Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 314 - The Zeebrugge Raid

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

GET LIVE SHOW TICKETS: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lions-led-by-donkeys-live-from-the-hague-tickets-912551134007 SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Untrained soldiers and suicide submarines raid a port during WWI with mothballed ships, reinforced with armor made from used mattresses and sandbags. Sources: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/war_sea_gallery_06.shtml https://www.royalmarineshistory.com/post/the-raid-on-zeebrugge-23-april-1918-for-england-and-st-george https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-12161 https://issuu.com/faircountmedia/docs/special-operations-outlook-2018/s/72765 https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/zeebrugge-a-gallant-raid-on-saint-georges-day/

Hey everybody, it's Joe. We have another live show coming your way at MusicCon in The Hague, The Netherlands, Saturday July 20th. The doors open at 19.30. You can get your tickets at the link below in the show notes as they are available. Hope to see you there. Hey everybody, Joe here from the Alliance Led by Donkeys podcast, but I guess you probably already knew that.

If you like what we do here on the show, consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com slash lions led by donkeys. Just $5 per month gets you every regular episode early, access to our community discord, a digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, as well as its audiobook, read by me, and over five years of bonus content. By supporting the show, you support us and allow us to keep our show as it has always been ad-free. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the show.

Hey everybody, welcome to the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe and I Pretty sure for the first time ever for one of these episodes. I got the dad crew in the house Yeah, me and Francis from hell of a way to die and also this podcast Yeah, I don't I'm curious as to whether like we got pulled onto this because we're military or because we're dads Maybe a little bit of both. I will say that the dad knowledge probably won't come in a lot of, like a lot of help on this one. That's when Himmler decided to build

his own little shack in the backyard. He started a podcast. And it now has like a Spotify exclusivity deal. But no, it's because we're talking about a very, very stupid episode of military history that I feel like two people who are on different sides of the military, being an officer and an NCO, and then me.

Joe, the perma Joe, if you will. They couldn't promote that out of me. They love corporals so nice, they promoted them twice. I thought nobody would appreciate this story more than you guys. That's because we're talking about the Zeebrugge raid, which is probably one of the least known raids of all of the big name ones that we're all familiar with, of World War I specifically, because what do you think happens when you attempt to plan a highly meticulous raid but special forces have not yet been invented?

Well, you do a whole lot less war crimes probably. Well. I mean, it's World War I, so. Yeah, it's true War one So yeah, they didn't really invented the concept of war crimes either, you know, it's funny I I always think about this because World War one there's beyond the strange aesthetic there's also just so much of like this collision of you know, sort of like Remnants of the standing in formation not quite Napoleonic But let's be real here like Franco-Prussian warship and a lot of the sort of colonial wars in East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa that European powers fought in the intermediate period.

And then it's like, so it's like, wow, guys with huge mustaches who love doing like charge the light brigade shit, encountering machine guns and being like, those don't exist. Like there's always, it's darkly funny. It's never anything but darkly funny, but it is funny. This one we got plenty of dumb machine guns. We got cannons and we have ships reinforced with mattress armor, but we have to get to that point. World War I is one of my favorite wars to to because the the difference between warfare from

like everything from like you want from like a rolling block rifle to as you said a Maxim machine gun and as we know like you don't make changes to the way that you do war until you encounter the thing that's about to churn you into jelly so like you've got this entire like World War one oh we're all having a good time it's we're gonna have a bit of a war. It may last about three months and then five years later, the entirety of the French landscape is churned into butter. Hey, they said home by Christmas. They spent Christmas several years in the future. But also it's like, as Joe has talked about numerous times on this show, if you want to look

at a real sort of historical cultural prelude to the First World War, it's going to be the Russo-Japanese War. But the Russo-Japanese War didn't have fucking planes. You didn't have dudes like we hadn't invented flight quite yet or to the point where it could be. I mean, if it coincided, it wasn't quite at the point where people were flying around in open canopy biplanes and just throwing bombs out the side of them, which happened in World War I.

We can respect the human race simply because they achieved flight and then within a short amount of years, like, how can we kill each other with this? Can you put a gun on it? Militarily, doctrine was still locked far more in the second half of the 19th century where humans flying was either the Montgolfier brothers in hot air balloons or like the shit Icarus did and got punished for and that's hubris, so don't do it. And now it's like, no, we can fly and we're gonna fucking drop shit on each other. I fully support the Air Force being punished like Icarus.

Every single one of them across the world. The only country that's allowed to have an Air Force is like, I don't know, like Bhutan or something. They won't do anything horrible with it. Everything is fine. I mean, yeah, they'll have the happiness Air Force. They're also just bombing Nepali refugees for some reason. God damn it, Nate. I'm sorry.

Bhutan is an interesting country because Bhutan is, yeah, it's very isolated and strange and hermetic and they're really into the idea of like a happiness quotient, but like they're also really into a sort of like ethnic identity as being Bhutanese. And if you're Nepal, there are a lot of Nepali people who live there. It's sort of like, it's like Dominicans and Haitians. If you're familiar with the dynamic of the island of Hispaniola. As everybody knows, I'm well read of the dynamic of the island of Hispaniola. Many people say this about me. You know, I'm just, I'm a Hispaniola head. I'm a real, I'm a real fucking, yeah, I'm a real San Dumeing fucking hater and lover. You know what I mean? I'm a hispanola head. I'm a real I'm a real fucking yeah I'm a real sand domain fucking hater and lover

You know what I mean? Like I get off on that Punta Cana shit not in a sex tourist way One of these days Joe you're gonna mention a random country and Nate's not gonna know like the last 60 years of its history I'll keep trying. I've been to the DR numerous times I'm actually hopefully seeing my friend here in London is an American dude who dude who lived there for a while and I visited him a couple of times. Like I just happen to know the DR. So when you think about like, hmm country that's got a neighbor and they're like, hey guess what we should live together but we hate each other for ethnic reasons. Like the DR is very close to home for that one. Personally I'm a huge fan of North Macedonia. Now Nate, do with that what you will.

Why? It's all Serbia. We all know that. Everybody knows that whole region is actually Transnistria. Now, um. It's greater Bosnia. I actually, I mean, it probably would benefit from being greater Bosnia. I'm not gonna lie, but you know, that's just, that's, that's, that's my take. Now on this show, we love a good raid because generally speaking, even in the modern times with all of the technology, advanced training, and specialized units that modern military has, normally in the end, even if they succeed,

it is only after a series of things going horribly wrong, terrible fuck ups, and probably more than one thing just being completely overlooked during the planning stages. And if you strip away all of those things about technological advances and specialty units, that's when you get to the real golden era of raids, because it's based mostly on the daring do of idealized heroism and all planned by men who didn't really care too much about losing a ton of people for absolutely no reason or gain whatsoever. Yeah, a lot of people, a lot of British people with lead poisoning getting some ideas up their asses. Good news, because we're talking about the British.

Of course we are. I would hope that we always are. It's for that reason today we're talking about the rate of Zeebrugge, or in case anybody's noticing, I'm pronouncing it correctly because I'm taking Dutch lessons during the First World War. I admire your commitment to wanting to actually integrate and engage with Dutch society as immigrant to that country. But I would also say in 2018, if you had said Joe will be taking Dutch lessons after emigrating

to the Netherlands from Armenia, we would be like, is this a game of Mad Libs? We played spinning the wheel of fortune on where Joe gets exiled to multiple times. Just throw a dart at the wall of countries that people only think about him passing and I end up moving there And you know what it was hundred to one odds that he'd end up at the Hague. So I It's very weird to me when I sing the stupid fucking clog head songs to my daughter about I'll never face the ICC I'll never face a Hague jury There's no court in Holland that can cancel me because I'm like, oh, I'm probably gonna go to the Hague pretty soon We are absolutely using that shit that song during our Amsterdam live show. We have no choice

I have to rerecord it. It sucks like the song is good with recording shit when I was in the trash feature studio and I saw the recording is shit. When I was in the Trash Feature Studio and I saw the Johannes Funk and the Clog Head Shirts, like, slugs from Den Haag, I was like, I'm really sad I missed that I'm buying this shirt five years ago before I knew I was going to move here because I would wear it everywhere and nobody would have any idea what the fuck it means. Yeah, I probably have a spare one. I'll see if I can find it. Yeah, the used slugs from Den Haag, yeah. Yeah, it's all a dumb joke about Dutch baseball that spiraled into a new thing, but yeah, I'm just we're just better at composing and recording now So years ago that we've my buddy found a guy on like pre myspace on like mp3.com

Who had this song and it was sort of like it was like the plot of Independence Day But he tried to write a rock song called global meltdown and it fucking sucked. I can't find it. It's actually been Removed extirpated from the internet, but if someone's found it, the song that goes, it's a global meltdown. It's terrible. But to me, every time I hear a bad recording that we've done, all I can think of is this 1998 ass MP3. That's like there's a website called MP3.com back in the day.

Yeah, and you hosted shit on it. It didn't have MP3s you wanted to listen to. It was like you put your bands you know, three-person punk band from freshman year of high school, we put our one recorded song on mp3.com. I think I actually still have it. I have an MP3 of it somewhere. It's not even that bad.

You should re-record that one too. No, well, that one's actually not even that bad. I mean, relatively speaking, it's not that bad. In 1918, during World War I, it was, despite, you know, it being the last year of the war, it wasn't exactly a hopeful time. Men were still being churned in a chunky beef stew in the muddy fields of the Western Front. The Russian Empire collapsed into a pile of revolutions in Civil War and was out of the

wider World War I, which allowed Germany to flex millions of Midwest and launch their spring offensive that would last four months. At sea, despite it not being what World War I is known for outside of one particular battle, it didn't mean that nothing was happening. It wasn't very fluid or kinetic in any way, but the German U-boats had shown themselves able to continue to attack allied shipping despite constant convoy escorts, sea mining operations, and countless obstacles put in their way. In short, for the Allies, it seemed that no matter how hard they kicked the Germans in the teeth, they refused to stay down. You know, much like myself, they're too stupid to quit.

Well, I mean, they're winning though, so like, why would they stop now? Germany widely known for winning World War I. They're winning at the time. I didn't say they won overall. They weren't. It was 1918. They were experiencing something called the turn up winter. Yeah, they weren't, but they obviously, as Joe mentioned, had an advantage that they

no longer had to fight on the Eastern Front. However, the big change in 1917 when the Russians left the war was that America joined the war on the allied side. So now the Germans had a fresh army that they were also engaging with. Then so like, yeah, they weren't, they weren't winning, but like there was the potential for them to pick up momentum. Like think of the battle of the bulge, like they weren't going to win the war if they won the battle of the bulge, but they were, it was going to change the terms of their surrender significantly. Yeah. It's the difference between a surrender between a gentleman's agreement and the government

collapsing. Total unconditional surrender, yeah. Now, eventually naval commanders in the North Atlantic found a good reason why this was the case. They captured orders from a German crew that showed the U-boats would only travel out at night and were under strict orders to submerge as deep as they could if they so much as caught a whiff of an allied patrol, of which there were dozens at the time. This is combined with a U-boat force that acted as a distraction with orders to purposely be seen going around the north of Scotland to trick allied commanders in thinking that was their main route of travel after leaving German shores. But in reality they weren't leaving Germany at all. They knew that the Allies would assume most of their U-boat fleet would be leaving from the

safe ports of Germany. And while some did, they would be acting as a kind of seaborne ropedoat movement for another base constructed in Belgium in secrecy in the city of Bruges. Cue the in-Bruge jokes here, that's the only thing I know that fucking city for. This is something of a genius location for an attack base though. Anyone looking at a map would see that Bruges is not exactly on the sea. Instead it's connected to the North Atlantic via 8 miles worth of canals exiting the port city of Zeebrugge and another at nearby Austin.

Now these would dump them much closer to allied shipping and transport lanes as well as being so far away from the shores they couldn't exactly directly be hit. But I mean can't you just like cut off the canal then? It's heavily heavily defended. It's 8 miles of canal, like can't all be defended. Well you have to get into the canal Fair fair. I'm forgetting Right airplanes airplanes are biplanes you chuck bombs out of at this point

Yeah, and they didn't really have the ability yet to get to the canals because those were within The the what's it called wasn't the axis, but the the central powers fucking held territory I mean, there's shore batteries. I mean, they're not exactly going to be able to deploy a Stratifortress bomber to level it. Any kind of attack on the canals would either have to be from the sea, from a battleship of some kind of dreadnought, which kind of sort of lacked the range and would put them in direct threat of these shore batteries.

Which remember, one of the main reasons why there wasn't a ton of sea battles during World War I is because people built these dreadnought fleets and then were terrified of losing them. So. Yeah, the main naval battles of World War I, besides, what was the one big one, Joe?

Jutland. Jutland, thank you, yeah. Other than that, it was just, hey, the Allies have named a boat after some figure from classical mythology And it's definitely not carrying munitions and the Germans being like we are totally gonna fucking sink that and it's just that over and over And over again and so like the only way they're gonna attack these canals is by putting their dreadnought fleet in direct threat or possibly Attacking it via land which is what we're going to get to. And this brings us to the Dover Patrol, which is a British anti-u-boat formation that patrolled

the waters being stalked by the Germans. And in late 1917, it came under the command of one Sir Roger Keys. Now, you might remember that name from our Boxer Rebellion series. And since then, I mean, he wasn't exactly known for shining success during that series either, but he's in the British military. He fails upwards. So he's only gotten more powerful. Exactly. Since then he'd become the commander of the British Marine fleet, a naval advisor to the King, George V, and he was heavily involved in the planning and execution of the Gallipoli campaign.

All of which went great. How much malaria and syphilis does he have? Syphilis, it's foundational. Malaria, probably not much. Because I know also that British officers get their power from however many fevers they have. Well, the thing about it is, is by this point, they have invented quinine,

so you can kind of fight off malaria. They're all drinking mercury. Yeah, no, that's what tonic water is, and they made all drinking drinking mercury and yeah, they know it's what they make That's what tonic water is and they made it they made it palatable by putting gin in it So you're getting a whole different kind of q-pilled when you ever you catch malaria back then Yeah, but i'm going mad syphilis They still i'm pretty sure like like they're they've tried stuff like sulfur powder on the stores But by and large you're still in the air of like here's a needle with mercury we're going to jam in your dick and that's

going to cure it somehow. And now you have to order that at nightclubs. Back then, you just said to be nobility. Well, we are talking about Germany, so let's keep it relevant to the topic. Though Keys knew, and again, despite all of this, everything I just listened was a complete failure and he still put in charge of this stuff. Yeah, Gallipoli, famous success. There's tons of songs about how good it was. Nothing bad ever happened there or shortly thereafter.

Nope. Now, Keyes knew if he was going to have any success in protecting British and allied transport lanes, he would have to do something about this German base in Belgium. Though, because of the bases were set so far back inland, accessed by can You know the normal answer just pulling up and blowing this shit on the bases the naval broadside was kind of out of the question Or that's what he thought we're gonna put a pin in that one for later He couldn't even target the channel locks because they they were around a half mile to a mile inland But then he thought well if you just ram a bunch of old fucking ships sideways up in those narrow canals, they block the way with their own wreckage and that would be even

better than blowing them up. However, in no realm, especially that of reality, would that be an easy thing to do? The Germans picked this location for this exact reason. It was 70 miles from the British coast. It meant that it would be nearly impossible to get there without being detected. Then you have the coast, which the Germans then reinforced with hundreds of pieces of artillery, machine guns, mortars, and then, you know, a ton of troops. And some of the guns they emplaced were 15-inch cannons that fired shells that weighed a literal ton and would just banish anything they hit to

the Shadow Realm. It's not exactly undefended. Another problem was the Belgian coast itself, and this is from the article Zeebrugge. The Belgian coast was a convoluted maze of sandbanks and twisted channels. The depths and directions of its waterways were constantly being changed by powerful waves flow running 15 feet high between high and low tides. The Germans had long since removed all the channel buoys and no one could say precisely where the shoals were and how shallow they actually were or how far out they extended from any point of the canal.

To make the blocking expedition even more difficult, the ship channel leading from Bruges to Zeebrugge harbor was only 116 yards wide. At the best of times, a ship drawing more than 12 feet could enter the channel only by staying precisely in its center. In short, it's not good. Right, so they can't get their ships there without them being fucked up. If they do get their ships there, they don't know what they're going to run into. And even if they do get their ships in there to sink them, it's probably not going to do any real... It's not going to block anything. It sounds like this whole idea is not going to work out. It's the harbor where ships go to die, effectively. It's like incredibly unsafe, and hence all

the way they put all those buoys out there to guide ships in and then the Germans took those buoys away so obviously the enemy wouldn't know where they were. So it's not good. However, there were still more problems namely a massive stone breakwater at the mouth of the canal itself measuring nearly a mile long and raising 30 feet above sea level. It was effectively a built-in block house for defense. Of course, the Germans also reinforced this with men, machine guns, and more artillery. He knew if he was, you know, if he was going to pull off this wild ass plan, he would have to silence those guns because it's in the middle of the harbor. If these blocking ships are going to make it down the canal,

they would have to pass this breakwater. So he's like, this is going to work. I have to take the breakwater through sending men ashore and a land raid. However, that brought even more problems. Any ship that got close was going to get shot to pieces and be so heavily damaged, it wouldn't be able to fight in the war anymore. You'd also have to find ships to use as physical blocks, you know, those blocking ships that they would sink in place. And the Royal Navy was like, no, this this plan sounds great, but we're not going to give you anything for it. You have to go find them in the mothball. You're effectively the Royal Navy's dumpster. You have to find the ships that we don't want anymore.

I mean, this sounds like a problem that takes care of itself if you got ships that are gonna get fucked up by the Artillery and you need to sink ships there So self-solving problem here only a few of the ships are supposed to sink. Okay. Gotcha You know only like three ships sank we need the other 40 to stick around Remember they need ships to carry men onto the raid they need ships to carry men away from the raid and I'd send it They're not gonna send people and like what is it? You know in reality a suicide run to die in these blocking ships So you need motorboats to carry them from their blocking ships back to the fleet to get back to the UK

All is like you need some of these dumpster ships to actually make it out of there Okay, so the so the British air are actually trying to keep their men alive. All right, I'm not used to some extent Yeah, I'm not gonna say they were worried about casualties, but like to some extent It's interesting when you have this it's like yeah the only Reference we can make that people could understand in terms of both the state of the equipment and the doctrine involved is the 1995 Kevin Costner movie waterworld Okay, hold that thought so think you're the X on Valdez and it's oh great fucking great

So think you're the Exxon Valdez and it's oh great fucking great Right who who who develops gills in this one? I mean a lot of the people involved are British most of them already have gills And you know they drink their piss because it's you know, it's purified and they like the taste now He found four cruisers already tabbed to be effectively parted out, right? Three would act as blocking ships made to die. They would be the ones going out into the canal and sinking in place. The fourth, called the Vindictive, would act as a landing ship for men

who would have to attack the breakwater. But the height of the breakwater was taller than the deck of the Vindictive, because remember the breakwater is like 30 feet tall from the sea level. So it would have to be modified. And going back to Waterworld here, it effectively just start building wild ass wooden and steel gantry walkways, fake decks, medieval siege towers and gang planks above the deck of the

Vindictive so men could not only board and attack the breakwater, but also so there was supporting fire. So you have gang planks, which in Roman times, it's how they fought naval battles. You drop a plank on the other ship and you'd run across and just get an infantry battle just on a boat. They came up with those. But then alongside of that, they have machine gun tur turrets fucking flamethrowers and mortars all built on rickety ass like water

world ass looking girders and walkways and shit made out of metal and wood so Joe I wanted to ask so this breakwater so I've seen breakwaters before you like the one in like Long Beach is just like a big pile of rocks now It's not 30 feet tall So is this also this breakwater that they're dealing with a big pile of rocks or is it something that they've actually built like a wall Or something it's what is this breakwater the pictures make it look more like it's a purpose built like brick Okay, it's very strong very stable like I've seen a lot of breakwaters as well that just looked like a pile of loose rocks Right because because that's all you need

Yeah, when you just need to break water you just need rocks But when you need to put machine guns on something you've got to build an actual fortification So I didn't know if like everybody had to pick over all these rocks and try to like set up a maximum machine gun on Loose loose ground or something. But okay, that makes more sense. It's pretty strong. It's pretty daunting to attack as well. And they realized that they were going to be sailing into what amounted to be point blank siege warfare. And they would need to reinforce the armor of the ship.

Because remember, the whole point is they have to drop these gangplanks and men have to run onto the sprake wire, meaning any fighting is going to be like barrel to barrel, right? And and you said so you said this is like a mile long and I assume the entire mile of this breakwater is as heavily Defended as any other point. Oh god. Yeah. Yeah, it's not it's not a great place You want to run down a thin plank of wood and try to fight someone on there's no place I want to run down a thin plank of wood. Yeah, exactly and try to fight someone on. There's no place I want to run down a thin plank of wood. Yeah, exactly.

And they realized that if they're going to do this, that we're going to need more armor, right? However, they found the Royal Navy was pretty much tapped out of kind of anything that could be considered reinforced metal or steel. Unwilling to wait and kind of unable to wait, they decided on bunkers built out of sandbags and mattresses on the ship's deck.

And by deck, I mean the deck they just built above the original deck. But they would also slap mattresses just everywhere. Look, I've been in my fair share of bunkers and sandbags are pretty great. I don't know about like a direct shot from a mortar. It's not great. Yeah. Um, and look, I've, I, uh, if, if Indiana Jones has taught me anything, it's that, uh, if you jump into a bathtub with a mattress on top of you, you can survive a nuclear blast. So I think these guys are safe. They're wrapped up in like old heroin mattresses. They're good to go.

Yeah. All that. They rated the opium dens for all of the mattresses they could find it's like these are great They're keeping us safe, but they smell like piss and blood which I mean, it's a British smell anyway, so I guess it's also a World War one Troop transport ship it's already gonna smell bad Yeah, yeah fair enough, but the vindictive would not be alone in her daring attack on the breakwater He's drafted two civilian fairies the iris to and wait for it the daffodil Germans about to get fucked up by the daffodil Actually, the daffodil comes out at the end of the story the best off good good. I'm glad alright So siege towers and breakwaters. I'm with you. So okay So these guys are building siege towers like actual like okay

We've got a deck we're gonna build another deck and then we're gonna put a tower on top of it and some and these are like World War one are they are they using their dreadknots? Are they getting close with these or they know no no no no Okay, so these are the these are the the ships that they're using to sink Okay, so these are the ships that they're using to sink specifically. We have some of them that are going to be used to be sunk and we have some that are going to be troop transports. The Vindictive, the Iris II, and the Daffodil are the troop transports. Those are the ones meant to survive at the end of this. There's supporting ships as well, but again, most of them are dumpster ships, I guess is

a good way of putting them. And these two fearsome civilian ferries would be equipped with smoke generators to provide concealment for the landing crew. And their non-existent armor was reinforced much like the Vindictive with sandbags and mattresses. If the Russians in 2024 can stick logs on the side of their tanks, I feel like mattresses is not that far off. Well, I mean, the logs don't really work either. And fairies don't really seem like the kind of ships that be the top of anybody's list when it comes to warships or whatever.

But they had a crucial benefit. They could easily travel in shallow water. So like if they if they found out like, oh God, there's a sandbar where we're supposed to be landing where the breakwater is, the ferries can still go in, no problem, and they could pull out the Vindictive. Because remember, ferries are good at that kind of thing. It's kind of what they're for.

And if the Vindictive ran aground or something, the ferries could still carry out the raid. Then keys got real wily coyote with it. You see, the Germans had constructed walkways from the harbor to the breakwater, you know from the shore to the breakwater, so soldiers could travel back and forth without using boats. These would have to be taken out so the breakwater could not be reinforced once the raid started. He decided to do this by loading two submarines with five tons of explosives.

And while staffed the skeleton crew, they would go on suicide runs with their crews ordered to jump out and into small motorboats at the last second in order to get away. Oh, I also want to ask how effective actually are 1918 U-boats? Like, do they fully submerge? Are they because I know like the first submarine was like, you know Civil War era, but you know the turtle was the first submarine and it was from the Revolutionary War Yeah, you don't want to be inside that motherfucker I know these submarines work for what they're for which is commerce Raiders like, you know, you you shoot Transport ships that aren't going to try to kill you back.

So they have like torpedoes that they have? Yeah. I mean, they're very dumb torpedoes that sometimes just bonk off the side of a ship and not explode. And submarines can submerge that far. U-boats themselves weren't great at submerging, but that's neither here nor there because it's not like they were going to face down an enemy fleet. That's not what they're for yet. They're to shoot unarmed transport ships.

Yeah, sure. It's there to sink the Lusitania, and that's it. Yeah, pretty much. The ships that we talked about were the most important ones to Key's plans. However, there were hundreds of other ships that'd be tabbed to take part. These would run the gamut from destroyers, from bombardments to tiny little motorboats that would task with anything from evacuation of the wounded to carrying smoke generators to pump out as much of the stuff as possible to try to obscure the landing. So you've got dozens of little motorboats zipping back and forth pumping out smoke as well.

And there was like machine guns and mortars on some of these little motorboats as well. Unfortunately they hadn't invented the music of Prince yet to really go with the smoke machines. Yeah, and it wasn't purple either unfortunately. I mean they got motorboat technicals, they got like a sick smoke show going on. The only thing missing was like some lights, I guess. Yeah, get some, get a laser light show and everybody drops some acid they hadn't vented acid yet either and to be fair There would be lights coming soon and things are blowing up I mean the light show is the is the five tons worth of submarine explosives sure

We've made our own fireworks as for the Raiders the ground troops that would take part in the attack They asked for volunteers, not expecting, you know, literally everyone to step forward and want to join in. They didn't know the full depth of the plan. Actually, they didn't know the plan at all. They just knew that they're asking for volunteers for a special mission. And everyone from the Navy to the Army to random goddamn civilians who were not in the military at all wanted to volunteer to to be part of this force see what what happened?

What happened to us Joe because like when you and I were in the military we were told never volunteer for anything This is why we learned You want me to volunteer like I need ten bodies like I just need to clean up cigarette butts like oh no no I'm not doing a raid last time I volunteered for this shit. I got thrown into a breakwater over a gangplank. I'm done. Now, they had so many volunteers that they obviously they couldn't take them all. And you know, they mostly wanted people used to being on boats, fighting on boats, some knowledge of the Navy. So they said what the Royal Marines, there were some people from the army, but it was almost entirely Royal Marines. And keys knew that these men would

need to train for the attack, of course, because this is a very specialized raid that's going on. But if they did anything at sea, the Germans would pick up on it. Furthermore, much like us, they knew they couldn't really tell the infantry what they were training for or make the training so in depth that they'd be able to pick up on what the mission could be because as everybody knows, soldiers have big fucking mouths. Yeah, right. Right in the home to my dearest Beatrice. You know, today we learned how to do siege towers on a 30-foot wall for some

reason. I miss you more than I miss the French prostitutes that I've been visiting every week. So they came up with a plan that almost certainly didn't help anybody. They laid out some bits of canvas and tarp on a field around Dover and had Marines practice assaulting it as if they would be assaulting a trench line. All of the Marines assumed that they were preparing for a normal attack somewhere in the Western Front, not a life or death struggle over a Belgian breakwater. Also how does this help?

Like how does like, okay, trench, we're going to have you actually fight the exact opposite of that. I think because they knew the danger, like how dangerous it would be if they just left like a thousand Marines waiting around doing nothing for a prolonged period of that. I think because they knew the danger, like how dangerous it would be if they just left like a thousand Marines waiting around doing nothing for a prolonged period of time. It's fair. Yeah, you can't do that. I mean not even opsec just like in general you shouldn't have a thousand bored Marines anywhere. Dover would be burned to the ground. If they say like idle hands are the devil's plaything, but like idle soldiers and Marines are even worse than that. Yeah like they're gonna they're gonna raid something and if you're not gonna give them if you're not gonna point them in a direction they're gonna find one to go.

The attack was to be carried out in March but after the entire forces loaded up crammed so tightly that men couldn't even sit down it was called off time and time again because keys wanted to wait for the right weather, namely for it to, you know, not be so clear because they want some kind of environmental barrier to see this giant fleet heading towards Belgium. Right, you know, your fog machines on the ships are only going to do so much. You need actual fog to be able to sneak up on them. Yeah, and they did finally get the perfect weather on April 22nd, which is St. George's Day a full month later. And somehow, despite waiting a month, having all this activity in the port and all that,

they were still completely undetected by the Germans and the raid was launched around midnight. Now, to keys, the weather was perfect and it was. It was raining. There's a bit of a haze covering the sea, obscured them from the Belgian coasts and the German defenses Everything was going to plan and then the weather suddenly shifted the night became perfectly clear and the Germans began bombing the ever-living shit out of them You know if it ain't raining and training as they they say, uh, and if you, if you're doing all of your training to fight a canvas trench in bad weather, and then suddenly you're fighting a wall and perfect weather, I guess you got to

take the good with the bad, you know, personally, I hate being wet and cold. So like, if like, look, I understand that it's better for me, you know, living for there to be a cloud bank here, but also I like to be dry. And in the, in 1918, I feel like, you know, everybody's a little bit moist at all times. Like there's always a little bit of moisture. There's a, there's a, there's, everybody has some level of crotch rot happening here and that's not, that's not conducive to a happy Marine. So if you want me to do a suicide mission inside of a submarine, I expect to be, have a little powder to put down my pants or something. Get my feet nice

and dry. At least let me die comfortably. You go to get all your kit issued. Here's your bolt action rifle. Here's your weird wide Tommy helmet. Here's your drab brown uniform. And here's your cock rot. Yeah. And here's your foot wraps. Yeah, here's your, and here's your foot wraps and everything, yeah, just absolutely terrible. Come over here and, you know, quartermaster Billy will cough on you so you can get the Spanish flu. If the army wanted you to have it, they'd issue it.

Now get over here and get your tuberculosis. Let me spit in your mouth until you start coughing up blood. Boy, the early 1900s army was weird but effective I don't know quarter masters had to drink a lot of water to keep their mouth nice and wet so they can Continuously spit in people's mouths, you know, no nobody ever wears a ribbon for their service Well, look the the sharp episode where we had the drunk Irishmen convincing everybody to die in the basement That's that's your quartermaster right there Like he doesn't have anything to issue out. So so all he's issuing out is like spit and death. Yeah

Oh, he might come over here so I could spit your mouth He's Australian now which also works out because there's always a random Australian everywhere Yeah, as popular media has shown us if there's a war movie They'll be an Australian there and nobody will be able to fully explain why Now weather is clear. They're immediately getting bombed and then the captain of the daffodil was Wounded as soon as as as soon as the first shells started getting launched one crashes through the the window That he is sitting it doesn't explode but it showers his face with broken glass and blinds him

Jesus like permanently is he fucked he ends up getting like half his sight back. Okay later But yeah face full of glass and blood. This is what look my my grandfather was a Navigator on a B29 was a navigator on a B-29 bomber in World War II. And he got his Purple Heart because he wasn't wearing his eye protection and a bit of glass fucking flew up in his eye.

He also got shot down, but I mean, I think he was fine. Obviously he was fine from that. He lived until 2000. But you know, eye protection, there's a reason why the Army is very big on eye protection and it's because your eyes are very important. I'll never forget one time, this is a very long time ago, like when mandatory eye protection is becoming a new thing and most people are like, ah, this is fine, we'll just wear sunglasses.

But obviously you can't wear sunglasses at night unless you're cool. So like at night nobody wore eye protection. And then you get the couple of people who'd be like, why is nobody wearing their eye protection? I was like, ah, shut the fuck up, that's stupid. It's not like anything's ever gonna happen. And like 15 seconds later, a 240 Bravo machine gun blew up in a guy's face and he lost an eye. I guess I'll wear my eye protection now.

Yeah, yeah, I'll go ahead and switch it over to the clear ones now. Turns out being cool with sunglasses is a little bit easier than being cool with an eyepatch. Arguable, but I'll allow it. I only know one person with an eyepatch and he's a Texas senator and he sucks ass. That's true. Now, the Vindictive also came under intense direct fire, being hit with countless shells

that tore through its smokestacks. Because remember these are World War I, these are even pre-World War I era ships. They have giant smokestacks sticking out of the top of them. And the smokestacks were like turned into Swiss cheese to the point that as she gunned her engines to try to get towards the breakwater, fire is just shooting out of the holes on the sides of the smoke stacks. It looks like some fucking like steampunk villain shit. I can't imagine that's safe. That's not probably not within safety protocols

to have fire gutting out the sides of your smoke stacks. I mean, to be fair, the ship was already mothballed before the operation, so it was already at minimum an explosion hazard to everybody around it. The captain then discovered the torn of incoming fire had gotten one of the ship's anchors stuck in place. Worried he wouldn't be able to stop at the breakwater like he was supposed to and didn't want to run into it because that would be bad. He needed to deploy the other anchor expertly to slow the ship down kind of like a parachute behind a car right and he's like, okay that should slow me down

Just in time to get the right distance so I can drop the gangplanks however The always a however man always the anchor somehow just plunged into the seabed and stopped the ship dead So now just out of range for the ramshackle gangplanks to be able to come down and also being a sitting duck for German guns and unable to deploy its men they're like ah fuck what do we do now? Enter the motherfucking daffodil. The daffodil is like don't worry bro I got you and slammed into the side of the vindictive at full speed, pushing it into place against the breakwater so it could deploy its men.

See, I would have... Okay, personally, I would have just sidled up in between the breakwater and the Vindictive and allowed myself to be a bridge, but, you know, also... It's because you don't got that Daffodil mindset, bro. I know, I don't. Daffodil means fuck you, let's go.'t Daffodil means fuck you. Let's go the daffodils all gas no breaks to the violence Everybody's laughing at the name daffodil. I know I laughed the name daffodil when I was researching this but then as things go It's like the daffodils a bad motherfucker

Don't fuck with that flower man. Don't fuck with it. Okay, the daffodil grows in the spring and can survive a Hard freeze so you know it's it's a hardy flower exactly and like I witnessed accounts I like the captain is sitting at the completely unarmored bridge of the civilian ferry as it's just getting Ethered into splinters all around him spinning the giant cartoonish looking wheel into oncoming fire with a pipe in his mouth. Yeah, blinded, pipe in his mouth, just saying, I'll see you all in hell. You'll take me from the Daffodil for my cold dead hands. Riding the Daffodil into Lucifer's embrace. Then the captain of the Vindictive discovered only two of his gangplanks still functioned

because all the other ones got blown away by incoming fire. And now the ship is rocking violently from the sea, smashing against the ship and the breakwater. So he deploys the two working gangplanks and the Royal Marines on board have to charge down them as they're bouncing up and down like fucking trampolines in the pitching sea. Yeah, right into the waiting machine guns of German soldiers. See seems less than less than ideal kind of space here.

So they didn't even like try to do like some kind of like let's shoot at the breakwaters, too. They've been shooting at them the whole time. They're just accomplishing nothing. Okay, gotcha. And that's when the Iris II pulled up alongside the Vindictive to get its ass kicked by the sea. Now, it was getting hit so hard by the sea, you know, pushing it up against the breakwater that it couldn't deploy its grappling hook, which would secure it in place on the breakwater, right? So, Lieutenant Claude Hawking's, armed with nothing but a revolver in one hand and a fucking

grappling hook in the other, leapt from the deck of the iris onto the breakwater in the middle of a like just an absolute chaotic mess of boardings, shellings, fucking the daffodil, everything happening around it. He's sprinting across this breakwater trying to get a place for this grappling hook to stay. Again, only armed with a fucking revolver. And this is like, this is an action movie. However, unfortunately it's reality. So Hawking is immediately shot dead and the Germans dislodge the hook.

Yeah, this is gonna, when an action like this is brought up in history, nine times out of 10, it's gonna be very heroic. But then there's gonna be that one time at a tenant's like, so then this dumbass died in a dumbass way. And it actually gets even weirder than that. Then Lieutenant Commander George Bradford decided, well, Hawking's down. I got to get the grappling hook in place.

He jumps onto the fucking breakwater, a different grappling hook in his hand, biting the Germans off and once again, fixing the hook into place for good. Bradford was then hit by all accounts directly by a coastal defense cannon. This literally atomized him. I watched what happened to the guy before me and I was like, yeah, but I'm different. And he's like, yes, you are different. You're going to die differently. He was literally atomized by the impact of the Coastal Defense Cannon. And a small side note here, Bradford was awarded the Victorious Cross for his actions, as was his brother Roland, who

was killed at the Battle of Cambrai, and their older brother was also killed, again, getting the Victorious Cross, at Arras. So being a member of the Bradford family during World War I is much like being related to Lieutenant Dan. But you know what, you get some good, you get some good shinies out of it and you get a folded American flag, you get three folded American flags. I don't know if they were too.

Oh fuck yeah. I don't know what the British do. I think they just throw a basket of fish and chips at you and tell you to fuck off. They give you a T-Vania, or I'm, a Twinnies sampler pack and say thank you for your service. This is all we could afford. The fucking Americans threw all the tea in the, sorry that's way, that's... The Americans threw all of our tea in Boston Harbor and we have yet to be able to rebuild. Bradford was also the

commanding officer of the landing party, and he is now reduced to mist, leaving command to Lieutenant Commander Arthur Harrison, who was smashed in the face by a piece of shrapnel as soon as he stepped off the ship, reducing his jaw to little more than bone dust and pulverized teeth. But he charged on anyway, only to be killed while storming a German machine gun, screaming and yelling out of his destroyed bleeding face hole. Yeah, I mean, if I'm losing my jaw, I might as well just get machine gunned by some Germans at that point. Just imagine what those Germans saw, was this man emerging out of the, ever again, the pumping smoke generation.

His face reduced to something like a horror show, and he's just gurgling blood and and teeth at you still trying to kill you with a bayonet like stay down man fuck That's a that's a call of duty Nazi zombie kind of situation there We've got just like a screaming British man with no jaw. He's got he got terminal Fosse John five seconds On the upside his teeth were vastly improved. Then one of the landing party's demolition soldiers, they had to clear machine gun bunkers and whatnot, accidentally blew himself up. In the middle of not only friendlies, but also Germans.

So we got an accidental British suicide bomber in the middle of all. Like, just imagine how chaotic this is. You got motorboats pumping out smoke, you got men doing weird pirate shit with grappling hooks, everything is exploding on fire, and then like Charles McHoit blows himself up on accident. Was he at least off the boat? Yeah, he got off the boat. Okay, good. At least he's not blowing up on accident. Was he at least off the boat? Yeah he got off the boat. Okay good at least he's not blowing up on the boat. No that would have been bad. If you're gonna explode yourself you might as well take a couple Germans with you even if you're taking like seven of your mates. He did take down a few Germans but I'm pretty sure the his comrades are more surprised about him going up like a

fucking firework in front of them just getting coated with his insides. And then in the middle of all of this, the tiny motorboats that, you know, some of them are carrying smoke generators, but other ones are carrying machine guns. And they begin zipping through the harbor, just spraying machine gun fire at everything that moves. Sure, yeah.

Like why not? Everybody's up on the breakwater, can't see anything, can't figure anything out, just start gunning people down. Like, you're bound to get some bad guys. It's the scene from Brave Fire, where it's like, we have men down there. Like, yeah, but they'll hit the enemy too. Yeah, they're just, I mean, they sent the Irish in first,

right, the British didn't have that luxury here where they could just send in a bunch of Irish cannon fodder first off. Now, if all of this wasn't chaotic enough, the suicide submarines entered the fray, gunning for the breakwater's mainland connections. They approached nearly completely undetected amidst everything else that was happening. One submarine named the C3 rammed into one of the girders that held a walkway aloft, lodging itself in the place.

Its captain, Lieutenant Richard Sanford, lit the fuse of their 5-ton bomb and with the other men in the crew jumped aboard their tiny little motorboat to escape, only to find the motor didn't work. So under fire and with a literal ticking fucking bomb right next to them big enough to turn them into paste, they frantically began to paddle for their lives. I like to think of these U-boats as like a big comical round bomb with a fuse sticking out of it that everybody just like kind of floats on over. You live in a bomb. It's fun.

I know, but like the idea of like a bomb, like okay we've got this U-boat bomb, it's obviously... This is a submarine, only the Germans have U-boats. Sorry, but it is... It's a U-boat. It's a u-boat but in anything but name. Right, but it's a v-bit really and you know nowadays you can do that with a cell phone but the idea of like all right trail the trail the the big long fuse out the back and you have to like light it and then run away really quick. Nah man, fuck that, cell phone plans are expensive get some sailors in there. Yeah true, it's a lot easier to press gang a couple of street urchins into blowing themselves up

than it is to deal with T-Mobile. They managed to get just far enough away as the submarine exploded. And as it exploded, a German bicycle unit was peddling over the girder to reinforce the breakwater. So this five ton bomb explodes and just renders this German bicycle unit into a twisted mess of blood and bike parts. This is the most chaotic episode I think we've ever done. You got like suicide submarines. You got motorboat technicals

smoke ball was smoke boats yeah, you got fucking bicycle units being evaporated It's such a but it's such a clash of like old versus new Tactics during war because you've got okay. We've got boats, and we've got ships that are not necessarily wind powered They have engines in them so cool. We've got boats and we've got ships that are not necessarily wind powered. They have engines in them. So cool. We've got that. Two of which are fairies.

Right. But also they need to have like medieval siege towers built on top of them. And we need to have grappling hooks and gang planks to run over onto this thing. So cool. But also we have mortars and, and accurate guns, which is great. But here comes the bicycle unit. I like to think that they're like ringing the bell the whole time right and I like to think that they all have pegs So like to really reinforce it everybody has to like carry like a guy on the back pegs and a guy on the the handlebars

And everybody's got a max and machine and I would say like the bass could have a baguette sticking out of it But they're German so just like sloppy with coleslaw or something It's just full of sauerkraut Saloppy with coleslaw or something. It's just full of sauerkraut It's the it's the cabbages guy from avatar the last airbender, but just it's turned all into Into sauerkraut raining blood sauerkraut all gone now like tears in the rain I'm I imagine these people are getting hungry too, so a good blood sausage will really keep the... You know, they didn't have five-hour energies, they didn't have monster energy drinks, what they had was sauerkraut.

Sauerkraut was nature's first energy drink. It's like, hey Fritz, are you hungry? Would you like to eat sauerkraut at the palm of my hand? Would you like to eat some lukewarm sauerkraut from my bike basket? Just grab a fork, bro, we're good. Oh shit, it's been vaporized. Oh god, we're all dead. We're all gonna die of hunger. In case you're wondering about the other submarine named the C1, it was commanded by Lieutenant Newbold,

and he actually had the best idea of this entire thing. Oh, he went home? Yeah, he was late and just turned around and went back home. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ejik would look at this mess and just like, nope. Right, just rolling up

onto this and be like, you know, they don't know we're here yet, so like, we could just say we got lost, like, it's not like we have GPS at this point, we can just like- He did get lost, he did get lost a little bit, but like by the time he got back in the right path and like showed up to the battle

He's like well looks like this is all wrapped up boys. It's time to go home to start Chucking all the explosives out the side is like where do you guys want to go? I mean France is right around the corner. I hear it's great this time of year Despite all this sounding like some kind of weird like game like multiplayer And all this sounding like some kind of weird like game like multiplayer version like like a battlefield like 1942 whatever we got dudes like bunny hopping and crashing planes everywhere it's like absolute madness. The plan actually so far was working and the blocking ships were gunning it into the chaos aiming for the canal in order to block it.

But it was that exact chaos that allowed the blocking ships to cruise right in. They were slow as fucking hell and actually made slower because in order to be an effective blocking ship they have to be hard to move, right? Like if you just sink a ship it's not that hard to move out of the way. Their hulls have been filled with concrete. So once they did sink in place they would be impossible to move. So they're moving at like the speed of smell here. So in the middle of the raid

motorboat drive-bys and suicide submarines out of the constantly humming smoke machines came the ships putting along and the Germans were so confused they hardly even noticed these things until they were inside the canals. Well they're a bit busy they got seed ships to deal with they got by sit they get a lot of shit going on right now. There's our crowd is everywhere Finally the Germans did react and began to pummel the ships with near point-blank fire now these ships are also armed so despite moving at the speed of a chili fart wafting through a kitchen They are shooting back. It's just as deadly. Just as they are shooting back.

Uh, one of the blocking ships, the Thetis was hit so much that veered off course and with all of the smoke and the chaos of conflict, both like from explosions and the dozens of smoke generators that are going on right now, nobody can see shit. Um, so this ship getting pounded with incoming fire and you know dodging Different obstacles in the way just kind of gets lost So this ship is lost it gets like it bounces off the side of the canal and gets caught in a protective net and

Now stuck in place Everybody just starts lighting it the fuck up because it can't it can't move anymore Okay, so so it gets caught it gets caught in a net. So I imagine the Germans put that net up everybody just starts lighting it the fuck up. Because it can't move anymore. Okay, so it gets caught in a net. So I imagine the Germans put that net up. Yeah, it was like a protective net. It wasn't actually supposed to catch anybody. It was supposed to stop a ship from slamming

into the side of the canal and damaging it. Then comes the next ship on the line, commanded by Lieutenant Stuart Bonham Carter. A name which I find deeply funny. Well, any relation to Helena Bonham Carter? I assume no relation, but it's much easier to envision this entire thing as if he's in weird Walmart goth makeup. Sure, yeah.

A bunch of weird claymation is happening that you don't really understand, but you're gonna pretend that you do to seem deeper. Yeah, I gotcha. It's all crude by the, the stat, like the claymation staff of A Nightmare Before Christmas. Jack Skellington, take one center mass, he's dead. Opening up all the different trees with the different holidays on them, and one of them is like Armistice Day.

It's like, oh, what's going, what's this? What's this? And then catches a mortar to the face. What's this? What's this? There's dead people everywhere. What's this? There's sauerkraut in the air. Now thankfully this ship did not get like knocked off course. It did see the lights from the back of the Thetis, like the one that got caught in the net so knew to aim away from that one, and he pulled his ship horizontally across the canal, jumped into the escape boats, and blew the charges of the ship sinking in place. Afterwards the next ship did the exact same thing. Though it is weird to note the captain was

only 22 years old and this is his first mission ever. But his name is Edward Blyard Leek and he is wearing, and this is put out in every source that I found on this, for some reason he is wearing a very flamboyant leather duster. Which I'm all for, baby. Yeah, he's the Battlefield 5 guy on the front with the duster and the and the Luger does this guy survive tell me he'll they all Yeah, all of these captain survive somehow good and he pulls his ship alongside that one sinks it in place boom done Canals done for then they jump into their small escape boats

But they now these boats commit commit such intense amounts of fire that one survivor said that the water around them was churned into froth by machine gun bullets. Leek's boat was hit so many times that it began to sink and its motor was shot off for Bonham Carter to have to spin around and throw him a rope, pull him towards him, and then they had to escape through the madness back into the open sea and into Halloween Town. Like, the intensity, the thing is that always throws me off about any time we talk about something like this

is that when you are getting machine gunned this much, either everybody dies or nobody does. Virtually all of them got wounded, I will say that. Okay, they all catch a little something, which I'm sure, dies or nobody does virtually all of them got wounded I will say okay they all they all catch a little something I which I'm sure but like yeah how ineffective is your machine gunfire like this is as ineffective as like gunfire is on a regular basis but I guess also it's dark there's a lot of other stuff going on you're probably slipping on sauerkraut nobody's really aiming there's

it's it's dark and it's smoky everybody's just aiming for the blurs that they can see right like Unlike me who's the guy who's just like laying down in the corner pretending to pretending to be dead but going to sleep They're acting like you're wounded or like being the submarine captain like oh time to go back home I'm not even here anymore. I support that guy. I support the guy in every war to be like Oh, why certainly can't get involved now? That'd be uncouth. One good lieutenant who got lost and then looked at his people on his ship and was just like, you know, what if we didn't?

Guys, we could just bring this suicide boat home, we don't have to do this. I bet we could offload all these explosives on the black market and have a pretty good weekend in Paris. Exactly. The mission was a success. All was done, but now they had to try to find a way out of this entire thing. The battle raged on in the breakwater and the Vindictive was overflowing with the dead and the dying as their onboard surgeons attempted to treat the wounded below deck,

all while the ship around them exploded and shells ripped through the walls next to their heads. And all this, like, also just to set the scene, there's a chaplain walking around, both above above and below decks giving men their last rites. Sure. Someone said that he was wearing one of those church robes and there's holes in it from gunfire, from passing so close to him, but somehow he had not been hit. He's got the power of God, bro. Yeah, he's a paladin. He can't be hurt.

Yeah. Hahaha. Now, remember how I talked about the decks of the Vindictive having been reinforced and expanded to allow more weapons and men to be stationed on them to return fire against the Germans and give supporting fire to the raiding parties? Well things weren't going great for them. Since they were so high above the ship in the breakwater, they drew the vast majority amount of the incoming fire of the Vindictive from the Germans. The extra decks exploded and caught fire, burning men and weapons rained down onto the decks below, and men below them had to run around and try to throw burning boxes of ammo

and flamethrower fuel over the deck before they exploded. Look, critical support here. They're learning. They've learned they need to get rid of all of their all the shit That's about to blow up and and burn them down. They understand that they're being that they're being directly attacked here This is I'm surprised that there's so much forethought going into this I'm kind of like it's like that basic survival instinct is like I'm on a boat There's a smoldering box of like mortar shells next to me

Everything's exploding. I shouldn't be around this soon Where can I put it all the red barrels on the bottom of the boat are flashing red you like shit? We gotta get these before the one more hit. We're all yeah, I shouldn't be near this if it goes off Where can I possibly put it in the sea? There's no other place to put it I'm throwing it where I've been throwing the dead bodies this whole time. Finally, with the ship around him exploding and, you know, there's holes punched straight through this thing. All of the like the deckways are collapsing down on him. The captain of the Vindictive went to signal with the withdrawal,

which is supposed to be a single blast from its siren. But then he discovered its siren. But then he discovered the siren was gone. It had been shot away in the fighting. Of course it was. But thankfully, the hero of the story, the daffodils, still worked, and the siren went up. Men fighting on the breakwater tried to break contact and make their way back to whichever

ship they could get to first. Nobody cared anymore. They just needed to get the fuck off the breakwater. Men aboard the ships ran- Get me on that daffodil. Aim for the daffodil, you'll probably survive. Men aboard the ships ran down the gangplagues onto the breakwater to try to help carry the dead

and the wounded up to the series. These gangplagues are still jumping up and fucking down. All like trying to climb up them, being thrown through the air when a big wave hits. A lot of ninjas decided fuck it and jumped into the sea and crawled up a net that was on the side of the boats like this is easier. Fuck it. Yeah probably safer too. Almost certainly yeah because remember there's only a couple gangplanks left if all been blown away and like turned into splinters that are almost assuredly stuck into somebody's body. Yeah more than likely the the net also is not as much of a

Funnel target. Yeah, yeah, and you get a you know a little bath, you know, when's the last time these guys have showered? They're cut they're covered in blood and sauerkraut. They gotta get that shit off. Yeah Now all of the men piling back into the troop transports The few guns that they still have functioning are firing at the Germans. Men are trying desperately, like some people have been left behind as they realize they're cutting away the gangplanks to try to get the fuck out. So they're jumping into the sea and doing their best to swim for the nets.

And finally the ships cut the grappling hooks and limp back out to sea. Then the captain of the Vindictive was shot again. Um, once more with feeling. He did not die, but he remained at his post as like the entire wheelhouse was burning around him. Then a shell slammed directly into the bridge of the Iris II, killing the entire command staff. I thought you said killing the entire command staff. I thought you said all the captains survived.

Alright, I lied. Everyone but one. The Iris 2 then was completely caught on fire from this, so they're running around. Oh, actually, all the commanders for the blocking ships survive. These guys do not. The Iris 2's command staff has vaporized the shell. Men are running back and forth trying to put this fire out to save the ship.

One man grabbed the helm, which still remains somehow, and tried to control the Iris back out to sea, but the fire was so hot it singed the heel, like a hot doorknob and a fire, and it burned his fucking hands to the wheel oh yeah and finally he got it in the general direction of away from Belgium which is always the right direction regardless of the context hands burning bleeding out just get me the fuck away from Belgium now in the end the losses to the raiding fleet were actually not that much.

Two of the motorboats were lost and one old destroyer, the North Star, had to be abandoned while trying to get away. However, the losses to the raiders themselves were a lot. There was 1,700 men total in the entire mission. This includes raiders and people at sea 386 were wounded another 277 were killed and when you combine that that is not a great ratio I mean for what they did though and for let's talk about what they actually did

Let's talk about what they actually accomplished. So first of all only eight Germans died All of them the bicycle unit. Yeah. But I mean, spiritually they were dead because the sauerkraut is ruined. Yeah, they can never rebuild. I mean, spiritually they're dead because they're German. But another dozen or so were wounded, but it was hardly a catastrophic loss for them. And you might be asking, with such a sacrifice, such a tragic loss of bended material, such a daring planning and daring-do masculine heroic raid, this must have been a complete success, right? Like the blocking ships are in place. Everything was done.

The canal is blocked. Nah. It's not blocked. They didn't do anything, really. Well what happened with the ships they sank then?, it's not blocked. It didn't do anything really. Well what happened with the ships they sank then? So here's the thing, the U-boat base that they were targeting was not as important as the British originally believed. According to German records before the raid only two U-boats would come or go from the base on any given day. It was not exactly a hotbed of U-boat

activity as Keyes thought it was. So did the raid even shut that down? Also no! The Germans were able to get the route back up and running in just a couple days using the revolutionary tactic of just going around the blocking ships at high tide. And the thing is the real damage at the raid caused wasn't to the canal, but it was like all of the support cranes and things like that, gate locks and stuff. It wasn't the canal, it was just mechanical things that they busted. It had nothing to do with the three blocking ships, but rather with everything else that they were doing.

And somewhat hilariously, more damage was done a few months later in June with a regular old naval bombardment to the point that the base never recovered to full operational capacity, meaning the entire raid, the entire suicide submarines, the everything, was pointless. I like to think that like after this raid, the Germans, like the sun comes up and the Germans are kind of looking over everything and they're like what the fuck was that all about? Did you guys see that fucking submarine that took out the bicycle brigade? What the fuck? See that guy without his jaw? We gotta we gotta put a couple more buoys out there I suppose. Some boat crashed into the wall over here and then I saw an eight foot tall skeleton man wearing a striped tuxedo running for it. A boat ran into another boat and then that boat fucked up our boats I don't an eight foot tall skeleton man wearing a striped tuxedo running for it. A boat ran into another boat and then that boat fucked up our boats.

I don't understand what happened but only eight of us died. Get the sauerkraut. Save it all squad. Start crushing up that cabbage and salt, man. We gotta rebuild. Somehow this has to be the most effort ever put into a military operation that ends with less than the death of a less of a fire squad. You know

what I mean? Now this didn't stop the Brits from trying to do the exact same thing again at a different base in Austin, the other one that I was talking about. And that is where the Vindictive finally died. It was used as a blocking ship for that plan, which also failed. The end. That is the raid at Zebruha. God, I love I as Nate had mentioned earlier, like it's not it's funny in like a very dark kind of way. Just to be like all these all these young men were fucked up for the rest of their lives. Like even if you didn't die, I don't imagine you live through a raid like this and be like, yeah, I'm totally normal after that. That's perfectly fine.

And to accomplish absolutely nothing like and that seems like a lot of like, look, we both went through a couple like this and be like, yeah, I'm totally normal after that. That's perfectly fine. And to accomplish absolutely nothing. Like, and that seems like a lot of, like, look, we both went through a couple of wars, which also accomplished absolutely nothing where a lot of nothing was not, was also accomplished, but also we didn't lose like, you know, it's like, oh, we're going to raid Bin Laden's compound and lose like 500 people in the process. The Spetsnaz would have carried it out. That's true. I mean, it's comical because of how chaotic

and everything it is. And there's something to be said that the people, one of the guys that survived the raid lost a leg. And afterwards, someone was interviewing him or talking to him about it and like oh there, you know How do you feel you know you lost leg? I was like I don't care. I got on the breakwater Hell yeah, he sure you did it buddy Yeah, again though. There's a lot of like how do you feel like I feel fucking pissed off

I lost a leg and you guys didn't do shit. What's the fuck? Yeah, I didn't even get to meet Jack Skellington. This is bullshit Didn't get I didn't get any sauerkraut. I got a leg law blown off the whole bicycle brigade was taken out I wanted one of those bikes. I really wanted to swim you know Sure, the German bikes are really the best ones at this point You know they got the they got the good pegs on the back that you can get your entire boots on Francis we do this thing on the show called questions from the Legion if you'd like to ask us a Question from the Legion you can donate to the show on patreon. We have a thread on our discord You can drop your questions in there and we'll answer them or you could message us on

Patreon or you can load five tons of questions into a submarine and crash it into the Belgian coast and we will answer it on air Explode all of your questions on us Now this one is would you rather be trapped on an island populated by adult Harry Potter fans or adult Disney fans? I mean this like I feel like this doesn't work for me because I am a Disney fan but like there is certainly a I I am a Disney fan, but like there is certainly a I Pride myself and not being like an annoying Disney fan who loves Mickey Mouse. I just love the logistics of Disney I'm a huge logistic nerd for for the end of the kingdom of magic. I just respect the king magic kingdoms

Supply trains the magic kingdom is built on top of a whole bunch of access tunnels so that nobody, like if you work in Tomorrowland and you've got the outfit for Tomorrowland... Yeah, nobody ever sees you cross over, right? Exactly. Like, and I've been in those tunnels. Magic Kingdom has a reinforced subterranean bunker system. They have, they do. That's where all of their offices are.

They also have a... I worked for Disney, but at the catacombs? The Aussie area of Disney where the head of Walt is built into the walls. All the old dead... was it what they called? Imagineers? Bones? Or a raid against the walls? Yeah. I feel like I'd rather go with Disney, even if I wasn't a Disney person, just because there's more Disney stuff to talk about like I mean fucking Blade is a is almost kind of a Disney movie at this point. So yeah, you know, there's

Sure, you know they have they have Star Wars. They have Marvel I think I find I'd find some kind of common ground but like Harry Potter. I just fucking I don't like magic I don't like fantasy in general like the magic kingdom well okay that's that's not the same magic as Harry Potter that's like if I'm gonna read a fantasy book it's gonna be more Tolkien than it's gonna be Harry Potter like I like yeah and that's and also JK Rowling sucks ass and I I know what I know Walt Disney also sucks ass but but he's not alive being trans women or- You know, arguably he sucked ass less.

Right, like he, I know there's a lot of, he was anti-Semitic, but I don't, he had plenty of Jewish people writing and animating for him. He sucked as a boss, as all bosses do, but- Right, he was not exactly on the side of labor. Who would have thought, Walt Disney, not an ally? He sucked as a boss, as all bosses do. Right, he was not exactly on the side of labor. Who would have thought? Walt Disney, not an ally.

Yeah, I'm sure if we resurrected him now and told him that boys are turning into girls, he would have some unkind things to say about that too. But he's dead and doesn't have a Twitter account, so... Yeah, thank God for that. That's a little bit easier for us. I feel like I err on the side of adult Disney fans as well. I don't really like I've never met an annoying adult Disney fan. Maybe it's because I don't know. I went to Disney once when I was like seven and I've never been back.

But at the same time, like they seem more normal, less culty. And like, you know, if it was just a group of Harry Potter people who were a fan of the books and that was it, like I read the Harry, like the Harry Potter books is like what got me into reading when I was a child. So like I'm fine with the books, you know, you can't be a science fiction fan without being able to like make a hard line and separating the art from the artists. So like I'm really good at that. But at the same time, but we're talking like I'm assuming they're meeting the worst of the worst fans. Like otherwise this wouldn't be much of a challenge. So like I'm absolutely going to

go Disney fans because like you don't have to deal with all the weird culty like transphobia coming out of JK Rowling. And also she's still alive. so you can't really separate the art from the artist if every time you purchase something she gets money for it so pirate her work. I'm gonna say one downside though is that there's a lot of Disney music and theater kids are really more into Disney than they are into Harry Potter I feel so you're gonna get a lot of theater kids and like as a theater kid once upon a time I get that and I can deal with that But you know while you're well you yourself at home are taking this into consideration Imagine a whole lot of like people in their 20 a lot of like white people who are 24

Singing Moana songs at the top of their lungs like it's Being on a desert island by myself an option here because I just realized if I put myself with Disney fans out that puts Me in an island full of Star Wars people. I'm not okay with that. You don't like the Star Wars the the Star Wars people It's it's not that I have anything against Star Wars. I've never really watched much of it I have no intention to I don't really care but like it's any group of super fans is hyper annoying to me and I seem to get more Star Wars hyper super fans

in my face on the Internet than anybody else, really. And they also tend to be incredibly toxic, like any group of like they could you could consider a quote fandom. So I'm really hoping whatever group island I have been like, just cannibalizes me within the first week. One way or the other, please just kill me. You can account Disney people as Harry Potter, whatever. Any quote unquote fandom are the worst people on earth. They're always hyper fucking toxic.

Like all the Star Wars hyper fan people that I see from the periphery, I never try to engage with it, are just like the most misogynistic assholes on Earth. Or they're like super racist or whatever. I recently did a Disney trip with a lot of Marvel fans, and you know what, they're all perfectly normal. They're just like adults who are like, yeah, I love superheroes and I love Marvel,

and they're not shitty misogynistic people. But the problem that you come across with Disney fans is that there are too many fandoms that they could be into. They could be into the Disney movies, they could be into Marvel, they could be into Star Wars. So with a Disney person, you have no idea what's about to come out of the mouth. Yeah, it's such a broad spectrum,

whereas Harry Potter, you know exactly what they're about. And you just really hope they're into the books and the video games and whatever, and they're not British. You just really hope they're into the books in the video games and whatever, and they're not British. You'll probably be safe. It's fine. I'm fine. I'm a fucking massive nerd when it comes to things like Lord of the Rings. And I know me, I would hate to be trapped in a room with other people like me when it comes to Lord of the Rings. Oh, God. Oh, fuck. You know how Stephen Colbert knows everything about Lord of the Rings. Oh, God. Oh, fuck. You know how Stephen Colbert knows everything about

Lord of the Rings? He's read every book, every compendium. He can tell you everything about it. It's interesting, but interesting in that way of like, I like to read a Wikipedia article about this every once in a while, but then after 10 minutes, I'm going to fuck off because I don't want to read about this anymore. Now you've just got somebody who's just like ah, but what about you know? She'll ob the the spider and you know all of the the wizards that it comes from like no I don't I don't want to read the Tolkien Bible. I don't like the regular Bible. I don't want to do some really Yeah, the summer really okay fair enough I thought I thought you meant someone like someone rewrote it to fit middle or I'm sure I am sure there is a Tolkien Bible out there, but I've

already... I tried to read the Cimmerillian a long time ago and I'm like this is just like reading the Bible but with more spiders. That's one thing whenever my mom tried to make me a Catholic when I was a kid, like this book lacks spiders. There's not enough orcs in this shit. But he was... Tolkien was very Catholic, so So I think I think it's still it does work out I think as somebody else who was raised catholic and is still very culturally catholic uh, the lord of the rings movie the lord of the rings books does kind of ring true on a lot of that but Uh, it is it is also a hard sell for me to to listen to any of that There's a local movie theater that for 12 bucks, bucks, you can watch 12 straight hours of the extended cuts

of all three Lord of the Rings movies. And even if, even if I was a single man with no children, I feel like that's still too much. Yeah, I guess I don't fall into like the category of fandom where I would be able to do that. I would watch like Fellowship of the Ring and then just fall asleep. Yeah, it's like I, I have the attention span of about 90 to 100

minutes at this point and like if you're going beyond that I'm gonna need a pause break somewhere. Yeah, I mean anything's a pause break if you're brave enough. Well that is a podcast. You guys host a show together, Plug That Show. Yeah, we host What A Hell Of a Way to Die. It is a mix of dad chat with me and Nate, military chat with me and various people that I bring on, and all kinds of other, whoever I find interesting to interview. That's the entire point of the podcast is for me to talk to interesting people. So you should be listening to that as well as Joe's show. And this is the only show that I host. But if you think what we do here is worth your time and money, you can support us on Patreon.

Just for five bucks, you can get like six years worth of bonus content now, more than six years. A lot of bonus content, yeah. You get bonus series like Lines Led by Robots, like The Sharp Show, like when we watch HBO's Rome through the Romecasts. You get Hooligans of Kandahar audiobook, which I'm slowly working through. You get the history of Armenia sub-series

and all the videos we are producing and a whole bunch of other projects we are still working on. You also get Discord access every episode early and a chunk of Tom's flesh. We'll send you a broken German bike part. While supplies last. Supplies are limited and finite. And thank you so much for listening and until next time, show up to the battle late and

go home.