OCR Text |
Show STORY OF RAID ON ZEEBRUGGE Thrilling Attack in Which the British Faced Death on Belgian Coast. ABOARD H M S VINDICTIVE IN DOVER HARBOR, April 25.- A correspondent cor-respondent of the Associated Pr sited the cruiser Vindictive todaj 1 the guesl of captain Allied i B Carpenter, Car-penter, who commanded her In the ej pedltion last Tuesday against the German Ger-man submarine base at Zeebrugge. on the Belgian coaat. Captain Carpenter received the correspondent cor-respondent with his arm in a sling from a shell splinter wound. The ship showed innumerable signs of conflict. The commander, during the attack was at the end of the bridge In a small steel box or cabin which had heen especially es-pecially constructed to house a flame thrower Captain Carpenter, in his account ac-count of the part taken by the Yindie live in the raid, said to the Associated Associat-ed Press : "Our chi f purpose In the expedition expedi-tion was to distract the attention of the battery while the block ship.- ran In, especially the battery of 11-ineh guns which occupied a commnndinc; position ;it the tip of the mole. Our ship was elaborately prepared for the busine of landing soldiers on the mole which is of stone 40 feet high and 15 feet above the indlctive'a top deck at the state of the tide when the attack took place. "We had a special superstructure over the upper deck and three long gangways of hrows' which were designed de-signed to take the men up to the level of the mole as soon as we got alongside. Exactly according to the plan we ran alongside the mole, approaching ap-proaching it on the port side where we were equipped with specially built huffeis of wood two feci wide "As there was nothing for us to tie u n to we merely dropped anchor there while (lie Daffodil kept us against the mole with her nose against the opposite oppo-site side of our ship. In the fairly heav sea i wo of our three gangways were smashed but the third held and 500 men swarmed up this onto the mole This gangway whs two feet wide and thirty feet long. "The men who went up it Include I 300 marines and ISO storming seamen from the Vindictive and 50 or so from the Daffodil They swarmed up the ten gangway carrying hand grenadt -and Lewis guns. No (Jermans succeed --d in approaching the gangway but a hard hand-to-hand fight look place about 20Q yards up the mole toward the shore. Men Are Killed "The Vindictive 8 bow was pointed toward the shore so the bridge got the full effect of enemy fire from the shore batteries One shell exploded against the pilot house, killing nearly near-ly all of its ten occupants Another burst in the fighting top. killing a lieutenant and eight men who were doing excellent work with two pompoms pom-poms and four machine guns "The battery of eleven -inch guns at the end of the mole was only 300 yards away and It kept trying to reach ii- Tin' shop- batteries also were diligent. only a few German shells hit our hull because it was well protected by the wall of the mole, but the upper structure, masts, stacks and ventilators showed above the wall and were riddled. A considerable portion of our casualties were caused by splinters from these upper works. Meanwhile, the Daffodil continued to push us against the wall as if no battle was on. and. if the Daffodil had failed to do this, none of the members mem-bers of the landing party would have been able to return to the ship. "Twenty-five minutes after the Vindictive Vin-dictive had reached the wall, the first block ship passed in and headed for the canal. Two others followed In leisurely fashion while we kept up the fight on the mole One of the 6!ock ships strand Kb outside of the canal, but the two others got two or three hundred yards inside, where they were successfully sunk across the entrance. en-trance. "One difficulty we had In preparing prepar-ing this expedition was that we could not have open practice of what we contemplated doing for fear the enemy might get information of the plan ' All the men were tuned up to a high pitch and it was with very ..n ious hearts that we waited for a suitable suit-able time to strike, knowing that every day we waited there was a greater chance of our secret leaking out. Germans Blown Up. "Fifteen minutes after the Vindictive Vindic-tive arrived alongside the mole, our submarine exploded under the vla- duct connecting the mole with the mainland The Hermans had sent a considerable force to this viaduct as I soon as the submarine arrived and I these men were gathered on the via-I via-I duct attacking our submarine with machine guns When the explosion occurred the viaduct and Germans were blown up together The crew of the submarine consisting of six men. escaped on board a dinghy to a motor j launch. "Early in the fighting a Herman she!) knocked out our howitzer, which had been getting in some good shots on a big German seaplane station on the mole, half a mile away. This is the largeM seaplane station in Belgium. Bel-gium. Unfortunately our other guns could not bl brought to bear effectively effec-tively upon It "The shell which disabled the how-: how-: itzer killed all the members of the gun I crew. Many men also were killed by a German shell which hit the mole close to our ship and scattered fragments frag-ments of steel and stone nmnrig the marines assembling on the deck around the gangwav. "The German lire was very hot all I the lime we lay alongside the mole. At times the German guns reached as high as forty shots a minute During Dur-ing the hottest part of the fighting, i I left my station in the flame house and went all around the ship to see I how things were going. The spirit of jthe men was excellent All they aSked ' was "Are we w inning1' "Half an hour after the block ships I Weill in we received the signal to withdraw The Vindictlve'8 siren was blown and the men returned from all j parts of the mole and thronged down I the gangway We put off after hav-I hav-I ing laid alongside just about an hour The (Jc-rmans made no effort to In-I In-I terfere with our getaway other than to continue their heavj firing The heaviest casualties of the expedition ex-pedition appear lo have been inflicted I on the personnel of the Iris, many r board heme killed by a Bhell whii b burst on the bridge. v"f the casualties casual-ties on this vessel more than a third were killed. Funeral services for the men who were lost will be held here tomorrow. A memorial service for Captain II. C. Halllhan, who commanded the seamen's sea-men's storminc party was held today |