Henry Hardy was shocked to see Brilliant dead ahead. With no time to maneuvere, Sirius ploughed into the port quarter of Brilliant, the blockships settling into the mud in a tangle of wreckage.
Artillery and long-range machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
fire continued to riddle the wrecks and the combined crews were ordered to evacuate as the officers set the scuttling charges which would sink the blockships in their current, useless locations. As men scrambled down the side of the cruisers into Coastal Motor Boats which would relay them to the Offshore Squadron, destroyers moved closer to Ostend to cover the retreat and the monitors continued their heavy fire. Godsal was the last to leave, picked up by launch ML276 commanded by Lieutenant Rowley Bourke. With the main assault a complete failure, the blockading forces returned to Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
and Dunkirk to assess the disaster.
| "Their Lordships will share our disappointment at the defeat of our plans by the legitimate ruse of the enemy." |
| Admiral Keyes' report to the Admiralty. |
When the forces had reassembled and the commanders conferred, the full facts of the failed operation were revealed. The German commander of Ostend had been better prepared than his counterpart at Zeebrugge and had recognised that without the navigation buoy no night attack on Ostend could be successful without a strong familiarity with the port, which none of the British navigators possessed. However, rather than simply remove the buoy, the German commander had ordered it moved 2400 yd (2,194.6 m) east of the canal mouth into the centre of a wide expanse of sandbanks, acting as a fatal decoy for any assault force.
Aftermath
The assault at Zeebrugge a few miles away from Ostend was more successful and the blocking of the major channel did cause some consternation amongst the German forces in Bruges. The larger raiders could no longer leave the port, but smaller ships, including most submarines, were still able to traverse via Ostend. In addition, within hours a narrow channel had also been carved through Zeebrugge too, although British intelligence did not realise this for several weeks. The defeat at Ostend did not entirely dampen the exuberant British media and public reaction to Zeebrugge, but in the Admiralty and particularly in the Allied Naval and Marine Forces the failure to completely neutralise Bruges rankled.A second operation
Second Ostend Raid
The Second Ostend Raid was the latter of two failed attempts made during the spring of 1918 by the United Kingdom's Royal Navy to block the channels accessing the Belgian port of Ostend as a part of their conflict with the German Empire during World War I...
was planned for 10 May using the cruiser and proved more successful, but ultimately it also failed to completely close off Bruges. A third planned operation was never conducted as it rapidly became clear that the new channel carved at Zeebrugge was enough to allow access for U-boats, thus calling for an even larger double assault, which would stretch the resources of the "Allied Naval and Marine Forces" too far. British losses in the three futile attempts to close Bruges cost over 600 casualties and the loss of several ships but Bruges would remain an active raiding base for the German Navy until October 1918.