Zeebrugge Raid
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Zeebrugge Raid, naval engagement between British and German forces on April 22–23, 1918, during World War I. Desperate to counter the German U-boat offensive in World War I, British Vice Admiral Sir Roger Keyes devised a bold plan to block the Bruges Canal in occupied Belgium, which linked German submarine pens to the open sea. Although resolutely carried out on the symbolically important St. George’s Day, the raid was an almost complete failure.
Germany’s submarine force came close to winning the war with unrestricted attacks on British trade from 1917. One of the most important German U-boat bases, directly threatening the Strait of Dover, was entered via a canal reaching the sea at Zeebrugge. The Royal Navy’s “Dover Patrol” had made a few raids on Zeebrugge with torpedo boats, but Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, just before being dismissed as First Sea Lord, proposed a more substantial assault. Some months later, Keyes issued a plan to block the canal in a night raid by sinking three old cruisers filled with concrete in its entrance. To cover their approach, another old cruiser, HMS Vindictive, and supporting vessels were to land seamen and Marines to attack gun batteries on the harbor breakwater known as The Mole.
On the night of April 22–23, little went according to plan. Battered by gunfire on the approach, Vindictive reached the mole in the wrong position. As a result, the landing parties suffered heavy casualties as they attacked along the breakwater, failing to neutralize the gun batteries. The unsubdued German guns also made conditions extremely difficult for the blockships. With heroic effort two were scuttled in the mouth of the canal, while one was sunk before reaching its target.
After taking heavy casualties, the British force withdrew, and while it took the Germans only a few days to reopen the port, the number of U-boats leaving Zeebrugge declined somewhat, since they could clear the canal only at high tide. A raid on Ostend soon afterward was equally unsuccessful. Both Germany and Britain claimed victory, but the boldness of the operation, contrasting with the caution of most naval activity in World War I, was greeted with particular fervor by the British authorities and public. Keyes received a knighthood, and the heroism of the participants at Zeebrugge and Ostend was rewarded with eleven Victoria Crosses.
Losses: British, 600 dead or wounded; German, 25–30 dead or wounded.