First Ostend Raid - Attack On Ostend

Attack On Ostend

The assaults on Zeebrugge and Ostend were eventually launched on 23 April, after twice being delayed by poor weather. The Ostend force arrived off the port shortly before midnight and made final preparations; the monitors took up position offshore and the small craft moved forward to begin laying smoke. Covering the approach, the monitors opened fire on German shore defences, including the powerful "Tirpitz" battery, which carried 11 in (280 mm) guns. As a long range artillery duel developed, the cruisers began their advance towards the harbour mouth, searching for the marker buoys which indicated the correct passage through the diverse sandbanks which made navigation difficult along the Belgian coast.

It was at this stage that the attack began to go seriously wrong. Strong winds blowing off the land swept the smoke screen into the face of the advancing cruisers, blinding their commanders who attempted to navigate by dead reckoning. The same wind disclosed the Inshore Squadron to the German defenders who immediately opened up a withering fire on the blockships. With their volunteer crews suffering heavy casualties, the commanders increased speed despite the poor visibility and continued groping through the narrow channels inshore, searching for the Stroom Bank buoy which directed shipping into the canal.

Commander Alfred Godsal led the assault in HMS Brilliant and it was he who stumbled into the most effective German counter-measure first. As Brilliant staggered through the murk, the lookout spotted the buoy ahead and Godsal headed directly for it, coming under even heavier fire as he did so. Passing the navigation marker at speed, the cruiser was suddenly brought to a halt with a juddering lurch, throwing men to the decks and sticking fast in deep mud well outside the harbour mouth. Before warnings could be relayed to the Sirius following up close behind, she too passed the buoy and her captain Lieutenant-Commander Henry Hardy was shocked to see Brilliant dead ahead. With no time to maneuvere, Sirius ploughed into the port quarter of Brilliant, the blockships settling into the mud in a tangle of wreckage.

Artillery and long-range machine gun fire continued to riddle the wrecks and the combined crews were ordered to evacuate as the officers set the scuttling charges which would sink the blockships in their current, useless locations. As men scrambled down the side of the cruisers into Coastal Motor Boats which would relay them to the Offshore Squadron, destroyers moved closer to Ostend to cover the retreat and the monitors continued their heavy fire. Godsal was the last to leave, picked up by launch ML276 commanded by Lieutenant Rowley Bourke. With the main assault a complete failure, the blockading forces returned to Dover and Dunkirk to assess the disaster.

When the forces had reassembled and the commanders conferred, the full facts of the failed operation were revealed. The German commander of Ostend had been better prepared than his counterpart at Zeebrugge and had recognised that without the navigation buoy no night attack on Ostend could be successful without a strong familiarity with the port, which none of the British navigators possessed. However, rather than simply remove the buoy, the German commander had ordered it moved 2,400 yd (2,200 m) east of the canal mouth into the centre of a wide expanse of sandbanks, acting as a fatal decoy for any assault force.