The Raid on Zeebrugge - 23rd April 1918

e-mail Colin McKenzie

The damaged Vindictive back in Dover (IWM)

Alfred Hutchinson a Royal Marine and the last living survivor of the Raid recalled in 1996 that most of the Marines on the Iris never managed to get onto the Mole because of the difficulty in scaling the ladders and ropes from the ferry's heaving deck.  When the withdrawal signal sounded the ferry moved away from the shelter of the Mole and in Alfred's words 'they took a real pasting' from the German guns. He remembers being on deck when a German shell hit the ferry amidships and caused devastation below, killing seventy five Marines who thought they were safely on their way home.

A Mother's story

Letters to the Admiralty from a mother, seeking information about her son, missing after the Zeebrugge Raid

... The assault continues

AFTER THE RAID

The Vindictive arrived in Dover at 8 o'clock the following morning to great cheering from all the other ships in the harbour. The residents of Dover, including Admiral Keyes wife, reported that during the raid they could hear the guns on the Belgian coast seventy five miles away and that the sound had rattled their windows.

Albert McKenzie and all the other wounded men were carried immediately to a waiting hospital train.

One hundred and sixty one men had been killed on the Raid, seventy five of them by one shell which hit the ferry boat Iris soon after she left the Mole to return to Dover.

Click on this text to hear Royal Marine Alfred Hutchinson talking about Admiral Keyes and the return of the Fleet to Dover

Twenty eight other men died of their wounds after the Raid and a further three hundred and eighty three were wounded. Sixteen men were reported missing and thirteen were taken prisoner, having been left behind on the Mole.

The morning after the Raid these prisoners were marched into Zeebrugge past the sunken block ships. By coincidence Kaiser Wilhelm was staying near Zeebrugge at the time of the Raid and came to see the damage for himself and later spoke to some of the prisoners.

Praise ...