The Zeebrugge Raid - A Vindictive Operation

[Music] this video was produced in collaboration with a wonderful channel historiograph a little bit more about them at the end of the video but any similarities are therefore very much intentional the city of bruja often pronounced bruges in english much to the dismay i'm sure of our flemish speaking listeners has been around for a long time on and off at least with the current period of settlement dating back to the 9th century a.d and once it grew the natural tidal inlay sat at the head of made the city incredibly wealthy and very important for over three centuries but by the 16th century this natural inlet had began to silt up and other ports such as antwerp and rotterdam began to gain prominence instead access to the sea was maintained but the seacoast itself became a steadily more distant thing but in the late 19th century an attempt was made to revive the city's fortunes and a new port facility was constructed and named zebra and quite literally brugger on sea which was linked to the city's own port facilities by a large canal this supplemented a much older and smaller 17th century canal that linked bruja to the port of ostend bruja had access to a number of other canals but these were the ones that gave direct access to the sea the work connecting bruja to its new seaside twin was completed just as the dreadnought race kicked off and a decade later the imperial german army swept past and occupied the area in the opening stages of world war one before the so-called race to the sea established a front line about halfway between bruja and dunkirk which with a few minor changes was pretty much where the front lines would stay for most of the subsequent conflict fairly quickly german high command realized what an opportunity this afforded the port facilities were admittedly a bit too restricted to safely operate capital ships from but they were perfectly able to support u-boats torpedo boats and destroyers with the netherlands neutral and dutch ports thus denied to them the next nearest major german-held port was almost 300 miles sailing away in wilhelm's harven with the smaller borkum only a fraction closer for these small attack craft reducing their their and back sailing distance by over 600 miles would significantly extend their operational range or their time on station as well as bypassing some of the british patrols and defenses in the southern reaches of the north sea as well as offering the opportunity of a much more rapid sortie against the british coast and allied shipping in the channel when this was called for thus in march 1913 the flanders flotilla was formed with flat pack u-boats being shipped across the land later joined by other submarines that slipped in via the more conventional method of sailing there along with an increasing number of surface craft starting with small torpedo boats and eventually what the germans were still calling torpedo boats but which we would recognize as destroyers all of this didn't go unnoticed by the allies and there would be a gradually escalating series of clashes between the ships of the dover patrol and harach force against those of the flanders flotillas minefields and nets were also deployed to try and counter the u-boat sorties and the germans in turn built a number of heavy coastal artillery batteries to prevent the royal navy from just shooting up their seabourn flank and the two port exits at will which had initially been attempted in 1914 right from the very start various options were considered for the neutralization of the ports and the attendant german naval elements broadly these fell into three categories troop landings to physically capture and wreck the ports with demolition charges naval bombardments against the lock gates and blocking the canals by some method usually using sacrificial block ships the first idea of the troop landings was rejected several times due to both a shortage of trained personnel and the fact that any large-scale landings behind german lines but so close to the front would almost inevitably face a massive counter-attack that they in turn would be very unlikely to be able to withstand it also tended to attract somewhat more radical thinkers who spoke of things such as using the landings as a stepping stone to actually advance into german-held territory the second idea bombardment had some merit but ran into a catch-22 situation the destroyers and cruisers available didn't have the firepower and the monitors whilst having the firepower in spades were vulnerable to counter fire from heavy artillery which was present in a number of german coastal fortifications especially since in order to ensure accuracy the bombardment would have to take place at relatively low speeds or possibly with the ships even stationary and anchored and at relatively close ranges unless you wanted to be hanging around for hours and hours correcting the fall of shot ships big enough and tough enough to carry out the mission did exist but they were all in the grand fleet and thus not available for this kind of close ensure operation a couple of experimental bombardment missions were carried out anyway using smoke screens to shield the monitors from the shore batteries and using spotting aircraft to report the fall of shot to the obscured ships but whilst a few random vessels and some u-boats were destroyed or damaged the actual port facilities remained essentially intact the last idea that of using block ships ran into the simple fact that any ship that was old enough to be considered expendable and large enough to be a meaningful obstacle was also likely to be completely shot to pieces before getting into a position where it's sinking would be of any benefit to anyone but in late 1917 admiral jelica received new sets of proposals for both admiral keys in the admiralty and admiral bacon of the dover patrol he looked at them considered them and then ordered the two ideas to be combined the operation that emerged called for a use of all three options at once a bombardment to occupy the shore batteries and do what damage to the ports that it could along with landings to occupy and destroy local defenses all of which would in theory clear the way for a number of block ships which would then be sunk at the narrowest point of the canal along with an explosive laden submarine which would blow up a bridge that connected the outer mole to the land which would prevent german troops from overwhelming the landing forces that had to take out the gun positions on the mall itself these gun positions consisted of a mixture of medium calibre guns up to 5.9 inches in calibre along with anti-aircraft guns machine gun nests fortified block houses a submarine shelter and a seaplane base oh and the germans had also removed all the marker boys that showed the latest positions of the ever-shifting sand banks and that was just for zebruga recognizing that closing off the larger canal wouldn't stop the german sorties from bruga entirely when they had another access to the sea another force would be assembled to attack austend the preparations were set in motion for an assault in april 1918 with volunteers from across the royal navy to fill some of the more difficult positions the fleet assembled was considerable the ostend force which we'll have to consider in another video included a pair of old apollo class protected cruisers turned into block ships hms serious and brilliant along with the destroyer's tempest and tetrarch to escort them the monsters marshall salt lord clive prince eugenie general crawford m21 m24 and m26 with the destroyers mentor lightfoot zubian leicester and busclier in escort the last three as the name might suggest being french plus the destroyer swift fultner matchless mastiff and afridi to maintain a cordon and 28 smaller craft also included for general duties the zebra force which is the main focus of our consideration today consisted of three more apollo class cruisers turned into block ships thetis intrepid and ephegenia the crews are vindictive and the fairies iris ii and royal daffodil all of which were acting as troop transport plus the converted demolition subs c1 and c3 the monitors erebus and terror and the escorting destroyers phoebe northstar trident mansfield termigant truculent and manly and the outer cordon of destroyers being made up of the whirlwind mings v-locks morris morsem mel pomeni scott allswater teaser and stork all of which was coordinated from the cruiser hms attentive plus a minesweeper 18 coastal motorboats and 33 motor launches the latter of which we used to move men around such as from the block ships once they'd been scuttled as well as maintaining the smoke screen as they carried smoke floats with the whole operation commanded from the destroyer hms warwick a first attempt was launched on april the 2nd 1918 but when the ships arrived offshore the wind was in the wrong direction and would have dispersed their smoke screens and the smoke screens were needed to protect the ships from the german heavy coastal batteries and so the whole thing was cooled off for the moment the two ferries in particular had been equipped with armor plate and vidictive had been incredibly heavily modified to carry additional guns howitzers flamethrowers and machine guns as well as troops the idea being that when she went alongside the mole with one of the ferries helping to keep her right up against it she would act as both transport and fire support base to sweep the german troops away from ahead of her own landing parties the fleet used the intervening time to improve preparations on the ships and conduct more training and so on the 23rd of april they set out again given the high casualties that were expected orders had been given that all crews were to be reduced to a minimum and boats were accompanying the fleet to sea for this purpose but when the time came mysteriously no surplus personnel could be found aboard baffled the allocated craft returned empty to dover only for a motley collection of sailors and civilian workers to shortly thereafter emerge from various hiding points all across the small fleet and begin asking for something to do or a rifle and ammunition to let them help in the landings faced with something of a groundswell fatal complete the commanding officers in question simply began to supplement their original forces as best they could with these impromptu volunteer reinforcements by 2330 that night the motor launchers had established a smoke screen and the action began in earnest with almost three dozen small craft running about dropping smoke floats the germans had noticed that something was up and opened fire but thanks to the combination of smoke darkness and high speed the boats themselves escaped major damage although a number of smoke floats were hit and sunk luckily this had been anticipated and so many floats had been dropped that even the loss of a number of them didn't actually compromise the integrity of the smoke screen but soon enough luck began going against the attackers in the shape of a change in wind direction previously this had been coming in from the northeast and blowing the smoke onto the mole and into the eyes of the german defenders it now shifted to come from the south at 2356 and suddenly the screen was being blown out to sea the german searchlights were now unimpeded and star shells began arcing into the sky in considerable numbers this was all happening at point-blank range close enough that enterprising troops with a good aim could engage the defenses with early enfields and the german guns on the mall opened up on vindictive at the same moment that every gun on the old cruiser whether original or recently fitted opened up as well it was almost impossible for either side to miss and captain carpenter called for an increase in speed whilst turning his ship slightly so that it was now closing at 45 degrees this meant that more of the ship was exposed to enemy guns compared to the more direct run-in he'd previously been on but more of his own weapons could also reply and it was said that one could almost have walked the last 300 yards between the ship and the mole at this point on the horizontal curtains of lead and steel that were ripping back and forth engineer commander w.a bury who was aboard hms vindictive recounts the following when we were about 15 to 20 minutes off the mall the huns fired a very bright star shell which lasted about half a minute and showed up what there was to see mostly smoke i'd been standing at the top of the er hatch watching the effects of the monitor's bombardment and as soon as the starshell died out i went below there were several shots fired then us from where i don't know but of course we didn't reply before we got alongside several shells hit the four part of the ship captain halahan royal navy was killed on top of the er casing and colonel elliot and major corner both of the rma were killed on the fore bridge while we were maneuvering the engines alongside we were rather badly gassed down below but the use of gas masks rendered it fairly innocuous the torpedo netting in the uptakes arrested splinters and no damage was done to the machinery in the meantime a perfect bedlam of hell broke out all around and the old ship shook all over it was impossible to say which were hun hits and which were our own explosions our pompoms barked away merrily for a while and then stopped all the crews having been wiped out as were also the crews of the 7.5 inch howitzers not so the 11 inch howitzer on the quarter deck however which got off 36 healthy rounds into the inshore battery captain carpenter conned the ship in from the foremost flame house and had just left it when it was riddled with shrapnel the daffodil nosed us in against the wall and held us there and discharged her marines into us the iris went ahead of us and tried to secure to the parapet with grappnals almost an impossibility on account of the motion alongside a bradford climbed the spa and taking the grapnel in his hands he jumped onto the parapet and secured it all the time he was being shot at the bullets striking the funnel behind him and those below warning him to slide down he took no notice and was shot dead just as he reported secure to gibbs the grapnel broke away with the motion and hawkings did exactly the same thing and was also shot i'd made a plasticine model of the mole harbor forts and lot gates etc for general guidance based on aerial photos and confidential plans also a larger model of the portion of the mold which we were to go alongside showing supposed guns etc and so as soon as the engines were finished with i meant to dash onto the mold to see how it tallied when i reached the upper deck i found the brows nearly all shot away and the crowded marines falling down on their faces all around me so that i was much too frightened to look for a ladder but directed my attention to business on the upper deck where there were now by now practically no officers all of these being forward except for one lieutenant commander e s osborne a gunnery officer who'd been responsible for adding four six-inch guns and 11-inch howitzer two 7.5 inch houses five two and a half pounder pom poms 16 stokes mortars and 12 louis guns to vindictive's arsenal was also aboard the ship as it went in as part of a larger account he mentions just how many near-misses he had saying my luck was in escaping with only three bruises one on the chest one on the left arm and one on the heel plus a small cut on the face but one shell burst right in my face my steel helmet was near as a touch penetrated by the right temple my goggles were shattered gas apparatus shot away one clean shell hole in the right lapel of my coat one clean shell hole in the left arm of the coat and another clean shell hole in the right heel of the boot indeed the men on the exposed decks were dropping like flies more were coming up to replace them and more still to replace those once the reinforcements were in turn hit vindictive was being practically eroded from existence as whole chunks of her superstructure were being blasted away the lieutenant colonel of the royal marines and the captain of the naval landing parties the leaders of the troop assault were both killed at this point but at this kind of range the ship's nature as a protected cruiser actually came to its aid firing basically horizontally the german shells couldn't get an angle sufficient to penetrate its turtle back armored deck and so neither the ship's steering nor its engine power was impaired that didn't stop them from trying though stoker first class w j maxey was shoveling coal when a huge crash sounded above him he looked up to see a gaping hole above where the deck plates had previously been and would later remark not many stokers have had the benefit of a view of the night sky when they're doing their work but after a brief shrug he went back to his work undeterred so undeterred in fact that decades later he'd be landing on the beaches of normandy on d-day but that's another story more immediately the vindictive crashed up against the mole unfortunately her course change meant that she'd hit about 300 yards further along than her intended point of impact this limited what guns she could bring to bear in support of the men who were trying to work out which landing ramps were still intact after german gunfire and the grinding impact had finished with them and as it turned out only two ramps were still usable but the daffodil and the iris came steaming in behind the old cruiser and dug in their bows to force the hull hard against the mole grappling anchors were sent out and the landing parties began to disembark whilst the ship's own guns were restricted in their support capability the new position also took out of the view of most of the german defensive heavy guns the troops aboard the two converted ferries began swarming over the bows of their ships onto vindictive and thus out onto the mall finding a couple more ramps along the way to expedite the disembarkation ww childs was manning one of the lewisgun positions in the lead-up to the attack he noted that i built a sandbag in placement for our lewis guns which without a doubt saved our lives to separate these i had a 3 8 inch zinc plate between the guns so in the event of a shell bursting and putting one guns crew out of action the other guns crew may be able to carry on this proved to be a wise decision as around about 11 55 pm he noted the germans had evidently smelt a rat for suddenly a star shell lit up the sky followed by others shortly after no sooner had the second burst that the enemy scored a direct hit on our aft funnel practically blowing it to pieces it seemed like hell let loose the shrapnel and pieces of funnel caused havoc among the men and the air was full of the cries of the wounded and dying the huns were hitting us with every round they fired at this time my sandbag dugout was demolished by two shells that hit us taking away both sides but not touching the front these two shells wounded seven of us myself only slightly and only one of our crew not being wounded this being a b lodwick of a company's lewis gun having put an improvised tourniquet on ordinary seam and ryan my number four i looked round and found ourselves alongside the mole what a huge wall it looked at this time i was knocked silly by a 303 bullet which struck my tin hat and cutting its way through the rim parted one of my putties a lucky escape i soon came to my senses again through hearing someone shout over the top having lost a.b lodwick in the struggle mackenzie and myself the only two remaining of our crew made our way towards the landing browse but we were greatly hampered by the weight we were carrying the weight being as follows mackenzie had the lewis gun and eight trays of ammunition with 47 rounds in each tray plus a revolver and 100 rounds for that spare parts of the gun gas mask and shrapnel helmet all told about 100 pounds in weight myself with 16 trays of lewis gun ammunition a rifle and two bandoliers of 50 rounds each for the rifle two mils bombs an electric torch wire snippers a gas mask and a helmet about 142 pounds with this weight you can guess we could only struggle along the vindictive was rolling pretty heavily owing to the swell she was fitted with 16 landing brows but in going alongside the mole all but two were smashed up either by shell fire or the heavy seas over these two we clambered waiting for the roll to hop onto the mole having landed mackenzie and i advanced toward the end of the mole our objective being to fire upon some 5.5 inch guns about halfway along after about 50 yards we dropped down and opened fire here our misfortune dropped in again for the germans scored a direct hit on our lewis gun blowing it out of our hands this was bad luck as at the time it was doing glorious work mackenzie was severely wounded again the lewisgun ammunition now being of no use without the gun we threw the trays into the sea thereby relieving ourselves of some of the weight and we reverted to secondary armament mackenzie his revolver myself my rifle this was better than nothing so we opened fire on some germans who were escaping from shelters underneath us and were trying to reach the destroyers on the opposite side of the mole had these germans remained where they were they would in all probability be alive now but panic reigned among them and they were shot down or bayoneted we now advanced further and came across a concrete sentry box in here we found some germans who made a rush for it in making a point with my bayonet at one of them my blade finished up like a corkscrew all of a sudden there was a terrific explosion which we surmised was the submarine c3 blowing up we guessed right and it seemed as though the flames would never stop going upwards we then saw our block ships go steaming in to block the canal and great cheers were given shortly after a succession of k's in the morse code was sounded on daffodil siren this was the signal to recall all men on board again this signal should have been sounded by the vindictive but owing to her siren having been blown away she was unable to do so our senior officers captain halligan and lieutenant commander harrison having previously been killed lieutenant commander adams took charge and gave the order to retire each man as far as possible helping a wounded man back as you can no doubt tell from that account casualties amongst the landing forces were rising rapidly the swell had made the boarding ladders from the ferries to vindictive collapse and they had to be reset repeatedly and the anchors and cables needed to be taken ashore to further secure the cruiser but almost everyone who tried ended up either dead or wounded as what german heavy guns could bear got the range the ship itself began to take further heavy hits once more and some of the gun positions started to go silent the landing parties also came under fire from german destroyers which were moored on the other side of the mall as well as numerous machine gun nests various charges against the heavy guns were made but many of those were repulsed the extra 300 yards that the vindictive had carried from its planned landing point turning out to be largely open areas of the mole that were raked by searchlights which made attacks similar to the charges of the somme both in their futility and their casualty rate except here there was only hard stone so not even the small hope of finding cover in a shell crater miraculously somehow some of the attacks managed to at least kill enough of the gun crews at their target position that the german guns began to fall silent in turn one unexpected benefit of this constant back and forth was that all the tension was focused on the rather incongruous infantry battle that was developing on the mole to the extent that the germans completely missed the approach of intrepid ephedra and thetis the three blocked ships as they edged around the end of the mole at 20 minutes past midnight and headed off into the harbour further down the mall the submarine c1 and c3 were being towed into position with a kind of crude autopilot being rigged so that the subs could be released and sent on their way without anyone having to ride five tons of ammotol at the bridge from the mainland whilst the submarines were under fire however the tow rope of c1 broke and the submarine went to ground whilst efforts were being made to get the crew off of this it left c3 alone to complete the task lieutenant sanford in command decided that with only one chance he wasn't going to risk it all on some untried clockwork and gyroscopes and instead stayed aboard with his skeleton crew and rammed the subbed into place manually much to the amusement of the german centuries who presumed that the sub was trying to sneak under the bridge and had managed to get itself stuck but now the crew piled out into a boat which then turned out to have a broken propeller shaft and with lieutenant sanford having lit the fuse they rode with considerable enthusiasm only to come under gunfire from the sentries who now had something to shoot at with their rifles several men were wounded before the submarine detonated shattering the bridge and sending a large chunk of it pinwheeling into the air which the fast rowing crew recalled seemed to have as much to do with the sudden cessation of gunfire as the explosion itself as they saw several centuries the faces illuminated by the flames leaned back as they watched the several dozen tons of iron and masonry complete a graceful ballistic arc before smashing into the sea it wasn't a moment too soon either a column of german reinforcements exactly what the demolition was supposed to prevent was indeed inbound at the time although somewhat unbelievably several different eyewitnesses reported the new arrivals all on bikes and cycling for speed appearing to have missed the gigantic explosion or else thought it wasn't relevant to their interests and they then spotted the entire column riding straight off the broken end of the bridge and into the sea now once again it's the kind of thing that would only happen in war and if it wasn't for the fact that multiple eyewitnesses reported this i wouldn't be recounting it with the block ships making their way across the harbour it was time at last for the infantry to leave but this was easier said than done many groups were pinned under fire and others were trying their best to bring all their dead and wounded back with them but under covering fire from the vindictive's remaining guns as well as covering fire from their own comrades who still had ammunition the landing parties were eventually back aboard and the three transport ships could withdraw they came under fire as they pulled away from shore batteries that hadn't been suppressed unfortunately a motor launch turned up and laid yet another smoke screen which would save the three ships from the worst of it although the iris would take a number of heavy hits including one that sent demolition charges flying over the decks that had suddenly been set alight by the very same shell explosion able seaman lake would earn a cgm for his quick thinking as he danced through the flames throwing burning explosives overboard at the cost of severe burns to his hands inside the harbour the three block ships were aiming for different missions thetis was assigned to ram the lock gates whilst the other two were to block the channel the idea being that the broken lock gates would drain the canal stranding and possibly damaging ships within which could then not be refloated until repairs to the gates were done which would then be complicated by the fact that the channel was blocked by the other two ships anyway unfortunately the winding down of the landing actions and her position in the lead meant that thetis came under a relatively heavy fire pretty quickly and then ran into an anti-submarine net which she broke through but also carried with her between the steel netting fouling the propeller shots and the constant gunfire she soon lost power and started to drift one engine was briefly coaxed back into life and she was guided into the dredged channel within the harbour before demolition charges sent her to the bottom whilst her own guns exchanged constant fire with the remaining gun batteries as even the dredge channel was not that deep and her upper decks remained above the water but she had drawn most of the attention of the enemy guns and thus cleared the way so it was only as they closed the final few hundred yards their target the intrepid and ephegenia came under serious fire the latter was actually helped by this as she tried to edge into position when a german shell severed a major steam pipe which instantly concealed the ship in a cloud of vapor intrepid found the canal was a little narrower than had been anticipated thanks to silting up along the side and despite their best efforts they couldn't get the ship to go fully broadside on so they made the best of it and blew their charges whilst a small flotilla of motor launchers buzzed around picking up the crew just off their stern with the steam cloud dissipating around their sister ship it turned out that if eugenia had managed to catch somewhat better luck and was in fact most of the way across the canal as she settled whilst the motor launchers were making their way back out the german gun batteries were being occupied by the fleet's destroyer escort which had been trying to keep fire off of the landing and block ships the entire time this exchange of fire would lead to the only non-intended loss of the night as the destroyer hms north star took several punishing hits after emerging on the wrong side of a smoke screen and would subsequently sink also worthy of mention were the motor launchers and coastal motor boats their assigned jobs were as we said before smoke screen laying and transport of the crews from the block ships but a number were witnessed playing tag with the shaw batteries trying to take the pressure off of the larger ships edging out of their smoke screens drifting close enough to the guns to engage them with whatever small weapons they might happen to have on hand and then surging away again in a cloud of smoke just as the heavy guns had repositioned themselves to try and shoot at them sometimes chased by the splashes of some initial salvos the scale of risk involved can perhaps be appreciated by the fact that approximately one-third of the 1700 men involved in the operation became casualties of one sort or another sources disagree on exact numbers but it was something approximating 200 to 250 dead and 300 to 350 wounded being the average of the numbers recorded unsurprisingly with so many things happening at once there were numerous actions worthy of recognition and victoria crosses were awarded by ballot rather than for individuals to avoid the impression of too many being given for a single action a total of eight would eventually be given after the ballot choices were voted on by the men from the units or ships so nominated able seaman albert mckenzie was given a victoria cross for providing effective supporting fire with the lewis machine gun that he carried forward as most of his landing party was shot down around him only ceasing fire after himself being severely wounded captain carpenter of the vindictive was given the award for his command of the ship and his subsequent leadership as the vessel was alongside as he walked the decks giving orders and helping out where men had fallen even as his ship was being picked apart around him lieutenant commanders harrison and bradford leaders of the landing parties would receive posthumous victoria crosses for their actions taking their men ashore sergeant norman finch of the royal marine artillery who was second in command of a number of light cannon and machine guns installed in vindictive's 4 top provided excellent covering fire until the germans blew up the position with two heavy shells which left the badly wounded finch as the only man both alive and capable of any movement upon which realization he dragged himself over to a still operational gun and resumed fire until the germans blew up the 4 top again and put the guns out of action completely he somehow contrived to survive this as well but was unable to find a working gun and had to wait to be rescued captain sanford of the c3 was awarded his medal for ensuring that his vessel carried out its mission against the odds whilst no doubt saving the lives of dozens if not hundreds of men by preventing the german reinforcements from getting through captain banford of 4th battalion was given his medal for his leadership which appears to have consisted of leading his men from the front making sure they had a strong point established under cover on the mole before then leading the charge across the exposed stone and concrete to silence one of the batteries despite significant german attempts to stop him going on all the while and finally lieutenant commander percy dean commanded motor launch 282 during the evacuation of the block ship cruise where he managed to take on over 100 men bearing in mind his 86-foot craft had a usual crew assignment of six all the while under heavy fire from all sides and then managed to steer the craft out of the harbour using the engine alone when the rudder broke and then having cleared the harbour was told that there was a man in the water further back and so promptly turned his craft around and went to pick him up in addition 21 distinguished service orders 29 distinguished service crosses 16 conspicuous gallantry medals 143 distinguished service medals and 283 mentions in dispatches were awarded to all ranks much has been made of the supposed effectiveness or not of the raid but an evaluation of both sides reports in the immediate aftermath shows that the blocking of the canal was initially successful or the route from brugger to zebra was completely blocked however the germans were soon able to bypass the blockage by demolishing a number of piers and dredging a new channel around the ships clearing part of the silt which had been preventing intrepid from swinging fully into place during the operation itself this would allow u-boats to resume passage through albeit only at high tide but the destroyers and torpedo boats could not proceed at least for the moment and so in the end the operation could be counted as a qualified success but also admittedly one that the germans were able to a degree to overcome in relatively short order now if you'd like to see that raid happening almost in real time with animation showing where the ships are going give you a better idea about how everything happened then i highly recommend you go and watch historiographs video on the same subject because as i said at the beginning of the video we have collaborated on this particular production he has a fine body of work to consider some of which you can see here on the screen right now and also funny story um a few people have written in over the years saying you know drak your title on the or splash screen in the intro is spelt wrong it's spelled histograph well this is the channel that is kind of the reason for it back when i was setting up my channel historiograph here already had his channel going and i didn't want to be seen try and step on toes by adopting the same spelling so i adopted an archaic 18th century spelling it means the same thing but it is obviously visually and linguistically slightly distinctive so for those of you wondering why my channel's logo says historiography instead of historiography well now you know but in all seriousness it's been an absolute pleasure to work with him and hopefully we'll be doing that again at some point in the future and as you can see there are some videos in his recent releases that have been covered on this channel as well coronel falkland islands and some that haven't along with some more modern things like the auckland campaign in 1982 so definitely go check out his channel and once again thanks everyone for listening watching and hope to see you again in another video that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry dock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 103,899

Keywords: wows, world of warships, Zeebrugge Raid, Ostend, WW1, Royal Navy, High Seas Fleet, Bruges, HMS Vindictive, HMS Thetis, HMS Intrepid

Id: g0VrSPzfbRM

Length: 36min 4sec (2164 seconds)

Published: Wed May 11 2022