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The Dover Patrol and later known as the Dover Patrol Force was a Royal Navy command of the First World War, notable for its involvement in the Zeebrugge Raid on 22 April 1918. The Dover Patrol formed a discrete unit of the Royal Navy based at Dover and Dunkirk for the duration of the First World War.
The Zeebrugge Raid (Dutch: Aanval op de haven van Zeebrugge; French: Raid sur Zeebruges) on 23 April 1918, was an attempt by the Royal Navy to block the Belgian port of Bruges-Zeebrugge. The British intended to sink obsolete ships in the canal entrance, to prevent German vessels from leaving port.
HMS Intrepid was an Apollo-class protected cruiser of the Royal Navy built on the River Clyde and launched in 1891. She was subsequently converted as a minelayer in the latter half of her career and ultimately sunk as a blockship during the Zeebrugge Raid on 23 April 1918.
The ship sank one destroyer and damaged two others in collisions. Attentive was assigned to coastal defence duties when the First World War began in 1914, and spent most of the war assigned to the Dover Patrol. She played a minor role in the Zeebrugge Raid in early 1918 and was then assigned to escort convoys to Gibraltar.
HMS Lord Clive was the lead ship of her class of eight monitors built for the Royal Navy during World War I. Their primary armament was taken from obsolete pre-dreadnought battleships. The ship spent the war in the English Channel bombarding German positions along the Belgian coast as part of the Dover Patrol, often serving as a flagship.
The White Ensign flying on wreck of HMS Thetis in the harbour at Zeebrugge outside the mouth of the ship canal, 24 October 1918. Date 24 October 1918 (First World War)
[3] [10] On 23 August 1915, the Dover Patrol bombarded the German-held port of Zeebrugge, with Melpomene one of twelve destroyers from the Harwich Force attached to the Dover Patrol for this action. While at the time, the British believed that the bombardment was successful, in fact, little damage was done.
The refloating and repairs were overseen by John Iron, a civilian sea captain and harbourmaster of Dover, who was appointed by Bacon as the patrol's salvage expert. [28] On 21 October, Iron guided the monitor across the strait to Dover but grew concerned about the pressure exerted on the bulkheads.