HEROES OF ZEEBRUGGE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 228, 14 June 1918, Page 6

HEROES OF ZEEBRUGGE

HOW THEY TOOK SUBMARINE — ON TO THEME

A treasured souvenir of .the fight which one of the ships engaged ],as brought back into harbour is a large piece of the Zeebruggo Mole, which was blown on lo the deck by one of the explosions. Particularly proud is Dcil of the submarine heroes, the men who drove tho oid submarine laden with explosives on k> tho Mole and breached it (states the special correspondent of the "Daily Chronicle"). I have to-day interviewed oue of the six heroes of this great deed, oau of the most daring, but most successful of all. All six of them by a miracle escaped. Three were wounded, and three practically unhurt. The latter were taking a well-deserved joy-ride this afternoon.

. Tho man I inteiTiewed, a smiling fairhaired, blue-eyed youngster, who was a "sitting-up" case, said to we: "1 never thought I should be hore. All sis of us— volunteers, of course—know it was a. thousand to one chance agahi»t_ us, but it came oif, and here we are. We had a 'surface' trip right across, escorted by other forces, and by. tho help of 'the smoke clouds'we got right in, and wcro able to drive her almost right up to the wall of the Mole before wo were- discovered. It was tricky work, and there wasn't much time to think about it, as we had to work exactly lo a time-table of seconds, and if anything had gone wrong—well, good-bye. But we got her up (here all right. "I can't tell you what the submarine was filled up with. Everything had lo bo fixed in a fow seconds, and just we got up the Germans managed' to spot us, putting a searchlight full on us. Then we had to get away through a hot time. We only had a little dinghy, which we had to gel out while maohine-cuns and rifles were firing Lard on is from everywhere. But we tanbled iu, and had just got off a little way when the submarineblew up. It did the job (ill right. I can tell you it almost capsized us, but we huug on, although two or three were wounded, and soon a motor-launch picked us up, and after a bit a destroyer took us in charge. It was a. great time, and I wouldn't have missed it. "There- was another submarine with us, for a similar job, but we left her as we got. near the Mole, and I don t know what happened to her. "1 shan't forget what 1 saw and heard. The gunfire was hellish on each side, 1 got a bullet in the thigh, which came right through tho boat first, fortunately, before it hit me." .tnother vivid description of the tight was given me by a sergeant of tho Royal Marine Light Infantry, who was acting as gunner in' the foretop of the 'Vindictive. He had escaped with nothing worse than a shrapnel wound in the wrist. "We were trying to give a-protecting fire lo our men" who were going over the landing prows. Also we were trying to silence their beach butteries, one ot which wo knocked out, and we launched a tornedo, which put out a searchlight. "Then suddenly a German destroyer, which we could see just under the bridge, started firing at us at point-blank range of about 200 yards. So wo had a duel with her, and set her on fire, while one of our destroyers—or motor-boats, 1 don't know w'hich-presently torpedoed that German boat, which, 1 think, was done for in the end. ■"There we stayed, right alongside the Jlole, while the Jwys had gone over and where they were having a pretty hot light, until at last the syren sounded tiie withdrawal, and they came back on board." , . Of the advtntiires of the blockslnps there is little to bo heard, but I came across one man who had helped to pick up a small boat containing the crew ot one which went to Oslend. A cruiser found them fourteen muw out at sea, and they were certain they,, had exploded their ship right in the Ctetend Channel, , because they rowed out between buoys for n long distance.