Helping St George: the Royal Naval Medical Service at Zeebrugge, 22-23 April 1918 JVS Wickenden, D Walsh
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History 131 Helping St George: the Royal Naval Medical Service at Zeebrugge, 22-23 April 1918 JVS Wickenden, D Walsh May we give the dragon’s tail a damn good twist – Capt. AF success lay in combining a land-based with an amphibious at- Carpenter, RN, VINDICTIVE tack. By May 1917 a project called the “Great Landing” was under discussion, with the intent of linking an amphibious at- Abstract tack with British advances around Ypres. These land advanc- es culminated in the Battle of Passchendaele, Third Ypres, in On the night of 22-23 April 1918, the Zeebrugge Raid, part of which the Royal Naval Division (RND) and its medical staff Operation Z.O., took place. This historical article gives some were heavily involved:2 it was failure in this battle that led to context to the raid and its purpose, studies the medical provi- the withdrawal of the plan for the “Great Landing”. sion for and experience during the raid, and tells the stories of the medical staff involved. On 12 May 1917, the RN bombarded Zeebrugge from behind smokescreens, to little effect;1 it was decided that isolated long- Introduction: the background range bombardment was not the best method of attack. Then, By 1918, German U-boats were sinking up to 30% of the ship- on 1 Jan 1918, Vice Admiral Roger Keyes was appointed to ping lost in British waters; they berthed in shelters at Bruges, command the Dover Patrol. He was a man who believed in of- which were safe from attack because bombing was still in its in- fensive action “to the point of recklessness”1 and realised that fancy, and bombs were small and inaccurate. In a wider context, British morale, particularly in the RN, needed raising. He began this had issues in terms of access to the eastern end of the Eng- by introducing illumination of the mine and net barrage north of lish Channel. At the beginning of October 1914, the Royal Navy Ostend, which forced the U-boats downward and into danger. (RN) had laid mine barrages north of Ostend in response to the German march through Belgium; however, no effort had been The plan and the target made to close the ports, as the war was expected to be short. The The idea of using blockships at the harbours of Zeebrugge Dover Patrol, including aircraft of the Royal Naval Air Service and Ostend had been raised before, and the ease with which (RNAS), was set up to counter the Marinekorps Flandern and to these harbours silted up made the idea particularly attractive. keep the Channel ports clear for the British Expeditionary Force. Vice Admiral Keyes picked up on the idea, and by 24 February 1918, final plans for Operation Z.O. had been submitted. The 26 destroyers of the Marinekorps Flandern carried out con- aim was to deny the use of the ports to 38 submarines and 28 stant attacks on the mine barrages, and were spotted by the torpedo boats, plus 30 destroyers. To this was added, later, the RNAS, and later by the Royal Air Force (RAF), making the need to achieve psychological dominance over the Germans 40-mile transit from Bruges to Zeebrugge.1 The danger from to counter the success of their Spring 1918 offensive. The first them was compounded when, at the beginning of 1917, the objective of the plan as it affected Zeebrugge was to capture Germans moved to unrestricted submarine warfare, more than the fortified seaward end of the Mole, disable the German guns doubling Allied shipping losses in the first four months of the and distract notice from the arrival of the blockships, which year. On April 6, 1917, the United States (US) declared war would then be sunk in such a way as to close the harbour. on Germany and a convoy system was introduced, with the US Navy providing escorts and thus reducing the number of The Mole was 30-45 feet above sea level depending on the unprotected targets. In addition, British advantages in signals state of the tide, but on its inner side and four feet below the intelligence put the U-boats at risk of counter-attack; never- parapet, 16 feet above the Mole’s main surface, was a walk- theless, losses were still large, as the U-boats, based like the way, while at the shoreward end was a lattice steel viaduct destroyers in Bruges, took to picking ships off closer to the through which the ebbing tide scoured away the silt which English coast where there was more shipping and less convoy tended to build up in the harbour. Access to the Mole could cover. Meanwhile German cruisers, which refuelled at Zee- only be gained from the land by crossing this viaduct. brugge, were attacking ships of the Dover Patrol. The plan was for the leading blockship to ram the outer gate of Countering the threat the harbour and be sunk in the entrance of the lock leading to the An Ostend landing was first proposed when the Germans oc- Bruges canal; the other two blockships were to be sunk in over- cupied the town in 1915. However, when the occupying forc- lapping positions in the navigable channel across the harbour. es moved their heavy guns to the coast, RN sea-power alone In addition, since it was across the viaduct that any German re- became less effective, and it was felt that the best chance of inforcements would arrive, it was decided to destroy this weak 132 Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service 2018; 104(2) addition of extra guns and a wooden boarding platform with 14 narrow, hinged brows attached to facilitate speedy access to the Mole. In addition, her foretop was converted to a fight- ing-top, manned by the Royal Marine Artillery (RMA). HMS IRIS (II) and HMS DAFFODIL were designated as two other attack ships in order not to concentrate the entire attacking force on VINDICTIVE. They were taken up from the Mersey ferry run, and given additional protection with a combination of armour plate and mattresses.3 THETIS, INTREPID and IPHIGENIA, blockships, had been converted by Chatham Dockyard personnel. They were each filled with concrete and each primed with four 45lb TNT charges. C1 and C3 submarines were tasked with destroying the Mole viaduct. Each carried 5 tons of Amatol, and towed a boat in which the crew could abandon ship. Other RN vessels involved were monitors EREBUS and TER- ROR, mine-sweepers operating round them, escort ships, five destroyers zig-zagging round the fleet as a screen against U-boats, motor launches (MLs) and coastal motor boats, as well as a covering force farther out in readiness to intercept any German destroyer sortie. Medical preparations aboard VINDICTIVE The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of the raid wrote of the medical preparations for and experiences during Op Z.O. in an Figure 1: A sketch of the Mole, showing the Marinekorps Flandern article published in this Journal in 1919.4 Medical preparations installations.The viaduct is in the lower left corner. [Crown were also detailed in the post-raid report: copyright] “Preparations were made to utilise the mess deck, port side link using submarines packed with explosive. With fuses on the (which would be the sheltered side) for the accommodation of explosive and gyro controls on board, these could be left to run wounded, and arrangements were also made for the supply of for target unguided once the crew had abandoned them. necessary medical comforts ... In addition to the ample supply of dressings and medical appliances in the dressing stations, Tide and time requirements for the plan involved high tide to first-aid bags containing ready-cut dressings, tourniquets, burn facilitate access to the Mole parapet; a night with no moon so dressings, &c. were placed at all the guns, in the foretop, con- that all vessels could approach in darkness; and a northerly ning tower, and engine-rooms, Neil-Robertson stretchers were wind. The wind direction had gained added importance since placed on the upper deck, in the foretop, engine-rooms and Wing Commander Frank Brock, formerly of the RNAS but by boiler-rooms, and every man on board the ship was supplied the time of the raid an officer of the RAF, had become involved with a first field dressing.”5 Gas masks were provided for all with the planning of the raid, and devised a system of artificial officers and men. smoke production to prevent the British approach from being seen by look-outs in Zeebrugge; this was very much in his The personnel line, as he was a director of the family firm, Brock & Sons, Rear-Admiral Keyes noted in his memoirs the eagerness of manufacturers of fireworks. his officers to take part in the raid (apart from one who took some persuading), but he was also keen to involve men from The plan was approved by the Admiralty, with full acknowl- as many divisions of the service as possible: “Drawn as this edgement that the effect on the morale of British forces was an force is from the Grand Fleet, the Harwich Force, the Dover important factor in the decision. Patrol, the Three Depots [Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham], and the Royal Marine Artillery [RMA] and Light Infantry The ships [RMLI], it is thoroughly representative of our Service.”6 Also HMS VINDICTIVE, a 6000-ton cruiser, carried the main present were personnel (including Wing Cdr Brock) from the attacking force. She was converted to an assault role by the Admiralty Experimental Stations, the Royal Australian Navy History 133 and the British Army, while French sailors served as crew in a passage for the incoming vessels.