The Zeebrugge Raid 1918 ('The Finest Feat of Arms')

The Zeebrugge Raid was a daring mission to attempt to block the German submarines at Bruges. These submarines were responsible for sinking a third of all Allied merchant shipping during World War I, and in early 1918 there was a danger that the German submarine campaign could have starved Britain into submission. This book explores how Haig's plan to break out from the Ypres Salient and capture Bruges and the German Naval Base there was thwarted in the hellish quagmire at Passchendaele during November 1917. The exhausted Allied forces were in no state to carry out a further campaign, and the only hope was to block the entrance at Zeebrugge. It was left to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Light Infantry in 1918 to stop the Flanders-based submarines. The raid was 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, at night, challenged by the tide and the German gun batteries. This book features personal accounts of those men from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Light Infantry who took part in the raid—ordinary men who performed extraordinary, heroic deeds.