"The Zeebrugge and Ostend Raids 1918"

[bob lembke]

Guys;

I have just finished Deborah Lake's book on these raids on German coastal facilities. I have precious little knowledge on these actions, but I assume that this book is controversial. Before I launch specific comments or questions, is this topic of interest?

Also, has this been beaten to death in a prior thread?

I was quite impressed by the book, although, being a pedant, I prefer full-blown references, citations, etc.

It was interesting that the officer known as "Evans of the Broke", held up as a model dashing naval hero, was supposedly rather disgusted by the raids and the bogus acclaim and transferred out of the command.

Bob Lembke

[Regulus 1]

Bob,

As far as I know, nobody ever dared to to beat this to death.

After I wrote Marinekorps Flandern, a storm came over Flanders accusing me of falsifying history, as both Zeebrugge and Oostende had been blocked without any doubt. I did get attacks from all sides, even from people who were involved in the annual Rememberance service at Zeebrugge.

The diaires of the U-boats and torpedoboat units had all been falsified by the Germans to proof the opposite.

In other words, the U-boats that were sunk in the Channel of the Flandern bases could not be of the Flandern bases. The torpedoboats and destroyers operating before the Belgian coast, were none existing, the RAF was bombing the harbour of Zeebrugge almost daily just for fun...

I needed to read the propagandabooks written during the war such as The Glory of Zeebrugge etc. Thoses were telling the real thing. And I had even been moderate in my book...

Over the years I stayed with my viewpoint and more and more books were written that showed us the real story or parts of it. But now it is more generally accepted that the blockade was not a blockade... It was propaganda. However and I will repeat that also over and over again, I have the deepest respect for the men who participated in it, but not for their leader...

Deborah Lake has dared to set things on paper without any hesitation about the truth on these operations at Zeebrugge and Oostende. The whole thing was badly, very badly prepared, and it only lead to the death of hundreds of Marines. The attackers were beaten by a handfull of German counterparts, just because of the lack of preparation... And that is the mistake of Keyes and Keyes only. An officer who thinks his men will know what to do and doesn't check if the necessary has been done, is no good for the job.

Best from Johan

[FAAAEd]

I was quite impressed by the book, although, being a pedant, I prefer full-blown references, citations, etc.

Thanks for the tip I'll look out for this one. But like you I appreciate full references etc., particularly if:

It was interesting that the officer known as "Evans of the Broke", held up as a model dashing naval hero, was supposedly rather disgusted by the raids and the bogus acclaim and transferred out of the command.

as seems the case there is likely to be a controversial point of view, which would not surprise me in the least.

Keyes was not renowned for his dazzling intellect but was for dash.

The RN was poorly equipped for that war. Those that were not hidebound to Victorian ideals thought much about the 'Nelson Touch' but lacked understanding of the 'command and control' methods that Nelson used to make that touch possible.

[bob lembke]

Deborah Lake cited and quoted several British accounts of the engagement which seem to be complete, whole-cloth fabrications quite unrelated with what actually happened at Zeebrugge. So it would be quite useful to check these out, and see if they are "official histories", governmental or regimental, or personal memoirs, or a secondary source, etc. I agree with PetrolPigeon; here especially references would be very useful and bolster her position, which I suspect is not embraced by all.

She spent a bit of time discussing the mechanisms of the production of British propaganda, which she said involved special arraingements that the government had with major publishers to make their publishing flat-out custom-crafted books of propaganda very profitable. I had not known of this mechanism, but in the course of my research and my maddened book-buying I have come across many very suspicious books that both contain obviously false propaganda material and that often seem to have been published in some sort of odd fashion, sometimes in third countries.

Most of my reading and book-buying is of German materials of the era and on the war (50 books from Germany in the last say three months) and I really don't seem to see the same sort of cooked-over material. (The cynic might suggest that as I have a Hunnish sympathy, I may be reading such material all the time and simply, for subjective reasons, simply not even notice the propaganda.)

Of course, England had very different needs in the area of public relations and, dare we say, propaganda, as opposed to the Central Powers.

I might also add that the US turned out a lot of propaganda, some of it obviously of British origin and/or sponsorship, and this turned into a tidal wave almost minutes after the US entered the war.

Bob Lembke