Product Description

The purpose of this raid was to attempt to block the submarines at Bruges. These submarines were responsible for sinking a third of all Allied merchant shipping during the First World War and in early 1918 there was a danger that the German submarine campaign could have starved Britain into submission. The book explores the role of the German Flanders Flotilla based at Bruges and the submarines that passed through the canal entrance. Haig s plan to break out from the Ypres Salient and capture Bruges and the German Naval Base was thwarted in the hellish quagmire at Passchendaele during November 1917. The Allied forces were exhausted and were in no fit state to carry out a further campaign to capture these objectives. It therefore fell to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Light infantry to block the entrance at Zeebrugge. The raid was practically a suicide mission with a remote chance of surviving or returning home. With this knowledge the men who took part demonstrated great courage and fortitude under cover of darkness, challenged by the tide and the German gun batteries. This book features biographical tributes to accompany photos of 133 of those men from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Light Infantry who took part in the raid. They were ordinary men who performed extraordinary, heroic deeds.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73835 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-25
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

About the Author
Paul Kendall has spent six years researching, collating and preparing this book for publication. He has gone to extreme lengths to establish contact with individuals related to the participants of the raids and has searched through museums, archives and libraries to search for material on what Churchill described as the finest feat of arms of the Great War .

Customer Reviews

The definitive account of Zeebrugge
HAVING followed the author's exhaustive research on the internet, it's fair to say that Paul Kendall's Zeebrugge Raid 1918: The Finest Feat of Arms was eagerly awaited.

In the flesh, it does not disappoint - in fact it surpasses expectations.

Zeebrugge is probably the ultimate Boy's Own story of the Great War - the attempt by sailors and marines to cork the U-boats in their bottle by blocking the Belgian port on St George's Day 1918.

The raid failed in its aim, but such was the success of the British propaganda machine - and the bravery of the men involved - that this "immortal deed" became an instant tonic to flagging Allied morale in the spring of 1918.

It is a story oft told - but never better and never as comprehensively, or as copiously illustrated.

Refreshingly, the author describes the Zeebrugge raid from the viewpoint of attacker and defender (the latter is often sorely neglected).

The emphasis, nevertheless, is on those men who stormed the Mole or led blockships into the gates of hell that fateful April 23.

Many of these stories will be well-known: the accounts by Royal Marine Sgt Harry Wright or Capt Alfred Carpenter VC, for example.

But many will not, thanks to the author's efforts to track down the families of participants.

Indeed, a good third of the book is devoted to a series of moving biographies and first-hand accounts from every aspect of the assault and support force.

LS Edward Gilkerson volunteered for Operation ZO, leaving behind the magnificent dreadnought HMS King George V and joining the obsolete cruiser Vindictive. It would be his final ship; he was killed, probably by a shell.

His battleship shipmates mourned his loss as much as his parents did. They wrote an eloquent and heartfelt letter of condolence to the Gilkersons:

"Dear parents of a noble son. We find him one with all things at night the stars show us where a bed is made for him in Heaven.

"As long as men's hearts are young and the blood runs warm, Edward Gilkerson's memory will be great."

Often overlooked in the aftermath of the raid are the funerals which followed in its wake: there were burials for a good week or more, invariably very public affairs - particularly those in what became known as `Zeebrugge Corner' of St James' Cemetery in Dover. It remains immaculately maintained to this day.

There are now no living reminders of the raid; the last survivors passed away in 2002, but their immortal deed will rightly live on through this outstanding volume. The blurb on the dustjacket proclaims "there is no more complete account" of the raid. It is spot on.

absulutely spiffing
a tremendous book about a period in history. quite often i read books about the first world war and to be fair to the authors much has been rewritten. however this book has gone just a tadge further and i recommend it to any true british patriot or just the devotee to good war stories that you would read in the HOTSPUR comic