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| “The ‘Vindictive’ at Zeebrugge: The Storming of the Zeebrugge Mole.” Charles J de Lacy, 1918. IWM Non-commercial licence © IWM (Art.IWM ART 871) |
One hundred years ago, on Tuesday 30 April 1918, the funeral cortege of a 19-year-old sailor made its way from a small terraced house in Warwick Street, Sunderland, to Mere Knolls Cemetery. Crowds watched as the flag-draped coffin passed by carried on an artillery gun carriage. It was accompanied by buglers and a firing party from the Tyne Garrison, sailors from the Royal Naval Reserve, Sunderland Borough Policemen, workers from the local shipyard, and the Mayor of Sunderland.
Just a few days before, Sergeant William Sutherland of the Sunderland Borough Police had been informed by the Admiralty that his son, William Leonard Sutherland, had been mortally wounded. It happened during the Royal Navy’s unsuccessful raid on Zeebrugge in Belgium, to block U-boat access to the North Sea. After the raid, the young sailor’s body had been brought back to Dover and would, if his father wished, be sent on to Sunderland for burial.
William Leonard Sutherland had worked in a blacksmith’s shop in Austin’s Shipyard before he enlisted in the Royal Navy. Though only 19 years old, the Zeebrugge raid was not his first action, as he had been aboard the battleship HMS Conqueror at the Battle of Jutland, in May 1916.
In February 1918, a call had gone out for volunteers from the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet for special duties. Over fifteen hundred sailors volunteered, including Able Seaman Sutherland, and after training he was assigned to HMS Vindictive. This old battle cruiser, specially equipped with howitzers, flame throwers and mortars, and towing two River Mersey ferries, Daffodil and Iris II (the latter of which was commanded by George Bradford), was to land a raiding party of marines and sailors. Under cover of a smoke screen, they were to attack the mole (stone breakwater) protecting the entrance of the Bruges canal and destroy the German defences. This would allow block-ships to be sunk in the canal. The plan, however, went badly wrong and the three ships came under heavy fire and were forced to withdraw, after suffering heavy casualties. According to reports at the time, Able Seaman Sutherland was the last raider to be wounded by the last German shell to hit the Vindictive, as the surviving raiders clambered back on board.
The Zeebrugge raid cost the lives of over two hundred British sailors and marines, with a further three hundred men wounded. Many of the dead were returned to their families for local burial. In Mere Knolls Cemetery, Able Seaman Sutherland was buried next to his mother, Sarah Jane, who had died in 1903.
For further information:
Sunderland Daily Echo, Monday 29 April 1918.
Sunderland in the Great War by Clive Dunn. This book has a photograph of Able Seaman Sutherland’s grave in Mere Knolls Cemetery.
North East War Memorials Project: http://www.newmp.org.uk/article.php?categoryid=99&articleid=1329&displayorder=4
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