Air Mechanic I Francis Donovan F.19971, R.N.A.S. Zeebrugge Raider

[Paul D Kendall]

Francis Kenelm Donovan

I am researching the Zeebrugge Raid and I am researching the life of Francis Kenelm Donovan He served with the RNAS during the raid and was responsible for manning the Flamethrower Hut on board HMS Vindictive on 23rd April 1918. With his flamethrower's damaged by shellfire, he assaulted the Mole armed with a blunt cutlass. He returned home unharmed.

During World War 2 he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers. I know that he was captured at Thala, Tunisia on 21st February 1943 and spent some time at Oflags IXA and XIIB. Do you know if anyone knew Major Donovan? or anyone who is realted to him? I would be very interested to hear any information about him. I am also looking for a photo of this man.

Please contact me at the following email address: Paulkendall291@aol.com

[bob lembke]

Hi, Paul;

Just noticed this post. As you know, I am far behind the power curve on the British sources, etc., but have an interest in the use of flame throwers in the attack on Zeebrugge.

I just finished Deborah Lake's The Zeebrugge and Ostend Raids 1918 a few minutes ago, and think I will start a thread on the book today. I have peeked in the Index, and Donovan is not mentioned. Do you know if he was in the fore or aft Flammenwerfer hut? Both large flame throwers were disabled by shellfire.

In terms of my own rather narrow interests, I, being a bit more informed, find Wing Commander Brock, the commander of the RNAS men on the raid, and the installer and possibly the fabricator of the fixed and portable flammenwerfers (the almost universal British terminology during WW I) used on the raid a fascinating figure. I assume that you have read the Lake book; the speculation about him having possibly died in a cutlass duel with Torpedo=Obermatrose Hermann Kuenne of Torpedoboot S 53 while the landing party on the Zeebrugge Mole was attacking a moored torpedo boat. Supposedy Kuenne and a British officer armed with a cutlass and a pistol killed each other with cutlass strokes. Whoever this British officer was, I suspect that he may have been the last British Royal Navy officer to die in a cutlass duel. The Germans took this story seriously enough to name a destroyer for Kuenne in December 1937, according to Ms. Lake.

Bob Lembke

[bob lembke]

Again; Hi, Paul;

Also, why the "dull cutlass"? Deborah Lake asserts that a lot of the planning and preparation for the assault was a bit "casual", but one would think that dull cutlasses was a bit thick.

On a pre-dawn raid on Hill 304 at Verdun, my father, speaking French, attempted to save the life of a sleepy French officer clutching a pocket pistol, but the fool shot my father from a distance of inches. Within seconds my father's sergeant had swung his "razor-sharp" spade (in my father's words, probably a bit of an exaggeration) overhead over my crouching father, and it chopped vertically thru the officer's crested Adriane helmet, thru his skull, the edge catching in his teeth. My father was not only lightly wounded, but had cranial matter down his neck. As a final insult, when he reported to the first aid station after the raid, the small hand entry wound was so obscured by the burn from the muzzle blast that they told him this it was only a burn and sent him away. Only when the round worked its way up under the skin a few days later did they relent and remove it, when Pop returned with the new evidence.

This would not have been so effective on the helmeted officer if the sergeant had a dull spade. He might have only had a concussion (at least for a few seconds). It seems that a lot of the Zeebrugge raiders were armed, at least in part, with cutlasses. Dull? I think that Lake recounted how one it was thought to give one sailor a pistol, but it was decided that he might hurt someone with it (I assume they meant other members of the raiding party), so he was issued a cutlass instead.

British sportsmanship is legendary, but dull cutlasses, and hold the pistols?

Bob Lembke

[per ardua per mare per terram]

I doubt the blunt cutless idea too. At worst they would have been shrpened on the way over. They were a standard issue item and as such didn't need the issue of new kit to get operational. All the cruisers would have had sharpening wheels and the old hands would know how to get an edge..

[FAAAEd]

I doubt the blunt cutless idea too. At worst they would have been shrpened on the way over. They were a standard issue item and as such didn't need the issue of new kit to get operational. All the cruisers would have had sharpening wheels and the old hands would know how to get an edge..

Having done a fair bit of 'cutlass swinging’ during my first year in the mob I ca attest that even a blunt cutlass can do a fair bit of damage from its weight alone.