Zeebrugge Raid - Aftermath

Aftermath

The blockships were not in the correct position when sunk and only managed to block the canal for a few days. The Germans removed two piers in the western bank of the canal, near the blockships, and created a channel through the silt near the blockships' sterns. They were thus able to move submarines past the blockships at high tide. In part these failures were due to the recently appointed Keyes (An Admiralty man) changing the detailed plans made by Bacon ( A sea-going Commander with intimate knowledge of the tidal and navigational conditions in the Ostend & Zeebrugge area).

The Zeebrugge Raid was promoted by Allied propaganda as a key British victory and resulted in the awarding of eight Victoria Crosses. Of the 1,700 men involved in the operation, 300 men were wounded while more than 200 were killed. Among those killed was Wing Commander Frank Arthur Brock, the man who devised and commanded the operation of the smoke screen.

Some of the casualties were buried in England, either because they died of their wounds en route or because their comrades had recovered their bodies with the intention of repatriating their remains. Two are buried in the Hamilton Road Cemetery, Deal, Kent. At least nine are buried in Dover's St. James's Cemetery.

On 23 April 1964, some of the 46 survivors of the raid, along with the families, the mayor of Deal, and a large Royal Marines Honour Guard, held a service of commemoration for their fallen comrades at the Royal Marines Barracks in Deal, and a tree was planted near the officers' quarters in remembrance. The event gained major press coverage and was reported in The Deal, Walmer and Sandwich Mercury newspaper, dated 23 April 1964, and 30 April, and a message to the veterans from a by-now very ill Winston Churchill was read to those assembled.

There are two memorials to the Zeebrugge Raid in Dover. the first is the Zeebrugge Bell, which was given to Dover by the King of the Belgians in 1918, and is to be found with a memorial plaque in Dover's Town Hall. the second is the Zeebrugge Memorial in St James's Cemetery. A regular memorial service is held there.

• HMS Intrepid and Iphigenia sunk as blockships at the entrance to the canal.

• SS Brussels, torpedoed several times during the raid by the British and scuttled by the Germans in October 1918.

• Dedication Text of Zeebrugge Cross of Sacrifice in Dover.

• Zeebrugge Memorial and Graves from St James Cemetery in Dover.