‘There is no doubt about the complete success of the enterprise. Photographs taken by our flying-men show that two of the block-ships are in the mouth of the Bruges Canal, well inside the shore line, and lying diagonally across the channel. The third is outside the canal mouth, blocking the greater part of the channel across the harbour. An officer assured me that the bottoms having been blown out of the ships, they are now simply great solid masses of concrete. Blasting, even if it could be attempted without risk to the surroundings (_e.g._, the walls of the canal and docks) would only divide one solid mass into several masses, just as obstructive as the whole. Moreover, owing to the shallowness of most of the harbour area, every tide will cause sand to silt up about the obstacles and make their removal more difficult. The photographs reveal a clean break in the viaduct at the landward end of the Mole. They also show that the Germans have tried to bridge the gap by planking.’ But planking will hardly carry the railway; and as for the block-ships, they were still in position three months later, with dredging parties at work who only offered an excellent target to the bombs of our seaplanes. During the attack at Zeebrugge the wind changed and blew the smoke off shore. This helped us in the end by enabling the ships to cover their retirement with a thick screen of miscellaneous smoke; but at Ostend it caused a partial failure of the blocking operations. Commodore Hubert Lynes, who commanded this little expedition, successfully laid his smoke-screen, and sent in his motor-boats behind it to light up the ends of the two wooden piers with flares, visible to our ships but not to the enemy. He then sent in two old cruisers, _Sirius_ and _Brilliant_, which were to be sunk between the piers. But the moment the wind changed, the enemy, seeing the flares, at once extinguished them, sinking the motor-boats by gunfire, and the block-ships were no longer able to find the entrance. They ran aground about 2000 yards to the east of the piers and were there blown up. Their crews were taken off under heavy fire in motor-launches commanded by Lieutenant K. R. Hoare, R.N.V.R., and Lieutenant R. Bourke, R.N.V.R.