L'AFFAIRE ZEEBRUGGE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 142, 11 March 1919, Page 5

L'AFFAIRE ZEEBRUGGE

TEE VINDICTIVE'S "STUNT" A CHAT WITH CAPTAIN CARPENTER [The following is from "The Glory of Zeebrugge and the Vindictive," by Keble Howard (published by Chatto and W'indus).. It ;iis the story of a conversation between ' Captain Carpenter, of H.M.S. Vindictive, and the author, on the subject of'the famous Zeebrugge Raid.] "Some people," said Captain Carpenter, "have called this affair audacious. ■ That isn't the word I should use for it." "What word would you use?" - "Impertinent," he replied,- laughingly. "Just imagine this Armada Lof smoke- | boats, motor-launches, ferryboats, obsolete submarines, and ancient cruisers, laden with concrete, headed by the old. . Vindictive, setting.out,in broad daylight to attack the mighty fortress of Zeebrugge." ' ■ . . "In broad daylight!" I exclaimed. "Certainly. We timed ourselves to . reach the' Mole by midnight, so, owing to our slow speed* we had to do . of the oversea passage in daylight." ■. "How were the' men ? Excited ?' "Oh, no; quite calm, and immensely ' relieved to be at it at last. Well, so won-as it got dark, it "was", dark! We could hardly see a thing, and when the smoke-boats got to Work, pouring put great waves of dense smoke at regular intervals, whioh the light north-east ' wind carried right across the Mole and the harbour, pitch doesn't describe it!' "What about the mine-field?" "H'm! Anyway, we dodged it. My job, y«n understand, was to get alongside the Mole, land my Marines, help - Iris and Daffodil to do the same, stay there drawing the fire of the batteries and diverting attention while the block- - fthips got into the Canal and sunk themselves, then ■ got the Marines back on board, shove off, and olear out as quickly as possible. Incidentally, of course, we meant to put out of action as many Hnns as was convenient by fire from our »uns You've seen the picture of the fighting-top? ' That was 'filled, with Marines; armed with Lewis guns. They did capital'work. 'I'll oonio to that later. "We got pretty near the Mole before they saw us, and then the fun began.! Up went the star-shells, the guns began blazing, and I went pell-mell for the old Mole like that." A savage "dig at the model with his cane. "I,had intended to fetch up just here"-he indicated a spot on the exterior of the great wall pretty near the head of it—"but actually. I came in here"—a little further inland. "We'd had things called 'brows' con-strocled-a sort of light drawbridge with a hinge in the middle. These were lowered away, but the-current was so strong against the 'Mole, and the Vindictive bounced up and down so nimbly, that the men had the devil of a job to drop the ends of these brows on the wall. • '•'All this time, naturally enough, the Huns were blazing at us with everything they'd got. If you have a look at the Vindictive in -the morning, you'll soon see what they were doing to us. We were just swept with fire from two sides. Even before tho partv could begin to land, Colonel Elliot and Captain Halahan, poor chaps, who were in charge of that part of the business, were killed. "The Iris went ahead of me and came ' alongside the Mole'just here "-a little nearer the shore end. * "They tried tohang on with their grapnels, but couldn t quite manage it, so Lieut-Commander Bradford and Lieut. Hawkins scrambled ashore and sat on the parapet, trying to fix the grapnels. They wore both killed. ... -~.*• . "In the nieantime,",owing to the difficulty of securing to the Mole when alongside, I ordered'the Daffodil to continue pushing, according to plan, so as to keep u? in position. This was a pity, because she was full of men, and they couldn t ~ . land to help with the fighting. Eventu- , ally, some of them 'scrambled across tho ( Vindictive and landed that way. - ( "The wind had changed about fifteen ■« minutes before wo/'came alongside the ( Mole; all the 'smoke had cleared off and 1 the'harbour was plain to the-eye. That 1 helped the Huns to'pot. at us, and they ..( took fine advantage of it. The din, as 1 you can guess, was terrific, and I think 1 they got the old Vindictivo in every i visible spot.- y ' "Suddenly :the tiling happened for which we had been, semi-consciously, waiting. There was a tremendous roar, and .up went a huge tower of flame and debris and bodies into the black sky! My fellows cheered like mad, for they knew what it.meant. Sandford had got home beneath'tho viaduct with his an- s cient submarine and touched her off. I never saw such a column of flame! It seemed a mile high! . ' j "I must tell you a curious feature of t this affair. As h'o approached the -Mole J they got the searchlights on to him and i began firing at him. That was a nasty , position, because she was stuffed full of explosives, and also had a big quantity of petrol on board. But when they saw s him still cqming on and dashing straight ( j at the Mole, they. stopped firing and I simply gaped. .1 suppose they thought t ho was mad. : ■ r

"Anyway, they paid for their curiosity. .On the viaduct itself there were a whole lot of Huns—masses of them. There they stood, staring at Sandford in his sub- , marine. The. searchlights lit them up. Then, presently, came the explosion, and bang went..the whole lot to glory! They nms't have been the most surprised Huns since the war .started. "All this tithe, of course, a lot of other things were happening. Many of the seamen and Marines had landed on the Mole and were making fine play with the astonished Germans. Some went right to the head of the Mole and found the guns deserted. One gun, I must tell you, had not even been uncovered, which is clear proof that the garrison was taken by surprise. Others were \ chasing the enemy 'all down the Mole * towards tho Viaduct, which they were never' to cross, and some went into the shed I told you about and dealt with such people as they found. "The men in the fighting-top were also doing fell work. All along, the Mole, you see, and clo?e under the fifteen-foot parapet, there are dug-outs or funk-holes. At first the Huns popped into these, but by-and-by it occurred to them that they would certainly be found and spitted if they stayed there, .so the bright idea occurred to them of nipping across the Mole, and dropping down the side into their own destroyers lying there. An excellent scheme but for our fellows in the fightins-ton, who. picked thf-m off with their Lewi? guns as they ran. "Thcsp chap? in the fighting-top had to pay for it. though, in the end. They wero attracting a lot of attention, and the Huns were constantly trying to drop a shell amongst them. They succeeded nt last, I'm sorry to say. and laid out every man jack but one—Serjeant Finch. He was wounded badly, but dragged himpelf out from under the bodies of his pals and.went on working his little gun until he couldn't work it any lonerer. "Now we come to the block-ships. I saw Thetis come steaming into the harbour in grand style, She made straight for .the opening to the .Canal, and- you can imagine that she was a blaz» of lieht and a target for evprv big thing they could bring to bw. She was going toripindy, all tho same, when she hnd the rotten, luck to onto!; W profiler in flip rfpfenc-e-nets. Ev°n thpn. lwpver. she did-fine work. She' sicrnslle,] in«fv>i"Ho"« to 'the Intrenid and Iphigenia, and so they managed to avoid the u'ts. Jt was a trorgeous p'Vce of co-operation f "And. bv the war; I'm not at all sure that Thetis won'l 'rive even more troubl" to the enemy than the other two. T told you something. T tliinV. about th« tendency of the harbour to alt up. Well. 'Thetis is lying plmnn in the channel that must always be kent clear of silt. The consequence is thnt the silt will collect all round her and over her, and 1 dmiht whether she will ever bo removable. "To got back to the other block-ships. Tn went Intrepid, and in after her went Tphigenia. They weren't content, you know, .to sink themselves at the mouth of the. Canal. That, was not the'idea at 87!. They had to go right in, with guns

firing point-blank at them from both banks, sink their ships, and get back as best they could. And they did it.. They blocked that Canal as neatly and effectively as wo could havo wished in our most optimistic moments, and then, thanks to the little motor-launches, which were hnndled with the finest skill, and pluck, the commanders and men got back to safety. To-morrow 111 show you some aeroplane photographs which are due in from France, and you'll see for yourself how beautifully Intrepid and Iphigenia are lying." "And how long will it take to clear them away?"' "I've had the opinion of the most expert salvagemen from Liverpool, and they say — months. Personally, I'm prepared to swear that it won't be less than months." "What may I say?" "Say 'some' months." ■"Can't they blow them up?" "Not a kit of it. How can you blow up a thing that's already blown up?" "I don't know. Let's get back to the fight." "Eight. As soon as I saw that the ■ ■bkek-ships were sunk I knew that my job was done. Now came the most ticklish part "of the business—to get away. Up to this point we had been protected, so far as our hull was concerned,, by the Mole. I knew that directly wo left the Mole we should be in for it. "The signal arranged for the men to re-embark was a lons blast from Vindictive's siren. But that had gone with a lot of other tackle, so we did tho best we could with Daffodil's little hooter. (Ferry passengers across the Mersey must know it well.) It wasn't much of a hoot, hut the fellows heard it and made forthe scaling-ladders. "This was the Hun's chance. The fire turned on those chaps as they clambered up the ladders, most of them trying to carry 'a dead or wounded pal, was awful: Talk about heroism! Every man was ;,\ hero! You must ask «ome of them who actually' landed to tell you about that. I Wo-idtefnl!

"We got them aboard at last, and staved to make certain that nobody was )»ft behind. Then we sWed off from the Mole, which had had enough of us for one night, and made; for home at our best speed.' the biff shore-guns and everything olse vioi«i« blazed'away, hut tho very wind which had turned against us when we arrived now stood our friend. We worked all our smokeboxes like mad, and the smoke saved us. They landed some shells home, of course, and a lot. of poor .fellows in the Iris were, killed by one shell just as they were leaving tho Mole. But most of the stuff aimed at the Vindictive fell short, thank God, and we finally ran ont_of range. "It was a good fight. I think the Huns had the 'wind up' that night. . . . "Where are you staying? .' . . Good. So am I. We'll walk along together" i ' '