The blockships, which were timed to round the Mole twenty minutes after the arrival of Vindictive, Iris and Daffodil, all had different tasks. Thetis, the leading ship, was to ram the lock gates, the other two were to ground themselves by the southern end of the piers. Breaking the lock gates would make it impossible to fill the canal and float any imprisoned craft, while the other two ships could be relied on to create a barrier of silt and complete the unnavigability of the canal.
Thetis duly rounded the Mole although under fairly heavy fire (though not as heavy as it would have been without the effects of the diversion) and promptly ran into anti-submarine nets at the harbour entrance. These she took with her. However she had been hit so often that both her engines went out of action and she began to sink. One engine was temporarily started and this was just sufficient to pull Thetis around into the dredged channel, where she would have the greatest nuisance value. Then orders were given to abandon ship. As Thetis settled down in the water, demolition charges blew out her bottom and she was there to stay.
Although not in the position originally intended she had done nearly as well. She was blocking a vital channel and in getting there she had gone through a wire net – at the cost of her own engines – leaving a clear passage for the other two blockships. Furthermore she had drawn the German fire on herself and enabled Intrepid to pass up the channel unscathed. But it should not be thought that Thetis took her pounding from the German guns impassively. Her own guns, though greatly out numbered, fired till they were nearly red-hot. Needless to say there was an ML indifferent to its own risk ready at hand to rescue the crew of Thetis.
Intrepid had not missed her baptism of fire even though she was screened by Thetis in the harbour itself. She had had a smart welcome from German shrapnel just before she reached the Mole and when she forced her way into the canal, the Germans, aware now of what was afoot, launched all the high explosive they could muster at her.
The channel was slightly narrower than had been anticipated and when Intrepid came to her intended position she was not as squarely across the channel as she could have wished. Attempts to square her off had no effect and she was therefore sunk in the best position she could reach. Disembarking her crew was no easy task for there were eighty-seven men aboard – thirty-three more than there should have been. However, as nonchalantly as if taking part in some peacetime regatta, the MLs buzzed around unconcernedly and rescued the crews from Carley floats, skiffs and cutters. Only one man was lost and he was killed by a machine gun bullet when actually in the rescue ML.
Iphigenia was also overmanned owing to adroit concealment when surplus personnel should have been taken off. She too had been greeted by German shrapnel off the end of the Mole. She had an awkward moment when suddenly caught by flares and two searchlights but managed to elude these by disappearing into a smoke screen. She was helped greatly by a green light on the starboard side of Thetis. At the canal entrance she was hit twice by shells, one of which cut the siren steam pipe and surrounded her with clouds of steam.
Entering the canal she collided first with a barge and then with the port-bow of Intrepid. However the commander, Lieutenant E. Billyard-Leake, then swung her around, across the canal, blocking it perfectly. The crew embarked in the cutter and abandoned ship. The charges then blew out the bottom of Iphigenia. Most of the crew then transferred to ML 282, which, under the redoubtable Lieutenant Percy Dean, had already rescued the crew from Intrepid.
The courage and skill of junior officers on blockships and MLs was quite remarkable. No less remarkable was the complete understanding and trust between officers and all other ranks. Every man on every ship knew that at a moment of crisis his officer would be there calmly appraising the situation and utterly unconcerned for his own safety. Equally every officer knew that if he were wounded or killed one of his men would, at the first possible moment, carry his body back to the surgeons. This would not of course happen while the fight was continuing but it would certainly happen later.
Inevitably, public attention after the raid was concentrated on the main performers, Vindictive, Iris, Daffodil, Thetis, Intrepid and Iphigenia. But all told 1700 men were engaged in the Zeebrugge raid in various capacities, and some of the lesser known parts of the raid will perhaps emerge from the personal viewpoints which follow. Unfortunately for the historian the veterans of Zeebrugge tend to be unduly modest. They will speak of others glowingly but tend to obscure their own part. For example the destroyers cruised off the end of the Mole to protect the attacking ships from torpedo attack and also to assist the smoke-laying craft. One veteran the author spoke to had been eighteen at the time and described his part as being ‘more or less an observer, not really taking much of a part’. (He had also fought in the Battle of Jutland when he was only sixteen.) In fact the destroyers were under constant fire from the shore batteries, and returning the fire with everything they had. Keyes’ flagship, the Warwick, was heavily involved here. North Star was sunk.
Of the MLs and CMBs, Keyes wrote in his report: ‘The zest of most of the young officers in the coastal motor boats, like that in the motor launches, compels one’s admiration. He went on to quote one of many cases. Lieutenant E. Hill in a CMB had the misfortune to foul his propellers when only eighteen miles out from Dover on the night of 22nd April. He got a tow back to Dover from a drifter and arrived by 8 p.m. It took an hour and forty minutes to repair the damage and at 9.50 p.m. he set off once more. He covered the seventy-two miles to Zeebrugge in exactly two hours, took up position to lay smoke floats and stayed there doing his job calmly under heavy and continuous shell-fire. Some of the MLs, when not on other duties, amused themselves by moving close in to the shore, allowing themselves to be caught by searchlights, then moving away in a cloud of smoke just as the first salvo of German shells crashed into the sea where the ML had been a few seconds before.
When news of Zeebrugge came back to England one of the most awkward problems was to decide where the well-earned decorations should be bestowed. With so many acts of outstanding courage the list would be a long one but the difficulty with decorations is that if one unit receives a very large number of awards for an exploit which takes a short time – in this case little more than an hour – there are bound to be repercussions in other units where men are no less brave and would have been glad of such a chance. And thought had to be given to those who fought those endless grim battles in the trenches on the Western Front. As regards VCs which are inevitably the most prized decorations, it was decided to use the procedure laid down by Royal Warrant. This stipulates that when there are several men all equally deserving of a VC a ballot shall be made. Thus many Zeebrugge veterans received the satisfaction of knowing their names had been in the ballot as deserving VCs, though not, ultimately, receiving the coveted award. The ballot was not however a mere matter of drawing names out of a hat, but an election by all the men nominated as to which of their company was the most deserving. This procedure was applied to officers and men alike. Eventually eight
VGs were awarded, two of them posthumously. There were twenty-one DSOs, twenty-nine DSCs, sixteen medals for conspicuous gallantry, one hundred and forty-three distinguished service medals and two hundred and eighty-three names mentioned in despatches (MID). For the Ostend operation of 9th/10th May a further three VCs were awarded, ten DSOs, eleven DSCs, two CGMs, sixty-three DSMs and one hundred and one names mentioned in despatches.