Second Ostend Raid
Encyclopedia
The Second Ostend Raid (officially known as Operation VS) 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
. The German Navy
had used the port since 1915 as a base for their U-boat
activities during the battle of the Atlantic and the strategic advantages conferred by the Belgian ports in the conflict were very important.
A successful blockade of these bases would force German submarines to operate out of more distant ports, such as Wilhelmshaven
, on the German coast. This would expose them for longer to Allied countermeasures and reduce the time they could spend raiding. The ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge
(which had been partially blocked in the Zeebrugge Raid
three weeks previously) provided sea access via canals for the major inland port of Bruges
. Bruges was used as a base for small warships and submarines. As it was 6 mi (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) inland, it was immune to most naval artillery fire and coastal raids, providing a safe harbour for training and repair.
The Ostend Raid was largely a failure as a result of heavy German resistance and British navigation
al difficulties in poor weather. In anticipation of a raid, the Germans had removed the navigation buoys and without them the British had difficulty finding the narrow channel into the harbour in poor weather. When they did discover the entrance, German resistance proved too strong for the operation to be completed as originally planned.
Despite its failure, the raid was presented in Britain as a courageous and daring gamble which came very close to success. Three Victoria Cross
es and numerous other gallantry medals were awarded to sailors who participated in the operation. British forces had moderate casualties in the raid, compared to minimal German losses.
captured much of Belgium following the battle of the Frontiers
in 1914, the Allied forces were left holding a thin strip of coastline to the west of the Yser
. The remainder of the Belgian coast came under the occupation of German Marine Divisions, including the important strategic ports of Antwerp and Bruges. Whilst Antwerp was a deep water port vulnerable to British attack from the sea, Bruges, sitting 6 mi (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) inland, was comparatively safe from naval bombardment or coastal raids. A network of canal
s connected Bruges with the coast at Ostend and Zeebrugge, through which small warships such as destroyer
s, light cruiser
s and submarine
s could travel and find a safe harbour from which to launch raids into the English Channel
and along the coasts of southeast England. U-boats could also depart from Bruges at night, cutting a day off the journey to the Western Approaches, more easily avoiding the North Sea Mine Barrage and allowing U-boat captains to gain familiarity with the net and mine defences of the English Channel, through which they had to pass to reach the main battlegrounds of the Atlantic.
In 1915–1916, the German Navy had developed Bruges from a small Flanders port into a major naval centre with large concrete bunkers for U-boats to shelter from nightly bombing raids, extensive barracks and training facilities for U-boat crews, and similar facilities for other classes of raiding warship. Bruges was therefore a vital asset in the German Navy's increasingly desperate struggle to prevent Britain from receiving food and matériel from the rest of the world. The significance of Bruges was not lost on British naval planners and two previous attempts to close the exit at Ostend, the smaller and narrower of the Bruges canals, had ended in failure. On 7 September 1915, four monitors
of the Lord Clive class
of the Dover Patrol
had bombarded the dockyard, while German coastal artillery returned fire. Only 14 rounds were fired by the British with the result that only part of the dockyard was set on fire. In a bombardment on 22 September 1917, the lock gates were hit causing the basin to drain at low water.
Two years passed before the next attempt on the Ostend locks. The First Ostend Raid
was conducted in tandem with the similar Zeebrugge Raid
led by Acting Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes on 23 April 1918; a large scale operation to block the wider canal at Zeebrugge. Both attacks largely failed, but whilst at Zeebrugge the operation came so close to success that it took several months for the British authorities to realise that it had been unsuccessful, at Ostend the attack had ended catastrophically. Both blockships intended to close off the canal had grounded over half a mile from their intended location and been scuttled by their crews under heavy artillery and long-range small arms fire, which caused severe casualties. Thus whilst Zeebrugge seemed to be blocked entirely, Ostend was open wide, nullifying any success which might have been achieved at the other port.
and Admiral Roger Keyes with a refined plan for a second attempt to block the port. Other officers came forward to participate as well and Keyes and Lynes devised an operational plan to attack the canal mouth at Ostend once more.
Two obsolete cruisers—the aged and the battered veteran of Zeebrugge, —were fitted out for the operation by having their non-essential equipment stripped out, their essential equipment reinforced and picked crews selected from volunteers. The ships' forward ballast tanks were filled with concrete to both protect their bows during the attack, and act as a more lasting obstacle once sunk. Vindictive was commanded by Godsal; her six officers and 48 crew were all volunteer veterans of the previous failed attempt by Brilliant. The two sacrificial cruisers were, as with the previous attack, accompanied by four heavy monitor
s under Keyes' command, eight destroyer
s under Lynes in and five motor launches. The launches, like the blockships, were all crewed by volunteers; mostly veterans of previous operations against the Belgian ports.
The plan was similar to the failed operation of three weeks previously. Weather dependent, under cover of a smoke screen, aerial bombardment and offshore artillery, the blockships would steam directly into the channel, turn sideways and scuttle themselves. Their advance would be covered by artillery fire against German shore positions from the heavy monitors at distance and at closer range by gunfire from the destroyers. This cover was vital because Ostend was protected by a very strong 11 in (279.4 mm) gun position known as the Tirpitz
battery. Once the operation had been concluded, the motor launches would draw along the seaward side of the blockships, remove the surviving crews and take them to the monitors for passage back to Britain. This operation was to thoroughly block the channel, and coupled with the blockage at Zeebrugge (which the British authorities believed to be fully closed), was to prevent use of Bruges by German raiding craft for months to come.
All preparations for the operation were completed by the first week of May and on 9 May the weather was nearly perfect for the attack. The British armada had collected at Dunkirk in Allied-held France and departed port shortly after dark. Two minutes after midnight, the force suffered a setback when Sappho suffered a minor boiler explosion and had to return to Dunkirk, unable to complete the journey. Although this accident halved the ability of the force to block Ostend, Lynes decided to continue the operation, and at 01:30, the force closed on the port, making the final preparations for the assault. Torpedoes fired from motor launches demolished machine gun posts on the ends of the piers marking the canal, beginning the attack. Ten heavy bombers of the newly-formed Royal Air Force
then dropped incendiary bombs on German positions, but did not cause significant damage. In spite of the fog, air operations continued as planned under the overall direction of Brigadier-General Charles Lambe. At the same time as the aerial bombardment began the long range artillery of the Royal Marine Artillery opened fire on Ostend from Allied positions around the Belgian town of Ypres
.
In preparation for the attack, Godsal and Lynes had carefully consulted available charts of Ostend following the previous operation's failure caused by German repositioning of navigation buoys. This careful study was, however, rendered worthless by a sudden fog which obliterated all sight of the shore. Steaming back and forth across the harbour entrance in the fog as the monitors and German shore batteries engaged in a long range artillery duel over the lost cruiser, Godsal looked for the piers marking the entrance to the canal. As he searched, two German torpedo boats sailed from Ostend to intercept the cruiser, but in the heavy fog they collided and, disabled, limped back to shore. During this period, Godsal's motor launches lost track of the cruiser in the murk, and it was not until the third pass that Vindictive found the entrance, accompanied by only one of the launches. Heading straight into the mouth of the canal, guided by a flare dropped by the launch, Vindictive became an instant target of the German batteries and was badly damaged, the shellfire exacerbating the damage suffered in the earlier Zeebrugge Raid and seriously damaging Vindictives port propeller.
Alfred Godsal intended to swing Vindictive broadside on into the channel mouth, but as he ordered the turn, the right screw broke down completely, preventing the cruiser from fully turning. Before this was realised on the cruiser's bridge, a shell fired from a gun battery on shore struck Commander Godsal directly, killing him instantly and shattering the bridge structure. Most of the bridge crew were killed or wounded by the blast, including First Lieutenant Victor Crutchley, who staggered to the wheel and attempted to force the ship to make the full turn into the channel. The damaged propeller made this maneuver impossible and the drifting cruiser floated out of the channel and became stuck on a sandbank outside, only partially obscuring the entranceway.
Realising that further manoeuvring would be pointless, Crutchley ordered the charges to be blown and the ship evacuated. As Engineer-Lieutenant William Bury prepared to detonate the scuttling charges, Crutchley took a survey of the ship and ordered all survivors to take to the boats on the seaward side of the wreck. As men scrambled down the ship's flank away from the shells and machine-gun bullets spitting from the harbour entrance, Crutchley made a final survey with an electric torch looking for wounded men amongst the dead on the decks. Satisfied that none alive remained aboard, he too leapt onto the deck of a motor launch bobbing below. The rescue mission itself, however, was not going as planned. Of the five motor launches attached to the expedition, only one had remained with the cruiser in the fog; ML254 commanded by Lieutenant Geoffrey Drummond
. The launch—like the cruiser—was riddled with bullets; her commander was wounded and her executive officer dead. Despite her sheltered position behind the cruiser, fire from shore continued to enfilade the launch and a number of those aboard, including Lieutenant Bury, suffered broken ankles as they jumped onto the heaving deck.
ML254 then began slowly to leave the harbour mouth, carrying 38 survivors of Vindictives 55 crewmen huddled on deck, where they remained exposed to machine gun fire from the shore. As Drummond turned his boat seawards and proceeded back to the offshore squadron which was still engaged in an artillery duel with the German defenders, one of the missing launches, ML276 passed her, having caught up with the lost cruiser at this late stage. Drummond called to ML276s commander—Lieutenant Rowley Bourke—that he believed there were still men in the water and Bourke immediately entered the harbour to search for them. Drummond's launch proceeded to the rendezvous with the destroyer , overweighted and sinking, so severe was the damage she had suffered.
Hearing cries, Bourke entered the harbour but could not identify the lost men. Despite heavy machine gun and artillery fire, Bourke returned to the scene of the wreck four times before they discovered two sailors and Vindictives badly wounded navigation officer Sir John Alleyne
clinging to an upturned boat. Hauling the men aboard, Bourke turned for the safety of the open sea, but as he did, two 6 in (152.4 mm) shells struck the launch, smashing the lifeboat and destroying the compressed air tanks. This stalled the engines and caused a wave of highly corrosive acid to wash over the deck, causing severe damage to the launch's hull and almost suffocating the unconscious Alleyne. Under heavy fire, the boat staggered out of the harbour and was taken under tow by another late-arriving motor launch. After the operation, Bourke's launch was discovered to have 55 separate bullet and shrapnel holes.
Offshore, as Warwicks officers, Keyes' staff and the survivors of Vindictive gathered on the destroyer's deck to discuss the operation, an enormous explosion rocked the ship causing her to list severely. Warwick had struck one of the defensive mines off Ostend and was now in danger of sinking herself. The destroyer was lashed alongside and survivors from Warwick, Vindictive and ML254 transferred across to the sound ship. This ragged ensemble did not reach Dover
until early the following morning, with Warwick still afloat. British casualties were reported in the immediate aftermath as being eight dead, ten missing and 29 wounded. German losses were three killed and eight wounded.
had been able to pass through the channel as early as the morning after the Zeebrugge Raid and German naval engineers were able to dredge channels around the blockages at both ports over the coming weeks.
At Ostend, Vindictive did prevent larger warships passing through the channel, although smaller craft could still come and go at will. The larger warships in Bruges were trapped there for the remaining months of the war; the town was captured by the Allies in October 1918. The blockages at Ostend and Zeebrugge took several years to clear completely, not being totally removed until 1921. On a strategic scale the effects of the raids at Ostend and Zeebrugge on the battle of the Atlantic were negligible. Despite this, in Britain the Ostend Raid was feted as a success. Three Victoria Cross
es and a host of lesser awards were given to the men involved. The Admiralty presented it as a fine example of daring and careful planning from the Royal Navy, providing a valuable morale boost at one of the most critical moments of the war
.
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...
to block the channels accessing the Belgian 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....
as a part of their conflict with the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
during World War I
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...
. The German Navy
Kaiserliche Marine
The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...
had used the port since 1915 as a base for their 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...
activities during the battle of the Atlantic and the strategic advantages conferred by the Belgian ports in the conflict were very important.
A successful blockade of these bases would force German submarines to operate out of more distant ports, such as Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...
, on the German coast. This would expose them for longer to Allied countermeasures and reduce the time they could spend raiding. The ports of Ostend and 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:...
(which had been partially blocked in 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...
three weeks previously) provided sea access via canals for the major inland 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....
. Bruges was used as a base for small warships and submarines. As it was 6 mi (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) inland, it was immune to most naval artillery fire and coastal raids, providing a safe harbour for training and repair.
The Ostend Raid was largely a failure as a result of heavy German resistance and British navigation
Navigation
Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...
al difficulties in poor weather. In anticipation of a raid, the Germans had removed the navigation buoys and without them the British had difficulty finding the narrow channel into the harbour in poor weather. When they did discover the entrance, German resistance proved too strong for the operation to be completed as originally planned.
Despite its failure, the raid was presented in Britain as a courageous and daring gamble which came very close to success. Three Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
es and numerous other gallantry medals were awarded to sailors who participated in the operation. British forces had moderate casualties in the raid, compared to minimal German losses.
Bruges
After the German ArmyGerman Army (German Empire)
The German Army was the name given the combined land forces of the German Empire, also known as the National Army , Imperial Army or Imperial German Army. The term "Deutsches Heer" is also used for the modern German Army, the land component of the German Bundeswehr...
captured much of Belgium following the battle of the Frontiers
Battle of the Frontiers
The Battle of the Frontiers was a series of battles fought along the eastern frontier of France and in southern Belgium shortly after the outbreak of World War I. The battles represented a collision between the military strategies of the French Plan XVII and the German Schlieffen Plan...
in 1914, the Allied forces were left holding a thin strip of coastline to the west of the Yser
Yser
The Yser is a river that finds its origin in the north of France, enters Belgium and flows into the North Sea at the town of Nieuwpoort.-In France:The source of the Yser is in Buysscheure, in the Nord département of northern France...
. The remainder of the Belgian coast came under the occupation of German Marine Divisions, including the important strategic ports of Antwerp and Bruges. Whilst Antwerp was a deep water port vulnerable to British attack from the sea, Bruges, sitting 6 mi (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) inland, was comparatively safe from naval bombardment or coastal raids. A network of 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:...
s connected Bruges with the coast at Ostend and Zeebrugge, through which small warships such as destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
s, light cruiser
Light cruiser
A light cruiser is a type of small- or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck...
s and submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
s could travel and find a safe harbour from which to launch raids into 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 along the coasts of southeast England. U-boats could also depart from Bruges at night, cutting a day off the journey to the Western Approaches, more easily avoiding the North Sea Mine Barrage and allowing U-boat captains to gain familiarity with the net and mine defences of the English Channel, through which they had to pass to reach the main battlegrounds of the Atlantic.
In 1915–1916, the German Navy had developed Bruges from a small Flanders port into a major naval centre with large concrete bunkers for U-boats to shelter from nightly bombing raids, extensive barracks and training facilities for U-boat crews, and similar facilities for other classes of raiding warship. Bruges was therefore a vital asset in the German Navy's increasingly desperate struggle to prevent Britain from receiving food and matériel from the rest of the world. The significance of Bruges was not lost on British naval planners and two previous attempts to close the exit at Ostend, the smaller and narrower of the Bruges canals, had ended in failure. On 7 September 1915, four 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...
of the Lord Clive class
Lord Clive class monitor
The 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:...
of the Dover Patrol
Dover Patrol
The Dover Patrol was a Royal Navy command of the First World War, notable for its involvement in the Zeebrugge Raid on 22 April 1918. The Dover Patrol formed a discrete unit of the Royal Navy based at Dover and Dunkirk for the duration of the First World War...
had bombarded the dockyard, while German coastal artillery returned fire. Only 14 rounds were fired by the British with the result that only part of the dockyard was set on fire. In a bombardment on 22 September 1917, the lock gates were hit causing the basin to drain at low water.
Two years passed before the next attempt on the Ostend locks. The First Ostend Raid
First Ostend Raid
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...
was conducted in tandem with the similar 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...
led by Acting Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes on 23 April 1918; a large scale operation to block the wider canal at Zeebrugge. Both attacks largely failed, but whilst at Zeebrugge the operation came so close to success that it took several months for the British authorities to realise that it had been unsuccessful, at Ostend the attack had ended catastrophically. Both blockships intended to close off the canal had grounded over half a mile from their intended location and been scuttled by their crews under heavy artillery and long-range small arms fire, which caused severe casualties. Thus whilst Zeebrugge seemed to be blocked entirely, Ostend was open wide, nullifying any success which might have been achieved at the other port.
Planning
As British forces on the southeast coast of Britain regrouped, remanned and repaired following heavy losses at Zeebrugge, Keyes planned a return to Ostend with the intention of blocking the canal and consequently severing Bruges from the sea, closing the harbour and trapping the 18 U-boats and 25 destroyers present for months to come. Volunteers from amongst the force which had failed in April aided the planning with advice based on bitter experience. Amongst these volunteers were Lieutenant-Commander Henry Hardy of , Commander Alfred Godsal, former captain of , and Brilliants first lieutenant Victor Crutchley. These officers approached Commodore Hubert LynesHubert 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...
and Admiral Roger Keyes with a refined plan for a second attempt to block the port. Other officers came forward to participate as well and Keyes and Lynes devised an operational plan to attack the canal mouth at Ostend once more.
Two obsolete cruisers—the aged and the battered veteran of Zeebrugge, —were fitted out for the operation by having their non-essential equipment stripped out, their essential equipment reinforced and picked crews selected from volunteers. The ships' forward ballast tanks were filled with concrete to both protect their bows during the attack, and act as a more lasting obstacle once sunk. Vindictive was commanded by Godsal; her six officers and 48 crew were all volunteer veterans of the previous failed attempt by Brilliant. The two sacrificial cruisers were, as with the previous attack, accompanied by four heavy monitor
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...
s under Keyes' command, eight destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
s under Lynes in and five motor launches. The launches, like the blockships, were all crewed by volunteers; mostly veterans of previous operations against the Belgian ports.
The plan was similar to the failed operation of three weeks previously. Weather dependent, under cover of a smoke screen, aerial bombardment and offshore artillery, the blockships would steam directly into the channel, turn sideways and scuttle themselves. Their advance would be covered by artillery fire against German shore positions from the heavy monitors at distance and at closer range by gunfire from the destroyers. This cover was vital because Ostend was protected by a very strong 11 in (279.4 mm) gun position known as the Tirpitz
Alfred 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. Once the operation had been concluded, the motor launches would draw along the seaward side of the blockships, remove the surviving crews and take them to the monitors for passage back to Britain. This operation was to thoroughly block the channel, and coupled with the blockage at Zeebrugge (which the British authorities believed to be fully closed), was to prevent use of Bruges by German raiding craft for months to come.
Attack on Ostend
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
then dropped incendiary bombs on German positions, but did not cause significant damage. In spite of the fog, air operations continued as planned under the overall direction of Brigadier-General Charles Lambe. At the same time as the aerial bombardment began the long range artillery of the Royal Marine Artillery opened fire on Ostend from Allied positions around the Belgian town of 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...
.
| "The star-shells paled and were lost as they sank in it; the beams of the searchlights seemed to break off short upon its front. It blinded the observers of the great batteries when suddenly, upon the warning of the explosions, the guns roared into action. It was then that those on the destroyers became aware that what had seemed to be merely smoke was wet and cold, that the rigging was beginning to drip, that there were no longer any stars – a sea-fog had come on." |
| British Admiralty Statement on the Ostend Raid. |
In preparation for the attack, Godsal and Lynes had carefully consulted available charts of Ostend following the previous operation's failure caused by German repositioning of navigation buoys. This careful study was, however, rendered worthless by a sudden fog which obliterated all sight of the shore. Steaming back and forth across the harbour entrance in the fog as the monitors and German shore batteries engaged in a long range artillery duel over the lost cruiser, Godsal looked for the piers marking the entrance to the canal. As he searched, two German torpedo boats sailed from Ostend to intercept the cruiser, but in the heavy fog they collided and, disabled, limped back to shore. During this period, Godsal's motor launches lost track of the cruiser in the murk, and it was not until the third pass that Vindictive found the entrance, accompanied by only one of the launches. Heading straight into the mouth of the canal, guided by a flare dropped by the launch, Vindictive became an instant target of the German batteries and was badly damaged, the shellfire exacerbating the damage suffered in the earlier Zeebrugge Raid and seriously damaging Vindictives port propeller.
Alfred Godsal intended to swing Vindictive broadside on into the channel mouth, but as he ordered the turn, the right screw broke down completely, preventing the cruiser from fully turning. Before this was realised on the cruiser's bridge, a shell fired from a gun battery on shore struck Commander Godsal directly, killing him instantly and shattering the bridge structure. Most of the bridge crew were killed or wounded by the blast, including First Lieutenant Victor Crutchley, who staggered to the wheel and attempted to force the ship to make the full turn into the channel. The damaged propeller made this maneuver impossible and the drifting cruiser floated out of the channel and became stuck on a sandbank outside, only partially obscuring the entranceway.
Evacuation of HMS Vindictive
| "The engineer, who was the last to leave the engine-room, blew the main charges by the switch installed aft. Those on board felt the old ship shrug as the explosive tore the bottom plates and the bulkheads from her; she sank about six feet and lay upon the bottom of the channel. Her work was done." |
| British Admiralty Statement on the Ostend Raid. |
Realising that further manoeuvring would be pointless, Crutchley ordered the charges to be blown and the ship evacuated. As Engineer-Lieutenant William Bury prepared to detonate the scuttling charges, Crutchley took a survey of the ship and ordered all survivors to take to the boats on the seaward side of the wreck. As men scrambled down the ship's flank away from the shells and machine-gun bullets spitting from the harbour entrance, Crutchley made a final survey with an electric torch looking for wounded men amongst the dead on the decks. Satisfied that none alive remained aboard, he too leapt onto the deck of a motor launch bobbing below. The rescue mission itself, however, was not going as planned. Of the five motor launches attached to the expedition, only one had remained with the cruiser in the fog; ML254 commanded by Lieutenant Geoffrey Drummond
Geoffrey Drummond
Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Heneage Drummond VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.Drummond was born on 25 January 1886...
. The launch—like the cruiser—was riddled with bullets; her commander was wounded and her executive officer dead. Despite her sheltered position behind the cruiser, fire from shore continued to enfilade the launch and a number of those aboard, including Lieutenant Bury, suffered broken ankles as they jumped onto the heaving deck.
ML254 then began slowly to leave the harbour mouth, carrying 38 survivors of Vindictives 55 crewmen huddled on deck, where they remained exposed to machine gun fire from the shore. As Drummond turned his boat seawards and proceeded back to the offshore squadron which was still engaged in an artillery duel with the German defenders, one of the missing launches, ML276 passed her, having caught up with the lost cruiser at this late stage. Drummond called to ML276s commander—Lieutenant Rowley Bourke—that he believed there were still men in the water and Bourke immediately entered the harbour to search for them. Drummond's launch proceeded to the rendezvous with the destroyer , overweighted and sinking, so severe was the damage she had suffered.
Hearing cries, Bourke entered the harbour but could not identify the lost men. Despite heavy machine gun and artillery fire, Bourke returned to the scene of the wreck four times before they discovered two sailors and Vindictives badly wounded navigation officer Sir John Alleyne
Alleyne Baronets
The Alleyne Baronetcy, of Four Hills in Barbados, is a title in the Baronetage of Great Britain. It was created on 6 April 1769 for John Alleyne, Speaker of the Barbados House of Assembly...
clinging to an upturned boat. Hauling the men aboard, Bourke turned for the safety of the open sea, but as he did, two 6 in (152.4 mm) shells struck the launch, smashing the lifeboat and destroying the compressed air tanks. This stalled the engines and caused a wave of highly corrosive acid to wash over the deck, causing severe damage to the launch's hull and almost suffocating the unconscious Alleyne. Under heavy fire, the boat staggered out of the harbour and was taken under tow by another late-arriving motor launch. After the operation, Bourke's launch was discovered to have 55 separate bullet and shrapnel holes.
Offshore, as Warwicks officers, Keyes' staff and the survivors of Vindictive gathered on the destroyer's deck to discuss the operation, an enormous explosion rocked the ship causing her to list severely. Warwick had struck one of the defensive mines off Ostend and was now in danger of sinking herself. The destroyer was lashed alongside and survivors from Warwick, Vindictive and ML254 transferred across to the sound ship. This ragged ensemble did not reach 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...
until early the following morning, with Warwick still afloat. British casualties were reported in the immediate aftermath as being eight dead, ten missing and 29 wounded. German losses were three killed and eight wounded.
Aftermath
Despite German claims that the blockage did not impede their operations, the operation to close the Ostend canal seemed to have been at least partially successful. The channel was largely blocked and so Bruges was ostensibly closed off from the open sea, even if the position of the blockship meant that smaller ships could get through. In fact, the entire operation had been rendered moot before it even began, due to events at the wider canal in Zeebrugge. British assessments of that operation had proven optimistic and the channel there had not been properly closed. Small coastal submarines of the UC classGerman Type UC II submarine
Type UC II minelaying submarines were used by the Kaiserliche Marine during the World War I. They displaced 417 tons, carried 7 torpedoes and up to 18 mines...
had been able to pass through the channel as early as the morning after the Zeebrugge Raid and German naval engineers were able to dredge channels around the blockages at both ports over the coming weeks.
At Ostend, Vindictive did prevent larger warships passing through the channel, although smaller craft could still come and go at will. The larger warships in Bruges were trapped there for the remaining months of the war; the town was captured by the Allies in October 1918. The blockages at Ostend and Zeebrugge took several years to clear completely, not being totally removed until 1921. On a strategic scale the effects of the raids at Ostend and Zeebrugge on the battle of the Atlantic were negligible. Despite this, in Britain the Ostend Raid was feted as a success. Three Victoria Cross
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....
es and a host of lesser awards were given to the men involved. The Admiralty presented it as a fine example of daring and careful planning from the Royal Navy, providing a valuable morale boost at one of the most critical moments of the war
Spring Offensive
The 1918 Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht , also known as the Ludendorff Offensive, was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during World War I, beginning on 21 March 1918, which marked the deepest advances by either side since 1914...
.