Second Ostend Raid
Second Ostend Raid | |||||||
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Part of North Sea Operations, First World War | |||||||
Postwar wreck of HMS Vindictive at Ostend | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United Kingdom | Germany | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Roger Keyes |
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Strength | |||||||
1 blockship 4 destroyers 5 motor launches Aerial support | Shore defences | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
1 motor launch sunk 8 dead 10 missing 29 wounded |
3 killed 8 wounded |
The Second Ostend Raid (officially known as Operation VS) was the later of two failed attempts made during the spring of 1918 by the United Kingdom's
A successful blockade of these bases would have forced German
The
Despite its failure, the raid was presented in Britain as a courageous and daring gamble that came close to success. Three Victoria Crosses and numerous other gallantry medals were awarded to sailors who participated in the operation. British forces had moderate casualties in the raid, while German losses were minimal.
Bruges
After the
In 1915–1916, the German navy had developed Bruges from a small Flanders port into a major naval centre with large concrete bunkers to shelter U-boats, extensive barracks and training facilities for U-boat crews, and similar facilities for other classes of raiding warship.
Two years passed before the next attempt on the Ostend locks. The
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 among the force that had failed in April aided the planning with advice based on their experience on the previous operation. Among these volunteers were Lieutenant-Commander Henry Hardy of HMS Sirius, Commander Alfred Godsal, former captain of HMS Brilliant, and Brilliant's first lieutenant Victor Crutchley. These officers approached Commodore Hubert Lynes and Admiral Roger Keyes with a refined plan for a second attempt to block the port.[8] Other officers came forward to participate and Keyes and Lynes devised an operational plan to attack the canal mouth at Ostend once again.
Two obsolete cruisers—the aged HMS Sappho and the battered veteran of Zeebrugge, HMS Vindictive—were fitted out for the operation by having their non-essential equipment stripped out, their essential equipment reinforced and picked crews selected from volunteers.[8] 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 monitors under Keyes' command, eight destroyers under Lynes in HMS Faulknor and five motor launches.[9] Like the blockships, the launches 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.[9] This cover was vital because Ostend was protected by a very strong 11 in (280 mm) gun position known as the Tirpitz battery, named for the admiral.[10] 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.[11]
Attack on Ostend
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 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, 11 May 1918[17] |
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.[18] This careful study was, however, rendered worthless by a sudden fog which obliterated all sight of the shore.[19] 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.[16] 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.[20] 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 Vindictive's port propeller.[20]
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.[20][21] 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.[22]
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[23] |
Realising that further manoeuvring would be pointless, Crutchley ordered the charges to be blown and the ship evacuated.[9] 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 among the dead on the decks.[20] 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.[24]
ML254 then began slowly to leave the harbour mouth, carrying 38 survivors of Vindictive's 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 that 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.
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 Vindictive's badly wounded navigation officer Sir John Alleyne clinging to an upturned boat.[22] Hauling the men aboard, Bourke turned for the safety of the open sea, but as he did, two 6 in (150 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.[26] 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 bullet and shrapnel holes.[22]
Offshore, as Warwick's 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
Aftermath
Despite German statements that the blockage did not impede their operations,[29] the operation to close the Ostend canal was presented in Britain as 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 still could get through.[30] 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 overly optimistic and the channel there had not been totally closed. Small coastal submarines of the UC class 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.[29]
At Ostend, Vindictive did prevent larger warships passing through the channel, although smaller craft could still come and go. The larger warships in Bruges were trapped there for the remaining six months of the war; the town was captured by the Allies in October 1918. The Admiralty presented it as an example of careful planning by the Royal Navy, arguing that it provided a morale boost at one of the most critical moments of the war.[30] Three Victoria Crosses were awarded to men involved.[31] However, on a strategic scale the effects of the raids at Ostend and Zeebrugge on the Battle of the Atlantic were negligible.[29] The blockages at Ostend and Zeebrugge took several years to clear completely, not being totally removed until 1921.[22]
Notes
- ^ Ellis & Cox, p. 119
- ^ a b Messimer, p. 57
- ^ Messimer, p. 58
- ^ Buxton, p. 49
- ^ Buxton, p. 127
- ^ a b Perrett, p. 225
- ^ Messimer, p. 174
- ^ a b Snelling, p. 249
- ^ a b c Arthur, p. 364
- ^ Messimer, p. 173
- ^ Messimer, p. 170
- ^ Snelling, p. 250
- ^ Horne, p. 140
- ^ a b "British Casualties in Ostend Raid 47" (PDF). The New York Times. 13 May 1918. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 November 2021. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
- ^ "No. 30870". The London Gazette (Supplement). 27 August 1918. p. 10088.
- ^ a b Bennett, p. 276
- ^ Horne, p. 141
- ^ Messimer, p. 175
- ^ Snelling, p. 251
- ^ a b c d Snelling, p. 252
- ^ Commander Alfred Edmund Godsal Archived 25 November 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, retrieved 14 September 2007
- ^ a b c d Perrett, p. 226
- ^ Horne, p. 142
- ^ a b Snelling, p. 255
- ^ Arthur, p. 367
- ^ Snelling, p. 256
- ^ Snelling, p. 257
- ^ a b Karau, p. 212
- ^ a b c Tarrant, p. 62
- ^ a b Bennett, p. 278
- ^ "Victoria Cross Awards – Second Ostend Raid May 1918". Imperial War Museum & D C Thompson. Archived from the original on 23 December 2017. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
References
- Max Arthur (2004). Symbol of Courage. Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 0-283-07351-9.
- Geoffrey Bennett (1968). Naval Battles of the First World War. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-139087-5.
- Ian L. Buxton (1978). Big Gun Monitors: The History of the Design, Construction and Operation of the Royal Navy's Monitors. World Ship Society. ISBN 0-905617-06-1.
- John Ellis & Michael Cox (1993). The World War I Data Book. Aurum Press. ISBN 1-85410-766-6.
- Horne, Charles Francis, ed. (1923). Source Records of the Great War. Vol. 6. National Alumni, American Legion.
- Mark D. Karau (2003). Wielding the Dagger: The MarineKorps Flandern and the German War Effort, 1914–1918. Praeger. ISBN 0-313-32475-1.
- Dwight R. Messimer (2001). Find and Destroy; Antisubmarine Warfare in World War I. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis. ISBN 1-55750-447-4.
- Bryan Perrett (2003). For Valour. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-84662-0.
- Stephen Snelling (2002). The Naval VCs. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-1395-9.
- V. E. Tarrant (1989). The U-Boat Offensive 1914–1945. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-139087-5.
- "British Casualties in Ostend Raid 47" (PDF). The New York Times. 13 May 1918.
- "No. 30870". The London Gazette (Supplement). 27 August 1918. pp. 10083–10092. Sir Roger Keyes' dispatch