Current Information:

Age-31

7, Cavendish Road, Brondesbury

Hampstead Cemetery

On 23rd April, 1918, the Royal Navy undertook an operation to block the Bruges ship-canal at its entrance into the harbour at Zeebrugge on the Belgian coast and thereby prevent German submarines from gaining access to the North Sea and beyond. The plan was to sink three old British cruisers HMS Thetis, HMS Intrepid and HMS Iphigenia, filled with concrete, to block the access to the ship-canal while at the same time, another old cruiser, HMS Vindictive and two former Mersey River passenger ferries, HMS Daffodil and HMS Iris would land a force of marines, the 4th Battalion, Royal Marine Light Infantry, on the mile long mole that jutted out to sea and protected the harbour. This force would destroy the gun emplacements and sea plane station that were sited on the mole and create a diversion while the block ships were sunk. At the same time, HM Submarine C3, filled with explosives, would ram the bridge that connected the mole to the shore and cut that link.

However, things did not go according to plan. A change in wind direction blew away the smoke screen protecting HMS Vindictive forcing the ship to reach the mole at the wrong point and resulting in great difficulty in getting the marines ashore in the face of heavy gun fire. The submarine C3 managed to wedge itself between the iron pillars of the bridge and after the fuses had been set and the crew taken on board a launch, it blew up taking most of the bridge with it.  With the diversion at the mole not going to plan the Germans were able to concentrate their fire on the three block ships and only two of them were able to make it to the narrowest part of the canal, where they were scuttled. As soon as this had been achieved, the marines, who had had a very hard time, were taken back on board, the crews of the block ships were picked up by motor launches, two of which were sunk, and the whole force headed for home, all except HMS North Star, a destroyer acting as an escort to HMS Vindictive, which was sunk by coastal batteries. The Zeebrugge Raid was promoted by Allied propaganda as a British victory but this was far from the case both in terms of the objectives achieved and the casualties sustained. The Bruges Canal was only partially blocked and German U-boats were still able to navigate it and the British force suffered over five hundred casualties from among the marines and the crews of the various ships taking part, whereas German casualties numbered only thirty. One of those who did not survive was George Spencer, serving aboard HMS Iris.