The Zeebrugge Raid occurred on 23 April 1918 during the North Sea naval campaign of World War I when the British Royal Navy launched a raid on the Imperial German Navy submarine base at Zeebrugge, Belgium. The operation failed to stop the movement of U-boats, but it boosted the morale of the British public, who longed for heroic naval action.
Background[]
The Battle of Jutland in 1916 was the last significant encounter between British and German surface warships in World War I. Germany adopted unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied merchant shipping from Norway from February 1917. The U-boats failed to wint he war, but Allied shipping losses remained high. The British tried and failed to stop the U-boats from breaking into the Atlantic by placing barrages across the English Channel and in the North Sea between Britain and Norway.
Raid[]
In late 1917, acting Vice Admiral Roger Keyes, considered one fo the British Royal Navy's most capable leaders, was assigned the task of improving the defense of the eastern entrance to the English Channel against German submarines.
Since 1915, a barrage of antisubmarine nets and mines had been maintained between the English and French coasts, but U-boats sailing from Germany's North Sea ports and from bases at Zeebrugge and Ostende in Belgium continued to filter through this flimsy obstacle at will. To counter these attacks, Keyes increased the number of mines along the barrier, stationed 70 trawlers and drifters (small fishing vessels) as lookouts on the surface, and backed them up with patrols by destroyers (generally used to defend larger warships) based at Dover.
Keyes was incensed when, in mid-February 1918, German destroyers attacked the English Channel barrier by night, sinking eight drifters and trawlers with impunity. There was a possibility that the barrier might become unsustainable. Keyes responded by pressing for a raid on Zeebrugge and Ostende to stop the movement of U-boats at its source.
Audacious plan[]
The German submarine pens were situated inland at the Belgian city of Bruges; from there, they were moved by canal to the coastal ports and then the opean sea. The planned raid would sink "blockships" - vessels that were deliberately sunk to impede the passage of other ships - in the mouths of the canals, denying the U-boats passage to the sea. Inevitably, the Belgian ports would be heavily defended, but the British were convinced that such a raid was feasible.
Various vessels were assembled for the operation, including 19th-century cruisers, ferry boats, motor launches, and submarines. To maintain secrecy, seamen were invited to volunteer for the mission without being told what it entailed. The plan for the attack on Zeebrugge was complex, ingenious, and fallible. Under cover of a smoke screen, the elderly cruiser HMS Vindictive and two ferries would advance to the breakwater at the harbor entrance so marines and seamen could disembark. This landing party would then silence the German guns defending the port, while submarines packed with explosives would demolish the bridge connecting teh breakwater to the land, preventing the Germans from sending in reinforcements. Then three antiquated cruisers packed with rubble and concrete would be sunk by their crews at the entrance to the canal. At the same time, a similar plan, involving two blockships, was to be executed at Ostende.
Night attack[]
After two false starts, when the raids were aborted due to bad weather, Keyes' raiding force set sail on 22 April, with the admiral sailing on board the destroyer HMS Warwick. The Ostende attack was abandoned when it was found that buoys put in place to guide the ships to the port entrance had been destroyed by the Germans, but the raid on Zeebrugge went ahead.
Just after midnight, Vindictive and the ferries Iris and Daffodil approached the breakwater. The sea was lit up by German flares and searchlights, but the ships were hidden by a bank of smoke laid down by British destroyers and motor launches. Vindictive emerged from this protective cloud within a few hundred yards of the breakwater. It was then raked by fire from a whole range of German guns at point-blank range.
Marines and seamen who were crowded onto the deck in preparation for the landing suffered heavy casualties. Some men gallantly mounted latters onto the breakwater but, pinned down by Gemran machine guns, they stood no change of reaching the heavy gun emplacements that were their main objective. One of the British submarines succeeded in blowing up the link between the breakwater and the shore. Vindictive had been armed with howitzers and mortars to provide additional fire support for the landing party, but its position was soon untenable. After less than an hour, the British ships were forced to withdraw, loaded with dead and wounded seamen.
Despite the failure at the breakwater, the three blockships continued with their mission. Under heavy German fire, Iphigenia and Intrepid sailed to the mouth of the canal where they were scuttled by their crews as planned - most of the men were picked up by small boats and carried safely back to England. The third blockship, Thetis, did not make it to the canal but was shunk short of its target.
Heroic failure[]
The Zeebrugge Raid was a brave but botched operation. More than 200 British servicement lost their lives and some 400 were wounded or taken prisoner. Even though the raid did not achieve its objective, the courage of the men who executed it was acknowledged with the award of eight Victoria Crosses.
The Bruges canal was blocked for only two days. The Germans quickly opened a channel for submarines to bypass the blockships, and the effect on the U-boat campaign was imperceptible. Coming at a dark moment in the war, however, with German armies on the offensive in France, the raid was celebrated as a victory by the British.
Aftermath[]
The raid had no effect on the shape of the naval war. The Allies could not stop U-boat attacks, and the German surface fleet was unable to break the Royal Navy's blockade. The British attempt to raide Ostende was renewed on 9–10 May 1918. HMS Vindictive, this time involved as a blockship, was sunk in Ostende Harbor. As in the Zeebrugge Raid, the effect on the movement of U-boats was limited. The German navy withdrew its U-boats from Belgium in September 1918 when the Belgian ports were threatened by advancing Allied armies in Flanders. Submarine operations continued from German ports.
The German High Seas Fleet coincidentally made its last sortie into the North Sea on the same day as the Zeebrugge Raid. Attempting to intercept a convoy off Norway, it was chased home by the British fleet. The morale of German sailors deteriorated. A naval mutiny triggered revolutionary upheaval in Germany at the war's end.