Talk:Zeebrugge Raid

Campbeltown

Is there any evidence this inspired the Campbeltown raid? Trekphiler 10:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Vindictive picture in wrong article!

The picture of the wreck of the Vindictive has no business here. Vindictive was sunk in the Second Ostend Raid and the picture should be transferred to that article. The only portion of the picture which applies to Zeebrugge is the small shot of the memorial in the upper left-hand corner. The caption is specific that the memorial is at Zeebrugge and the Vindictive wreck at Ostend. Cenedi (talk) 11:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Binksternet (talk) 14:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Research source

The Times of 20 February 1919 carried the Admiralty report into the raid. Would be an excellent source to expand this article with. Available online but a susbscription is required. Possibly accessible to any UK editor with a library card (definitely available with Kent library card via link on my user page). Mjroots (talk) 06:57, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

By "Admiralty report" do you mean Keyes's despatch, which presumably is also available from the London Gazette? --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 07:50, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Report is by Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, the London Gazette of 18 February 1919 is mentioned, so presumably the report appears there too. AFAIK, that source is freely available on the internet. Mjroots (talk) 08:51, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

HMS North Star

HMS North Star, an Admiralty M class destroyer, was sunk by shell fire. — Preceding unsigned comment added by URTh de (talk • contribs) 20:40, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Citations

Did most but couldn't find one for the 1964 commemoration or the nominal rolls for the submarines.Keith-264 (talk) 00:54, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Tidied the rest of the citations.Keith-264 (talk) 11:21, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Found a citation for the note but it only covers two of the people named.Keith-264 (talk) 10:21, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Added more narrative about earlier operations to set context.Keith-264 (talk) 15:51, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

The Deal, Walmer and Sandwich Mercury

Can't find any details of these reports in the interweb for the citations and bibliography, can anyone help? Keith-264 (talk) 11:23, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Indecisive???

This is a German victory not indecisive. The Allies had losses, Germans not really, and the plan failed in its objectives. So it was a successful defense, though partly not because of German prowess 162.213.136.97 (talk) 02:27, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

It's for the RS to judge, not us. If your sources say different pls add them. Template:Infobox military conflict there's aguide here on the result criterion, which is much discussed for other articles too.Keith-264 (talk) 06:29, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

What do the German historians conclude? From what I read here, it appears that we got our English bottoms soundly spanked - doesn't appear "indecisive" at all, especially in terms of losses. 50.111.50.145 (talk) 14:25, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Don't pretend to be English/British in order to make your point more legitimate; it's a bad look. Most historians conclude it indecisive because nothing the Germans actually did resulted in a victory for them; more bad luck with the wind changing. 2A00:23C5:CE1C:DB01:FCE4:D7DF:2C92:AA12 (talk) 17:26, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

OOB

Excellent addition, Template:HMS useful for anyone not aware. RegardsKeith-264 (talk) 16:15, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

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Memorials in Zeebrugge

@Keith-264: (as I see from the edit history that you have been working on the article).

I noticed that a couple of the Zeebrugge memorials and burials/unknown graves are not covered in the article yet. I added two photos here, but leaving this talk page note as I am not sure how many graves in Zeebrugge Churchyard are casualties from the Raid (from either side). If there are sources out there about this, then that can be added to the article text.

There is a major memorial not mentioned in the article yet. This is the large memorial that was unveiled in 1925 on the mole in Zeebrugge (the memorial was a stone column topped by a bronze sculpture of St George slaying the dragon). This memorial was destroyed by the Germans in WW2 (in 1942) due to it being a potential range marker for navy bombardment. Hopefully that is all covered in reliable sources somewhere. Carcharoth (talk) 02:25, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello Carcharoth, thanks for your improvements to the article, I've spent quite a bit of time looking for sources for the commemorative section and found very little so the article relies on you and some of the others for those details. I had another look for the VC details but the RNOH is oddly silent on them. The article is in a much better state than a few years ago and you've smoked out far more than I ever could; thanks Keith-264 (talk) 09:20, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

@Keith-264: sorry for the delay replying, and thanks for your reply. I will try and add something on the 1925 memorial column soon. The bit about the VCs is interesting. What is the RNOH? Carcharoth (talk) 03:26, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Apols, it's the naval Official History. There are links to them here [1] Regards Keith-264 (talk) 09:35, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Zeebrugge Churchyard

There are a number of graves and features in Zeebrugge Churchyard commemorating casualties of this raid:

Gallery

• 
  Later memorials to two VC recipients Edward Bamford and Norman Augustus Finch
• 
  Memorial inscribed: "Lest we forget / To the memory of our countrymen who fell in this place on St George's Day April 23rd 1918 / Erected by the members of the British Salvage Section St George's Day 1920".
• 
  Either side of this memorial are 13 graves of unknown British casualties (2 officers, 7 Royal Marines, 2 seamen, 2 stokers) and one named casualty: Charles Phelps Tuckey
• 
  Some of the graves of sailors from the German Navy who died on 23 April 1918 are in the foreground

Carcharoth (talk) 04:20, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Altered the gallery mode to conform to the article style to see how it looks; will it work or should all the pics on the article page be <gallery> only? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 09:39, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Was only providing the pictures here for consideration. The German graves bit is speculation (no source found yet to definitely confirm they died in the Raid). The other three are OK. The unknown casualties are listed in the original CWGC records. The 14 grave marker placements either side of the 1920 'salvage' memorial suggests that they were unidentified bodies recovered by salvage operations at some later date. Maybe there are some sources out there that cover this? You would normally expect the CWGC records to cover the 1920 memorial, but their website is currently silent on this. Carcharoth (talk) 10:36, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

A number of the above questions are answered here. Translating that gives a good idea of the history, though most of the material could go at and article on Zeebrugge Churchyard which has enough of a history to sustain an article, IMO. Carcharoth (talk) 11:44, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

CWGC casualty records

Of the 185 named casualty records named on gravestones in Zeebrugge Churchyard, 10 died on 23 April 1918. These are likely (but not definitely) casualties of the Raid. Some casualties that died at a later date but were still buried here may also have been casualties of the Raid. The 10 recorded as having died the day of the Raid are 7 Germans and 3 British:

• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/6019163/schulz,-berthold/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/6018999/bauer,-otto/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/6019087/kuenne,-hermann/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/6019140/rau,-georg/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/6019093/kuhn,-otto/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/6019118/miltze,-joseph/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/6019050/hagemann,-erich/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2959976/mayers,-john-albert/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2959977/osborne,-george-arthur/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2959981/tuckey,-charles-phelps/

Carcharoth (talk) 04:27, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

A list of the British casualties here confirms the three British graves above (Mayers, Osborne, Tuckey) as being from the Raid. No idea where to find a list of the German casualties. The British list also includes men who died some days later (presumably from wounds received). Carcharoth (talk) 10:30, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Victoria Crosses

The Victoria Crosses:

• Richard Sandford
• Edward Bamford
• Norman Augustus Finch
• Arthur Leyland Harrison
• Percy Dean
• Albert Edward McKenzie
• Alfred Carpenter
• George Bradford

Carcharoth (talk) 04:41, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Original raid date

The article currently says the raid was originally intended for 2 April, but was called off. Is this correct? Some sources I am looking at say 12 April. Is 2 April a typo? One of the sources is the deaths on 12 April, again listed here. Also look under 12 April here. FWIW, the 4 graves (and two memorial to the missing entries) of the six casualties from CMB.33A, coastal motor boat are:

• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/89232/angus,-robert/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/617074/batey,-/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/3039648/cunningham,-andrew-coutts/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/617143/curran,-francis-joseph/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/3046234/hopkins,-istrian-victor/
• https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/617440/wallis,-frank-arthur-george/

This sort of cross-referencing is tedious, but relatively easy to do. Three of the burials ended up in Dunkirk Town Cemetery, one in Coxyde Military Cemetery and one each on the Plymouth and Portsmouth Naval Memorials. It would be possible to go through the longer list of casualties for the actual raid of 23 April (and the died of wounds casualties) and see where they are buried (most presumably in Dover), but that would take a while. Someone might have done it already. Maybe not. Not really something that has much use for the Wikipedia article, as this sort of cross-referencing borders on original research. One of the reasons it gets done sometimes (as well as aiding those researching their family history) is to help narrow down the identity of the unknowns. Some of those listed as unknowns will be actual unknown burials in CWGC graveyards (rather than lost at sea). Carcharoth (talk) 10:51, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm being an idiot: "Kendall lists the names of the fatalities, and the locations of their graves, which are predominantly in the United Kingdom." (Kendall 2009, pp. 308–310). So that has already been done. Not sure if he covered the 12 April casualties. Probably. Carcharoth (talk) 11:21, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Recent edits

Zeeraider,, those additions go under External links. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Commemoration

IWM collection items seem to be sufficient to note some of the memorials. Eg the plaque that Iris II carried after returning to civilian service GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:01, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't anticipate there not being a commemoration section for long but its been too poorly cited for too long to stay as it was. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 16:46, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Later edition

@Keith H99: Thanks for the attention to the article but you oughtn't alter a source to a later edition because it might be different - the text may have been revised and the page numbers might not correspond. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 16:19, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi there. I amended details on a book in the "Further Reading" list. Had it been referenced I would not have touched it. As I understand it, Pen & Sword published Lake's book in 2008 and Greal's similarly titled book the same year. Given that Lake's book was republished in 2015, it goes some way towards delineating these two Zebrugge-related publications from Pen & Sword. Keith H99 (talk) 14:10, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Ahem! I didn't notice that the book was in further reading, apologies. Keith-264 (talk) 19:04, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Battle result

Recognising some traffic on the battle result portion of the infobox, without prejudice to any one result, I'd like to hear the source argument for an 'Indicisve' conclusion.--Labattblueboy (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Greetings, the newest work I have on it, Coleman, E. C. (2014). No Pyrrhic Victories: The 1918 Raids on Zeebrugge and Ostend. A Radical Reappraisal. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7509-5849-3. sees it as a British victory pp. 234–236, 244 citing photographic reconnaissance of ships congregated inside the entrance, that silt accumulated rapidly around the blockships and was so fine that it was almost un-dredgeable, the left side of the canal (when facing out to sea) had a curved convex concrete base which made dredging on that side impossible and that weeks later, the ships near the entrance had been dispersed amongst nearby canals, not dispatched from the port. Prisoner comments when being eavesdropped by the British talked of the canal being blocked and so did Dutch press reports. Lock use records, the testimony of hundreds of Belgian forced labourers and photographic evidence also lack support for the swift re-opening claims by the Germans. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 22:41, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I think that re-appraisal needs to be in the article text, and then the lede first. GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:32, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, having put the above comment in, I found that I couldn't remember the result I'd put in the article when I revamped it a few years ago. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 15:20, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

That's quite interesting. However, it wouldn't seem appropriate to rely on this source. I don't see any wider acceptance (or citation) of it by others, nor any academic reviews. At least with the google version, the citation within the book is not the next (no footnote or even chapter citation). That said, you raise a very good point regarding the largely unquestioned acceptance of the German claim that traffic was quickly restored. I see Mark Karau (ex:Twisting the dragon's tail. The Zeebrugge and Ostend Raids of 1918) has taken a different angle and argued it was a naval bombardment in June that affected canal access at Zeebrugge but that the raid itself hadn't negatively affected access. Lots of food for thought.--Labattblueboy (talk) 22:41, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

My book on the Zeebrugge naval air station by Michael Schmeelke has a passing mention of the results of the attack. "So the passage through the canal from Bruges remained open for the U-boats of 1. and 2. U-Flotille. Two A-boats from the torpedo boat flotilla were also able to pass the blockships when the tide came in on the following day. Later another portion of the canal was dredged so that all ships could pass the blockships and high tide." Looks like the attack blocked surface ship traffic for a few weeks, but did nothing to stop the U-boats. Definitely not a British victory and arguably a German one as the Brits failed to impede sub operations in any way.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:39, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

inconsistency

@DuncanHill:: the in-to-out order of the three cruisers is different in the map and in the caption of the photo. 151.29.133.9 (talk) 18:09, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't know why you've pinged me, there are other editors who know much more about this thta I do! If you could state clearly which maps and which photos you mean, and what the differences are, I am sure one of them will be able to clarify things for us. DuncanHill (talk) 18:21, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I'll have a look once I know what is inconsistent. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 18:45, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Dear Duncan, I have pinged the last editor, sorry for the inconvenience.

Dear Keith, excuse my poor english. I do not understand if your reply means that you need more time because you are busy or that you want more info from me. The caption to the aerial photo says that the three cruiser are Intrepid, Iphigenia and Thetis, while the labels on the vessels in the map are Iphigenie, Intrepid and Thethis (in in-to-out order). thanks.151.29.133.9 (talk) 23:10, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Oh, the color-drawing has the names in the the same order of the aerial photo. The inversion is only in the black-and-white one 151.29.133.9 (talk) 23:16, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I think the B&W one will be the original. I will ask at Milhist. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 23:31, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Warner, Philip (1978), The Zeebrugge Raid, states that Intrepid entered the channel first and was scuttled followed by Iphigenia. Perrett, Bryan (2011), North Sea Battleground: The War at Sea 1914-1918, includes a black and white map that shows Intrepid deeper in the channel and Iphigenia closer to the sea, so matches with File:Zeebrugge raid (en).png. Lake, Deborah (2002), The Zeebrugge and Ostend Raids 1918, says Intrepid went into the channel first but doesn't say specifically that Iphigenia sank closer to the sea (though that is implied). Dunn, Steve R (2017), Securing the Narrow Sea: The Dover Patrol 1914-1918, includes a photograph of the three vessels and captions them in the order (from land to sea) of Intrepid, Iphigenia and Thetis. So in this case the colour map is accurate and the black & white one is in error. From Hill To Shore (talk) 08:24, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks very much. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:33, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Added detail from Coleman to the pic caption. Keith-264 (talk) 09:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)