THE AUSTRALIANS AT ZEEBRUGGE.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 May 1918, Page 7

THE AUSTRALIANS AT ZEEBRUGGE.

A WILD FIGHT. SIDELIGHTS ON THE GREAT RAID. Stories of Australians from Zeebrugge show an adventurous zest equal to that of the old British seadog (writes the Sydney Sun's London correspondent). Details confirm the almost unimaginable risks and the calculated rush .and fury of the onslaught. The five Australian seamen among the Vindictive'* landing party included Staples, of Adelaide, who was among the first ashore, and led a party of bombers, who attacked the machine-gunners. He said:— "They were as thick as thieves, but we found cover and gave them hell until tho retreat sounded. Some of the boys had rifles, and bayonetted the Germans who were trying to cut off the demolition party which blew up the sheds. Wo specially trained with the blue-jacket 3 for six weeks." Rudd, a youthful Sydney man, said that the mole defences were terribly strong. The Germans had,long trenches full of machine-guns protected by masses of barbed wire. "It was a wild fight, ■the screaming and bursting shells were fearful. Every man who returned to the Vindictive carried a wounded comrade. As the tide had receded wo had to slide down to the deck like sacks of flour. | How the Vindictive survived beats me. The funnels were holed like pepper-pots, ■with dead and dying everywhere." Stoker Burke, a West Australian aI board the blockship Thetis, Baid:— "The ship was riddled while steering to the canal, but it got there. A man could-walk out of the shell-holes. The 1 harbour was lighted up with extraoraI inary brilliancy. I saw the captain of the Vindictive pulling alongside as if he owned the place. No decoration is good enough for him. After the lodgment of tho Thetis we escaped in a little scooter, with the shells following us for two miles. We reached Dover in eight hours. We found the Thetis's skipper unconscious alongside the wheel, and rescued hiin. Take it from me, as a dinkum Australian, nothing is wrong with the .British naval officers." , The question of all is, "Shall we get an Australian trip out of this?" Bush, a Manchester seaman from the Iphigenia, stated that the utmost courage and skill was shown by Lieutenant Billyard Leake, who is 22 years of age, and was born in Tasmania. He is the .son of the owner of Harefield Hospital, He fought gamely as a midshipman at Rabaul, and was gunnery lieutenant on the Warspite at Jutland. His younger brother has the Military Cross for volour in France.