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Updated: July 25, 2025
Later in the day Jack was transferred to a hospital ship. All the allied wounded from the sea battle off Zeebrugge were to be sent to England. Captain McClure was grievously wounded. Jack would not be able to resume active service for some time, so his surgeon said, and would probably be invalided home.
The attack on Zeebrugge was wholly successful. Though the Germans assiduously strove to conceal the damage done, the later observations of the ruined port by British airmen left no doubt that as a submarine base it had been put out of commission for months to come.
We had no trouble coming up channel to-day, which seems singularly empty, at any rate in mid-channel, where we were. We got back about three hours ago, and as I was appointed temporary to the boat, Von Weissman kindly allowed me to leave her and come up to Bruges as soon as we got into the shelters at Zeebrugge. I got up here just, in time for a late dinner.
It is probable that the sealing of the harbors of Ostend and Zeebrugge, two of the most important German submarine bases, was one of the greatest feats of the whole European war. The attempt was extremely hazardous and could never have been successful except for the gallantry and heroism of the British crews.
The Dutch officer was notified that a prize crew would be at once sent on board his steamer to conduct it to the port of Zeebrugge. He opened wondering eyes, but made no protest, for he was fully aware of our cannons turned on his ship and of the loaded pistols of our crew.
"The pilot, though wounded, made a perfect landing" thus the report concludes. When the time came for the assault upon Zeebrugge the value of these painstaking preparations was made evident. The attack was made from sea and air alike. Out in the North Sea the great British battleships steamed in as near the coast as the shallowness of the water would permit.
It is midnight, and as I write in my room at the top of the house the low rumble of the guns from the south-west vibrates faintly through the open window, for it is extraordinarily warm for the time of year, and I have flung back the curtains and risked the light shining. We spent the night at Zeebrugge and came up to the docks here next day.
The combined armies of the Americans, the French and the British under one commander had driven the Huns northward till Zeebrugge was in danger of being wrested from them. Consequently, the American lads were anxious to get into the fray with their powerful new vessel.
We should have been in at dawn to-day, but we received a wireless from the senior officer, Zeebrugge, to say that mine-laying was suspected, and we were to wait till the "Q.R." channel, from the Blankenberg buoy, had been swept. We lay in the bottom for eight hours, a few miles from the western end of the channel. Our trip was quite successful, but not without certain excitements.
A fire was caused in the neighborhood of the Arnaville station. The aviation ground at Colmar and the fort of Zeebrugge were likewise bombarded. February 13, 1917, was an especially active day for Russian aeroplanes on the eastern front. They dropped bombs on the Povursk railway station, east of Kovel, and on the depots north of the Povursk station.
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