Norwich bulletin., 1918-05-17
STORIES OF THE WAR
low The vindiotive HIoekad.d osssnd

The British adniraity has issued the following graphic story of the Ostend operation:
 'qThe Sirius lies in the surf some 1 two thousand yards east of the en- ] trance to ostend harbor, which she 1 failed SC gaIantiy to block. and when i in the early hours of yesterday morn i ing the Vindictive groped her way {; through the smoke screen and headed i for the entrance it was as though the old dgh;i9g ship aWoke aud looked on. i 'There's the Vindictive.' The ! T1iuffie3 seamen and marines standing i by the @1rpeao tubes and guns turned l at that name to gaze at the great black ship seen nlistily through the
 screening smoke from the destroyers's tunnels, plotting silently to her goal
 and end.
 i There was no preliminary bom- 1 bardment of the harbor and batteries,
 as before the previous attempt. That l was to be the first element in the sur prise. A timetable had been laid down 1 for every stage of the operation, and i the staff work before hand even in
 cluded precise orders for laying the l smoke barrage, with plans calculated l for every direction of the wind.
 Monitors anchored in firing posi- l tions far seaward awaited the signal. |, The great sea batteries of the royal marine artillery in Flanders, among
 the largest guns that were ever placed
 on land mountings. stood by likewise to neutralize the big German artillery ] along the coast, and the airmen who were to coilaborate with an aerial hembardment of the town, waited somewhere in the. darkness overhead. Destroyers patrolled seaward of the small craft.
 The Vindictivc. always at that sol- i emn gait of hers found the f1agship's ! light buoy and bore up for where a : coastal motorboat commanded by 1 Lieutenant William R. Slayter was waiting by a calcium flare upon the old position of the Stroom Bank buoy. -Four minutes before she arrived there, and fifteen minutes only be- fore she was due at the barbor mouth, the signal for the guns to open was given. Two motorboats under command of Lieutenant Albert l..
 Poland dashed in towards the ends of the high wooden piers and torpedoed
 them. There was a machine gun on the end of the wooden pier. and that vanished in a roar and leap of flames
 which called to the guns.
 ] "Over the town a flame suddenly appeared high in the air and sank
 slowly earthwards-the signal that the airplanes had seen and understood. Almost coincdentally with their first
 bombs came the first shells, whooping up from the monitors at sea. The
 surprise part of the attack was sprung. The surprise, despite the Germans watchfulness. seems to have
 been complete. Up till the moment when the torpedoes of the motor boats exploded there had not been a shot
 from the land-only occasional rou tine star shells.
 , "The motor launches, built to either , hand of the Vindictive's course the likeness of a dense sea mist. driving : landward with the wind. Star shells 5 paled and were lost as they sank in it; : the beams of searchlights seemed to break off short upon it's front. It } blinded the observers in the great | batteries which suddenly, upon the l warning of the explosions of guns, roared into action. And the monitors r replied
 2 Meanwhile the airplanes were l bombing methodically and anti craft - guns were searching the skies for ; them. Star shells spouted up and = f1oated down.
 l Through all this blaze of conflict r the old Vindictive, slowly approached Q the entrance. A sea fog had develop : ed. The destroyers had to turn on f their lights and use their sirens. The Q air attack was suspended and the Vim l dict1ve, with some distance yet to go T found herself in gross darkness. There s were motor boats on either side of her Q escorting her to the entrance. ! "The inevitable motor boat Up No e 22 commanded by Acting Lieutenant . Guy L. Cockburn, raced on under | heavy fire and planted a flare on the = water between the piers on either side g of the entrance. The Vindictive was e in The guns found her at once. She q was hit every few seconds after she { entered, her scared hull broken afrest Q in score of places, her decks and T upper works swept by machine guns q After her control was demolished F by a shell which killed all the occu- a pants, including Lieutenant Angus ' H. MacLechan, who was in command :. of it, the upper and lower bridges anG q the chart room were swept by bullets IF Commander Godsal ordered the officers = to go with him to the coming tower IF They observed that the eastern piel = was preached some two hundred yard. from the seaward end, as though a = some time a ship had been in collision
 with it.
 Immediately after passing tht
 
 sal went on deck and shouted an orde G to starboard the helm. The Vindictivt ' responded and laid her battered nos, = to the eastern pier and prepared t n swing her 320 feet of length across thu d channel.
 - Tt was at that moment that a shel l. from the shore batteries struck tn = coming tower. Lieutenant Sir Johl is Alleyne and Lieutenant V. A. h Crutchley were still within. Com n mander Godsal was close to the towe ,- outside. Lieutenant AIleyne wa d stunned by the shock. Lieutenan If Crutchley shouted through the slit t If the commander and receiving n
 answer, rang for port engine full spec m astern to help the ship swing. Tn s- Vindictive now was lying at an angl i of about forty degrees to the pier an l. seemed to be hard fast; so, it wa l. impossible to bring her further around h Lieutenant Crutchley gave the or rs der to abandon ship, according to tn le programme previously laid dowI $ Engineer Lieutenant Commando ,d William A. Bury, who was the last | 1e leave the engine room, blew the mai ,y charges by switch installed af T. Lieutenant Crutchley blew the auxili
 ary charges in the forward six-inc to magazine from the coming tower. 1t. 'The explosive tore the bottor 1e plates and bulkhead.5 from her. Sh T. sank about six feet and lay upon tn in bottom of the channel. Her work wS
 done.
 Tt is. presumed that Commando ic Godsai was killed by the shelf whic CT struck the coming tower Lfeutenan l Crutchley failed to find GodsaPs bod IT, CT that of Sub- b-Iieutanant MacI .achI