ZEEBGRUGE GRAVES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 199, 17 May 1919, Page 9

ZEEBGRUGE GRAVES

MEMORIES OF HUNS' "STUPID CATASTROPHE." A visit to the cemetery the Germans left at Zeebrugge tells a talo of tho coast fighting of which in England only one side is known. There are 200 graves'in it, all marked with identical cement crosses, whether for Germans, English, or "unkno'wns," and there are one or two blue stone memorials.over the spot where victims of particular disasters are laid to rest. ' . ■ ,

There are the graves of 14 British, who felL in the Vindictive attack on the Mole. The German inscription describes them aa three officers, seven marines, two sailors, two firemen. Other bodies were washed ashore and are buried hero anil them along the coast, notably two at Heyst. •There is a large undated cross erected to the memory of "Kameraden" of the cyclist corps.

This indicates some hbavy losses sustained by the Germans when Sir Roger Keyes gave the Dragon's tail a twist last St. George's Day, as it has been ascertained at Zeebrugge that a cyclist company rushed up to drive the British off the Mole and fell, into the sea through the gap mado by 'the' blowing lip of the .approach.

There are .also about 40 victims of what is known locally as the "stupid catastrophe." A splendid military banquet took place at German Headquarters, tho Kursaal 'at Heyst, on September 26, 1915. Most of the guests,' accompanied by their ladies, came from Blankenbergh'e and Ostend, and after a merry evening took the train, composed of three or four car-, ringes, for home.

It was a gay party, singing and laughing. and it is suggested that the train driver was also under enlivening influences. In any case he did not see that the "bridge over the maritime canal at Zpebrugge _was open, and drove tho whole of the train into the water. It is stated that there were over 200 drowned, and that a great number of coffins went to Germany.