1918] LAST GERMAN OFFENSIVES

the destroyer, the decoy ship, the airplane, the bomb,
and the depth-charge, and a new foe of the U-boat,
the American sub-chaser—little wooden vessels,
displacing only 60 tons and manned by young men
fresh from college. These tiny craft crossed the
Atlantic under their own power in the face of fierce
winter gales, and in the English and Irish Channels
and at the mouth of the Adriatic by means of their
listening devices located and hunted many TJ-boats
to their doom. Partly the defeat was due to Allied
methods of defence—the dazzle ship, the barrage,
and the convoy.

The use of the Flanders ports as German bases
remained, however, an intolerable menace, and a
plan had long been maturing to get rid of it. Could
Zeebrugge and Ostend be put out of action, the
German naval base would be pushed "back three
hundred miles to Emden, and the British east coast
ports would become the natural bases from which to
deal with the attacks by enemy surface craft on the
Channel. It would not cut off the main bases of the
U-boats, but it would release the forces of the Dover
Patrol to hunt them down, and it would facilitate
the construction of a new Channel mine barrage.

On Monday, 22nd April, the eve of St. George's
Day, the omens were favourable, and in the late
afternoon, three hours before sunset, the expedition
started, timed to reach Zeebrugge by midnight. It
was a singular Armada. There were five old cruisers
to act as block-ships—the Intrepid, Iphigema, and
Thetis for Zeebrugge, and the Brilliant and the
Sirius for Ostend. A small cruiser, the Vindictive

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