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Second Ostend Raid

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Second Ostend Raid
Part of North Sea Operations, First World War
Vindictive
Wreck of HMS Vindictive at Ostend
Date9 May 1918
Location
Ostend, Belgium
Result HMS Vindictive sunk in Ostend harbour but only partially blocked the canal.
Belligerents
Britain German Empire
Commanders and leaders
Roger Keyes
Strength
HMS Vindictive, four monitors, eight destroyers and five motor launches with aerial support Shore defences
Casualties and losses
18 dead, 29 wounded [1] Light

The Second Ostend Raid (officially known as Operation VS) was the latter of two failed attempts by the Royal Navy to block the channels accessing the Belgian port of Ostend during the Spring of 1918. 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 of the Belgian ports in the conflict were enormous.

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 eight miles inland, it was immune to most naval artillery fire and coastal raids, providing a safe harbour for training and repair.

The Ostend Raid failed because of heavy German resistance and British navigational difficulties in poor weather. In anticipation of a raid, the Germans had removed the navigation buoys and without them the British were unable to find the narrow channel into the harbour. Despite its failure, the raid was presented in Britain as a courageous and daring gamble which came very close to success. Three Victoria Crosses and numerous other gallantry medals were awarded to sailors who participated in the operation. British casualties in the raid were very heavy, compared to minimal German losses.

Bruges

After the German Army 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.[2] Whilst Antwerp was a deep water port vulnerable to British attack, Bruges, sitting six miles inland, was comparatively safe from bombardment or raids from the sea. A network of canals connected Bruges with the coast at Ostend and Zeebrugge, through which small warships such as destroyers, light cruisers and submarines could travel and find a safe harbour from which to launch raids into the English Channel and along the coasts of South-East England.[3] U-boats could also depart from Bruges at night, taking a day off the journey to the Western Approaches, 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.[4]

During 1915 and 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.[3] Bruges was vital 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. In the summer of 1915 heavy monitors under Admiral Reginald Bacon had bombarded the town in efforts to destroy the lock gates which allowed access to the sea. This attack achieved nothing except the wearing out of several barrels on the monitors' 12" guns: the lock gates were undamaged.[5]

A further 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 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 the British authorities would not realise it had failed for months, at Ostend the attack had ended catastrophically.[6] 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.[7] 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 South-East coast regrouped, remanned and repaired following heavy losses at Zeebrugge, Keyes planned a return to Ostend with the intention of closing 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 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 as well and Keyes and Lynes devised a operational plan to attack the canal mouth at Ostend once more.

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 also filled with concrete to both protect her bows during the attack, and act as a greater and more lasting obstacle once sunk. Vindictive was commanded by Godsal, her six officers and 48 crew all volunteer veterans of the previous failed attempt by HMS 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] 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 dependant, 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" gun position known as the Tirpitz battery.[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 should thoroughly block the channel and coupled with the blockage at Zeebrugge (which the British authorities believed to be fully closed), should prevent use of Bruges by German raiding craft for months to come.[11]

Attack on Ostend

File:V A C Crutchley.jpg
Crutchley in later life. He was awarded the Victoria Cross after taking command of the operation upon the death of Commander Godsal.

All preparations for the operation were completed by the first week of May and on the 9 May the weather was near-perfect for the attack.[12] The British armada had collected at Dunkirk in Allied-held France and departed port shortly after dark. Two minutes after midnight the force suffered its first setback when Sappho suffered a minor boiler explosion and had to return to Dunkirk, unable to complete the journey.[6] 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 Ostend, 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.[13] Ten heavy bombers of the newly-formed Royal Air Force then flew over, dropping incendiary bombs on German positions but not causing significant damage.[1] At the same time, long range artillery of the Royal Marine Light Infantry opened fire on Ostend from Allied positions around the Belgian town of Ypres.[14]

"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.[13]

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.[15] This careful study was however rendered worthless by a sudden fog which obliterated all sight of the shore.[16] 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.[14] 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.[17] 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 raid and seriously damaging Vindictive's port propeller.[17]

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.[18][17] 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 move impossible and the drifting cruiser floated out of the channel and became stuck on a sandbank outside, only partially obscuring the entrance way.[19]

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.[13]

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 amongst the dead on the decks.[17] 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 remined with 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, fire from shore continued to enfilade the launch, and a number of those aboard, including Lieutenant Bury suffered broken ankles due to the difficulty of jumping onto the heaving deck.[20]

ML254 turned to leave, carrying 38 survivors of Vindictive's 55 crew 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.[20] Drummond called to ML276's 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 HMS Warwick, overweighed and in danger of sinking, so severe was the damage she had suffered.[21]

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 the Vindictive's badly wounded navigation officer Sir John Alleyne clinging to an upturned boat.[19] Hauling the men aboard, Bourke turned for the safety of the open sea but as he did two 6" shells struck the launch, smashing the lifeboat and destroying the compressed air tanks, which 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.[22] 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.[19]

Offshore, as the Warwick's officers, Keyes' staff and the survivors of the Vindictive gathered on the destroyer's deck to discuss the operation, an enormous explosion rocked the ship causing her to list severely. The Warwick had struck one of the defensive mines off Ostend and was now in danger of sinking herself.[23] The destroyer HMS Velox 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, the Warwick still afloat. British casualties were reported in the immediate aftermath as being eight dead, ten missing and 29 wounded. German losses are unknown but are thought to have been negligible.[1]

Aftermath

File:Vindictivewreck2.jpg
The wreckage of HMS Vindictive at low tide.

Despite German claims that the blockage did not impede their operations,[24] 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.[25] In fact however 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 ultimately proven optimistic and the channel there had not been properly 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.[24]

At Ostend, the Vindictive did prevent larger warships passing through the channel, although smaller craft could still come and go at will. Ultimately the larger warships in Bruges were trapped there for the war's duration, and the blockages at Ostend and Zeebrugge took several years to clear completely, not being totally removed until 1921.[19] On a strategic scale however, the effects of the raids at Ostend and Zeebrugge on the battle of the Atlantic were negligible.[24] Despite this ultimate failure, in Britain the Ostend Raid was feted as a success; three Victoria Crosses and a host of lesser awards were given to the men involved and it was held up by the Admiralty 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.[25]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c British Casualties in Ostend Raid 47, New York Times, May 13, 1918, Retrieved 12 September 2007
  2. ^ Ellis & Cox, p.119
  3. ^ a b Messimer, p.57
  4. ^ Messimer, p.58
  5. ^ Messimer, p.60
  6. ^ a b Perrett, p.225
  7. ^ Messimer, p.174
  8. ^ a b Snelling, p.249
  9. ^ a b c Arthur, p.364
  10. ^ Messimer, p.173
  11. ^ Messimer, p.170
  12. ^ Snelling, p.250
  13. ^ a b c British Admiralty Statement on the Ostend Raid, 11 May, 1918, Firstworldwar.com Primary Documents, Retrieved 13 September 2007
  14. ^ a b Bennett, p.276
  15. ^ Messimer, p.175
  16. ^ Snelling, p.251
  17. ^ a b c d Snelling, p.252
  18. ^ Commander Alfred Edmund Godsal, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Retrieved 14 September 2007
  19. ^ a b c d Perrett, p.226
  20. ^ a b Snelling, p.255
  21. ^ Arthur, p.367
  22. ^ Snelling, p.256
  23. ^ Snelling, p.257
  24. ^ a b c Tarrant, p.62
  25. ^ a b Bennett, p.278

References

  • Max Arthur (2004). Symbol of Courage. Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 0-283073-51-9.
  • Geoffrey Bennett (1968). Naval Battles of the First World War. Penguin. ISBN 0-141390-87-5.
  • John Ellis & Michael Cox (1993). The World War I Data Book. Aurum Press. ISBN 1-854107-66-6.
  • 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. Wiedenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297846-62-0.
  • Stephen Snelling (2002). The Naval VCs. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-750913-95-9.
  • V. E. Tarrant (1989). The U-Boat Offensive 1914-1945. Penguin. ISBN 0-141390-87-5.
  • "British Admiralty Statement on the Ostend Raid, 11 May 1918". Firstworldwar.com Primary Documents.
  • "British Casualties in Ostend Raid 47". New York Times, May 13, 1918.
  • "Sir Roger Keyes' dispatch". London Gazette, August 27, 1918.
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