THE DOVER PATROL
The kings and the presidents go their ways,
Their armies march behind them,
But where would they be,
Said the man from the sea,
Without us Jacks to mind them?
It is seldom possible, during the course of a war, to appraise the
ultimate value of any single action; and it was only by slow degrees,
as we have suggested, that the results of Jutland were to become
visible. Not until the very end was it fully to appear that the
enemy's capital surface ships had been so hammered and cowed as to have
freed the seas of them with a finality equalled by no other naval fight
in history. Presently, as we shall show, that proved to be the case;
and, from now onward, he relied upon his submarines--it was early in
1917 that these reached their high-water mark of mercantile
destruction--and occasional tip-and-run raids on the part of his
destroyers based upon Zeebrugge and Ostend.
With regard to the submarine campaign, this was the most serious menace
the Admiralty had been required to face; and it was to take charge of
the grave situation, created by its initial success, that Sir John
Jellicoe, to the sorrow of the Fleet and with {202} much personal
regret, was called to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord in succession to
Sir Henry Jackson.
This able officer had succeeded Lord Fisher on the latter's resignation
in May, 1915--when the Gallipoli campaign had seemed to him finally to
have made an end of his alternative policy--Mr. Balfour having become
First Lord in the Coalition Government formed at the same time. In
Admiral Beatty, however, both the navy and the nation felt that the
Grand Fleet would be in capable hands--the changes taking place after
friendly discussion between the officers concerned, in the _Iron
Duke_--and Sir John Jellicoe returned to Whitehall to deal with as
perilous a crisis as had ever faced the empire.
What had in fact happened was that, under the stimulus of war, both
scientific research and achievement had advanced, as regarded the
submarine, with unprecedented strides. From a range of scores to a
range of hundreds and even thousands of miles, they had become
effective. They had begun to attain a speed that put them on superior
terms to the vast bulk of mercantile steamers; and they already carried
guns that, before the war, it would have been thought impossible to
mount, and that were in fact heavier than those carried by the earlier
German destroyers. Nor had the measures of defence as yet overtaken
those of destruction in the race for stability. The methods that, to a
great extent, had been successful in dealing with the smaller
submarines had become obsolete; and the devising of others, their
practical application, and the safeguarding, in the meantime, of our
mercantile marine--more than half a million {203} tons of mercantile
shipping were, at this time, being sunk every month--were problems upon
whose solution depended not only the victory of the Allied cause, but
the actual physical existence of the people upon these islands.
Of the means ultimately adopted, of which it may at once be said that
none was in itself a complete solution, it would be impossible, in the
present volume, to give more than the briefest details. The plotting
out of minefields for which 100,000 mines, of an improved type, were
ordered by Admiral Jellicoe, and of which the most extensive was
designed to stretch from the north of Scotland to the waters of Norway;
the construction and employment on a vast scale of speedy patrol
vessels of all descriptions; the regular use of aircraft, both for
observation and the dropping of depth-charges; and the development of
the convoy system with destroyer escorts, as the increase in the
production of the latter justified this--it was rather to a combination
of all these methods, and the skill and adaptability of the men
employing them, that the ascendency over this new weapon was slowly
regained. Of one particular means, however, namely the employment of
lure ships--armed vessels, variously disguised--no record of our naval
activities from the personal standpoint could omit some account; and of
the amazing courage and ingenuity with which the _Q_ ships, as they
were called, were handled, let the following couple of examples, chosen
at random, sufficiently indicate.
Powerfully armed, but with a false screen disguising the extent of her
armament, the apparently easy {204} prey, H. M. S. _Prize_, a topsail
schooner of 200 tons, was sighted, on April 30, 1917, by a prowling
submarine. This opened fire at about three miles range, and, according
to plan, Lieutenant W. E. Sanders ordered some of his crew, as though
in a panic, to lower a boat and push off. Meanwhile the ship's head
was put into the wind, and the gun crews lay flat on the deck to
conceal themselves. Still shelling the schooner and inflicting
numerous casualties--borne in silence as part of the game--the
submarine approached to within seventy yards, apparently satisfied that
she had been definitely abandoned. That was Lieutenant Sanders'
chance, and he made the fullest use of it. Running up the White
Ensign, the screens were dropped, and every available gun opened fire.
The submarine's conning-tower was blown to pieces, as was her forward
gun, all of the crew of the latter being destroyed; while a machine-gun
on the _Prize_ raked her deck. In less than five minutes she was on
fire and sinking in a cloud of smoke, her captain and one of her men
being picked up and brought aboard the _Prize_ as prisoners. The
_Prize_ herself, however, was now sinking fast; and it was only by the
most strenuous efforts of all aboard that the holes in her were plugged
and she was kept afloat till, two days later, she was found by a
motor-launch.
Less successful, but equally representative of the work of these
individualist adventure-ships, was the extraordinary action fought by
the _Dunraven_ in the following August. Commanded by Captain Gordon
Campbell, who had already distinguished himself in {205} this
particular form of warfare, the _Dunraven_, apparently an ordinary
armed merchant-ship, sighted an enemy submarine on the horizon.
Observing that the _Dunraven_ continued her zig-zag course, the
submarine at once set off in chase of her, remaining submerged till
within less than three miles, when she came to the surface and opened
fire. With what was seemingly her single gun, the _Dunraven_ began to
reply to this, at the same time sending out distress signals, by means
of her wireless, in order to preserve her supposed character. Later,
as the shells began to drop nearer, she lowered her "panic" party,
being already herself then on fire aft.
Meanwhile the submarine had approached to within 400 yards, being
obscured by the _Dunraven's_ smoke; and, for this reason, though every
moment's delay added to the risk of her after magazine's being blown
up, Captain Campbell decided not to open fire until he could get a
clearer view of his enemy. Unfortunately, before this happened, a
heavy explosion revealed to the submarine the true nature of thee
_Dunraven_ by accidentally starting her fire-gongs, one of her guns,
with its gun crew, having been destroyed. There was no alternative,
therefore, but to drop the screens--though only one gun could be
brought to bear--the enemy submarine, taking alarm, having already
begun to submerge. It was now obvious that the _Dunraven_ would be
torpedoed, and Captain Campbell took prompt measures. Removing the
wounded, and concealing them in cabins, and bringing a hose to bear on
the fire, he signalled that all traffic should be kept below the
horizon during the final {206} act that was to come. Having been twice
torpedoed, he then sent away a second "panic" party, and thus left the
ship apparently forsaken, with all her guns unmasked and the White
Ensign flying.
The fires had now to be left to work their will; ammunition was
exploding on all sides; and, for fifty minutes, while Captain Campbell
and those remaining with him still lay hidden, the submarine cautiously
surveyed the vessel through her projecting periscope. She then came to
the surface, astern of the _Dunraven_, where no guns could be trained
on her, and, for twenty minutes, proceeded to shell her before steaming
past, and again examining her. Captain Campbell then decided to let
off a torpedo at her, but this just missed. Apparently unobservant of
this, the submarine then turned and steamed slowly down the other side,
Captain Campbell loosing a second torpedo, also unhappily without
result. This was seen by the enemy, who at once submerged again,
Captain Campbell signalling for help; while, as a last resource, he
disembarked yet a third "panic" party, leaving but one gun's crew
aboard. Nothing more was heard from the enemy, however, and, in a few
minutes, British and American destroyers were on the scene; the wounded
were transferred; the fires were put out; and the _Dunraven_ was taken
in tow. Both Captain Campbell and Lieutenant-Commander Sanders
received the Victoria Cross for their _Q_ boat work--the latter being
unfortunately lost, with his schooner the _Prize_ a few months after
the incident just related.
Now in all these measures, as in the surveillance of {207} shipping and
the protection of Anglo-French traffic, the Dover Patrol necessarily
played a commanding and indeed vital part. Upon it devolved the
guarding of the southern of the two outlets by which alone the German
submarines might escape into the Atlantic; and the difficulties were
trebled by the enemy's possession of the West Flanders ports. With the
geography and defences of these and their strategical significance we
shall deal more particularly in the next chapter as with the splendid
episode in which the Dover Patrol rendered them largely valueless to
the enemy. But it must never be forgotten that, for nearly four years,
the Dover Patrol carried on its work with the hostile ports of
Zeebrugge and Ostend always within three hours' steaming. Darkness is
the friend of the destroyer, daylight the friend of the submarine.
Both were stationed at these enemy ports; and the strain upon the Dover
command can thus be gauged. Further, it has to be remembered that
through no other channel in the world passes so continual a procession
of ships, how integral in the life of this country let a single
incident suffice to show. In perhaps the darkest hour of the war, a
serious proposal was made to the Government completely to seal the
Straits of Dover for a certain defensive purpose. The proposal was
examined, and it was then ascertained that, as regarded London alone,
one of the following alternatives must immediately follow. Either it
would have to be arranged, at a time when pressure upon our
rolling-stock was at its severest, that no less than seventy-two
additional trains should enter London daily, or that more than {208}
three and a half millions of London's population should be removed to
the Atlantic ports that it was proposed to use. The suggestion was
thus found to be wholly impracticable, but its examination at least
proved the immense responsibility resting upon the Dover Patrol and the
officers in charge of it.
Established at the beginning of the war, the examination service in the
Downs, therefore, continued without intermission to its end, the work
being conducted by the Ramsgate Boarding Flotilla, largely manned by
reservists and volunteers. From a hundred and twenty, diminishing, as
the war proceeded, to eighty vessels a day were thus overhauled; and,
almost every night, the Patrol was responsible for the safety of a
hundred vessels here at anchorage. Nor did these duties exhaust the
list, for to the Dover Patrol fell the additional task of supporting,
day and night, the left flank of the British army. In a very real
sense, indeed, it was itself not only the left flank of the British
army, but of the whole of the Allied forces reaching from the Alps to
the Belgian coast. Subject to continual attack not only from enemy
surface-craft and the ever more efficient German submarines, but from
daily and nightly excursions of hostile aeroplanes and airships, its
own weapons of offence were largely novel and hitherto untried. The
sea-going monitor was still, in most respects, an unfamiliar vessel;
and the splendid qualities of these shallow-draught gun-platforms--some
of which had just been completed for river work in Brazil--were as yet
unrevealed when first {209} enlisted for their arduous duties upon the
Belgian coast. When it is also recalled that under no other command,
perhaps, was serving so large a proportion of amateurs, some idea
becomes possible, not only of the peculiar functions of the Dover
Patrol, but of the very deep debt owed by the nation to this sort of
naval maid-of-all-work.
To Rear-Admiral the Hon. Horace A. L. Hood--afterward, as we have seen,
to be lost in the Battle of Jutland--fell the responsible task, in the
first days of war, of directing the activities of this composite force;
and, in the great race toward the coast that followed the first battle
of the Marne, a flotilla under his command was actively engaged in
supporting the left wing of the Belgian army. It was during the last
half of October, 1914, that the military position, as regarded the
coast-line, was most critical; and it was during the night of October
17th that Admiral Hood, flying his flag in the old fleet-scout
_Attentive_, anchored off Nieuport Pier with three monitors, the
_Severn_, _Humber_, and _Mersey_, the light cruiser _Foresight_, and
several destroyers.
Early next morning news was received that the German infantry was
marching from Westende, and the flotilla moved up the coast to draw the
fire from, and if possible to silence, the batteries that accompanied
them. Almost immediately fire broke out from the shore, and this
proved to be the beginning of a coastal campaign that continued without
intermission for the next three weeks. For the defence of Nieuport
some machine-guns from the monitor _Severn_ were put ashore, and it was
while in charge {210} of these that Lieutenant E. S. Wise, gallantly
leading his men, was killed.
For the first few days, the enemy troops were trying to push along the
coast roads in considerable force; a large amount of transport came
under the naval guns; and much damage and destruction was caused by
them. In view of this, the enemy soon changed his tactics, the
infantry being withdrawn; while heavier guns were brought into action,
compelling a response from the sea-forces. The lighter craft were
therefore sent home to be replaced by H.M.S. _Venerable_ and some old
cruisers, while, at the same time, five French destroyers were placed
by Admiral Favereau under Admiral Hood's command--the latter having the
honour, as he put it (and it is tempting to wonder what would have been
the comments upon this of the Hood who fought under Pitt) of flying his
own flag in the French destroyer _Intrepide_.
During the later stages, persistent submarine-attacks were made upon
the larger bombarding vessels, but these were thwarted, though not
without casualties, by the alertness and dash of the destroyers. It
was while thus guarding the _Venerable_ that the destroyer _Falcon_
came under a very heavy fire from the enemy's larger guns, and
exhibited, in the persons of her officers and crew, the utmost coolness
and devotion. Thus, under a hail of projectiles that eventually killed
him, Lieutenant Wauton remained unmoved at his outlook for submarines.
With the captain and twenty-four men killed and wounded, Sub-Lieutenant
Du Boulay took command of the {211} ship. Finding himself the only
unwounded man on deck, Able-Seaman Ernest Dimmock immediately went to
the helm while Petty-Officer Robert Chappell, himself dying, and with
both legs shattered, worked to the last, as best he could, tending his
fellow wounded on board. Meanwhile on land, owing to the arrival of
reinforcements and the skilful inundation of the flat country, the
enemy's rush was finally checked, and the position more or less
established early in November.
Such was the high standard set at the outset by the Dover Patrol; and,
under Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald H. Bacon, who succeeded Rear-Admiral
Hood in the following April, it was not only worthily sustained, but
finally established beyond challenge--the development of Dunkirk as an
additional offensive base, being one of the great achievements of the
war. Thus, in spite of its ever more arduous and multitudinous
duties--and it is interesting to remember that this was the command in
which Nelson was the least successful and most ill at ease--it had been
engaged, by the end of 1915, in no less than fourteen concerted
actions. Knocke, Heyst, Zeebrugge, Ostend, Middlekerke, and Westende
had been severally attacked; three military factories, two ammunition
depots, storehouses, and signalling stations had been destroyed;
considerable damage had been done to the wharves and the famous Mole at
Zeebrugge; thirteen large guns had been put out of action; and a
dredger, a torpedo-boat, and two submarines sunk.
During this time the only British losses were three vessels sunk; and
their very names indicate the {212} extent and variety of the marine
resources that were to prove our salvation. The armed yacht _Sanda_,
the pleasure steamer _Brighton Queen_, once so often thronged with
cross-channel trippers, and the drifter _Great Heart_--these were the
first casualties of the Dover Patrol. That they were so few was due in
large measure to the vigilance and seamanship of three men, of
Commodore C. D. Johnston in command of the Dover destroyers; of Captain
P. G. Bird in charge of the drifters; and of Commander W. Rigg, who was
chiefly responsible for the early organization of the mine-sweepers;
while to Wing-Commander Longmore of the Dunkirk aerodrome must be
assigned much of the credit for checking the enemy's aircraft. Had
they not been supported, however, by the cheerful fidelity and amazing
competence of their subordinates, they could have achieved but little
as was generously recognized by Vice-Admiral Bacon in his first
official despatch.
"Their Lordships will appreciate," he wrote, "the difficulties
attendant on the cruising in company by day and night under war
conditions of a fleet of eighty vessels comprising several widely
different classes, manned partly by trained naval ratings, but more
largely by officers of the naval reserve, whose fleet training has
necessarily been scant, and by men whose work in life has hitherto been
that of deep sea fishermen. The protection of such a moving fleet by
the destroyers in waters which are the natural home of the enemy's
submarines, has been admirable, and justifies the training and
organization of the _personnel_ of the flotilla. But more remarkable
still, {213} in my opinion, is the aptitude shown by the officers and
crews of the drifters and trawlers, which, in difficult waters, under
conditions totally strange to them, have maintained their allotted
stations without a single accident. Moreover, these men under fire
have exhibited a coolness well worthy of the _personnel_ of a service
inured by discipline. The results show how deeply sea adaptability is
ingrained in the seafaring race of these islands."
Those are words that, if they were true of the first sea-recruits of
1914, are equally, and, in some respects, more astonishingly applicable
to the thousands that subsequently joined them from all ranks. Of
these earlier candidates for sea service, none was more typical than
Lieutenant-Commander H. T. Gartside Tipping, the oldest naval officer
then afloat and one of the first to perish in the Narrow Seas. Having
retired from the navy, with the rank of lieutenant, thirty-five years
before the outbreak of war, Lieutenant-Commander Tipping had inherited
a small estate, including a yacht, in the Isle of Wight. Here he had
lived a quiet country life, ardently devoted to yacht racing; had kept
himself alert and physically fit; and, at the age of sixty-six, having
rejoined his old service and been given the rank of
lieutenant-commander, had gladly and efficiently served under officers
who might almost have been his grandsons.
To such a man as Lieutenant-Commander Tipping, however, the call of the
sea may quite understandably have been imperative. Far less
foretellable, and only to be explained, surely, by the racial instinct
{214} referred to by Admiral Bacon, was the later phenomenon of expert
sailors quartering the seas in fast patrol-boats, who, but a year or
two before, had been farmers or commercial travellers, or clerks behind
counters in London shops. Christened in naval fashion by their
professional brothers with various opprobious nicknames, these were in
reality but the affectionate symbols of the older navy's pride in its
temporary junior partners; and the best measure of their
work--necessarily undramatic, as all preventive work must largely
be--is a survey of what the enemy was unable to accomplish in any
representative period of the war. Let us take, for example, the six
months before the Battle of Jutland, in its middle period. In that
half year, through the Dover Patrol alone, there passed 21,000 merchant
ships, and of these only 21 were lost or seriously damaged as the
result of enemy action--little less than one in every thousand,
entrusted to the case of this particular command. More remarkable
still, perhaps, since these were inevitably, of course, the enemy's
constant and most tempting target, not a single transport or one
soldier's life was lost at sea during the same time.
Such had been the record, then, of the Dover Patrol up to the events
described in the last chapter--events that, as we have shown, drove
Germany's naval activity, for its main efforts, under the water, and
confined it afloat to those tip-and-run raids of which that of the
following February may be taken as typical. It was on Sunday night,
February 25th, soon after eleven o'clock, that a number of star-shells
suddenly broke in the sky over the Isle of Thanet, illuminating {215}
the coast for a long distance and bringing many of its inhabitants to
their windows. Almost simultaneously a brisk bombardment revealed the
presence of a flotilla of German destroyers--Margate, Broadstairs, and
a little hamlet between them, being subjected to the enemy's fire.
Fortunately the casualties were few, and there was no military
damage--none of the places attacked being fortified towns--but a woman
and a child were killed and two children seriously wounded, and a dozen
houses wrecked or injured. A single British destroyer pluckily engaged
the enemy, who was soon lost to sight in the darkness, neither the
British vessel nor any of the raiders suffering, as far as was known,
any serious hurt.
For this enemy success, if such it can be called, and for one or two
previous ones of a like nature, there was considerable criticism of the
Dover Patrol, chiefly of an ignorant and hasty character. With the
Germans at Zeebrugge and Ostend, and in favourable conditions of
weather and darkness, it was obviously out of the question to give
immutable guarantees against occasional excursions such as these; and
that these brief and lawless bombardments reflected no lack of spirit
on the part of the Patrol, the Dover destroyers _Swift_ and _Broke_
were soon triumphantly to demonstrate.
This was in the small hours of the dark morning of April 21, 1917, some
of the German destroyers having crept into the Straits and shelled both
Dover and Calais. In the case of the former town there were no
casualties, but over a hundred shells were thrown into Calais, several
people being killed, others {216} injured, and a good many houses being
destroyed. Out on patrol and near mid-channel steaming westward, were
the _Swift_ and _Broke_, the _Swift_ leading under Commander Ambrose
Peck, and the _Broke_ in charge of Commander E. R. Evans. Of the two
vessels, soon to become immortal, the _Swift_ was seven years the
older, having been launched at Birkenhead in 1907 from the yards of
Messrs. Cammel Laird. She had a displacement of 1,800 tons and carried
four 4-inch guns. The _Broke_, on the other hand, had only just been
completed before the outbreak of war, and, although approximately of
the same dimensions, carried six 4-inch guns and three torpedo-tubes.
By a remarkable coincidence, in view of what was to come, she bore the
name of that Sir Philip Broke who commanded the _Shannon_ during her
historic duel in the spring of 1813, with the _Chesapeake_, when the
latter was captured, after a most heroic resistance, during a
hand-to-hand struggle on her deck. Commander Evans was, of course, the
famous Polar explorer, who had been second-in-command to the ill-fated
Captain Scott.
The sea was quite calm, but, in the black night, it was impossible to
see more than half a mile ahead; and the enemy vessels were but six
hundred yards distant when they were spotted by the destroyers'
lookouts. Six in number, and including amongst them some of the
fastest destroyers in the world, they were then on the port bow and
travelling at high speed in an opposite direction to that of the
_Swift_ and _Broke_; and, almost simultaneously, they became aware of
the presence of the two Britishers. Instantly they {217} sounded their
fire-gongs, and, six to two, opened rapid fire. A minute before and
the _Swift_ and _Broke_ had been respectable members of a gallant
flotilla. Ten minutes later--such is the luck of the sea--and they had
written their names forever in British naval history.
Wheeling round almost at right angles to her previous course, and in
the face of the point-blank fire and dazzling flashes of the enemy's
guns; with a target before her little more than 300 feet long and
racing through the darkness at nearly thirty miles an hour; with the
practical certainty, if she missed this, of being herself rammed by the
next in the line; regardless of the odds, the _Swift_ hurled herself at
the first visible German destroyer. So instant had been the decision
of the _Swift's_ commander, that it might almost have been called
automatic--the natural response not only of a lifetime's schooling, but
of all the centuries behind this of British admiralty. Hit or miss, it
was a sporting chance, the chance of a lifetime, and he took it. Alas,
it was a miss, but such a narrow one that he himself cut through
without disaster, swung round to port, torpedoed another of the six,
and then picked up and chased a third.
Meanwhile the _Broke_, following the _Swift_, had put her helm over
almost at the same moment; had successfully torpedoed one of the enemy
line, literally plastering her with 4-inch shells; and was now making
to ram another--possibly the one that the _Swift_ had missed. This she
did, splitting her at full speed, burying her bows in her and crushing
her down; and there then ensued such a fight as had scarcely been {218}
witnessed since the days of steam. With a gun out of action and part
of her bridge already carried away before she had rammed; with her
helmsman bleeding from several wounds but sticking to his wheel as long
as he was conscious; with the remaining enemy destroyers pouring their
shells into her, and German sailors swarming into her forecastle--the
_Broke_ raked her prey with everything that could be fired from a
4-inch gun to an automatic pistol.
By now, however, several Germans had gained their footing on deck,
where Midshipman Gyles had been working the forward guns; and, for a
few seconds, half blind with blood, and almost alone, he met the rush.
Then a huge German seized his pistol-wrist and tried to wrench the
weapon away from him, only to be struck at and thwarted by
Petty-Officer Woodfield and finally cutlassed by Able Seaman Ingelson.
With cutlasses and pistols the decks were then cleared, and a couple of
hiding Germans made prisoners, and half a minute later the _Broke_
freed herself from the German destroyer. With the _Swift_ still
chasing the enemy that she had marked down, and with two others put out
of action, the _Broke_ now turned her attention to the remainder and
attempted to ram yet one more. In this she failed--she had been struck
in the boiler-room and was becoming difficult to manoeuvre--but loosed
a torpedo at the destroyer nearest to her, and was successful in
hitting her.
The enemy was now in full flight, but the disabled _Broke_ succeeded in
drawing level with one of the burning destroyers. Rapidly losing way,
she nevertheless {219} approached her at considerable risk to herself,
the enemy, who had previously been shouting for help, suddenly and
unexpectedly opening fire--an act of treachery that, as it proved,
merely hastened his end. Four rounds silenced him, and a torpedo aimed
amidships struck him fairly and settled his fate.
Meanwhile the _Swift_, herself partially disabled, had lost touch with
the vanishing enemy, and, coming about, had sighted the destroyer
rammed by the _Broke_ and now on the verge of sinking. Here, too, the
sailors on board were chorussing their desire to surrender; but, with
natural suspicion, the _Swift_ remained on guard, her guns trained on
the sinking vessel. Presently this heeled over; the crew took to the
water; and, as there seemed to be no other enemy vessel in sight, the
_Swift_ cautiously switched on her searchlights, lowered her boats, and
began the work of rescue. At the same time the _Broke_ began to signal
to her--the whole fight had lasted barely five minutes--and the two
crews were soon cheering each other, as well they might.
Both the destroyers sunk were four-funnelled vessels of the fastest and
latest German type; two others had been crippled; and over a hundred
men and officers taken prisoners. When the _Broke_ rammed, as her
helmsman had said, "I smiled for the first time during the action"--and
that smile may be taken as representative not only of both ships'
companies but of the town of Dover on that April morning, when the two
destroyers, saluted by everything in the harbour, modestly crept to
their buoys.
{220}
_Brilliant_ as this little action was, however, and typical both of the
ineptitude with which the German destroyer-service was handled, and the
prestige that the Dover Patrol had built up for itself during the war,
it was but an incident of the ceaseless campaign, waged with almost
every weapon in the Narrow Seas. Thus, while the coastal bombardments
that had been so prominent a feature of the earlier months of the war
were, for military reasons, deemed inadvisable during 1916 and 1917, an
active blockade of the occupied Flanders area was maintained and
vigorously pressed home.
Not only was the minefield that had been laid down when the North Sea
was first closed continually added to, but other barrages were always
being thought out and improved as necessity demanded. Thus, in 1916,
twenty miles of nets had been laid parallel to the Belgian coast, and,
in the winter of the same year, another had been constructed from the
Goodwins to Dunkirk. This was somewhat difficult to keep in order, but
the Belgian nets were renewed in 1917, and, in November and December of
the same year, 4,000 mines were laid between Folkestone and Boulogne.
These were of the latest type, and, with further additions, together
with a system of flares and day and night patrols, developed into a
barrier against which, in the end, the German submarines beat in
vain--at least seventeen of these being certainly known to have fallen
victims to its efficiency.
Second only in naval importance to the Grand Fleet, and in even more
strenuous contact with the enemy, none had more cause, perhaps, to
bless the {221} Dover Patrol, of whose unadvertised work this is but
the barest outline, than those 2,000,000 soldiers, for whom, each year,
it acted as crossing-sweeper, on their way home to England.
{222}