There was entire unanimity between the Navy and Army over the proposed operation, and we greatly admired the manner in which the Sister Service took up the work of preparing for the landing.  Secrecy was absolutely vital to success, as the whole scheme was dependent on the operation being a surprise, more particularly in the selection of the landing place.  Admiral Bacon describes in his book the methods by which secrecy was preserved.  As time passed, and the atrocious weather in Flanders during the summer of 1917 prevented the advance of our Army, it became more and more difficult to preserve secrecy; but although the fact that some operation of the kind was in preparation gradually became known to an increasing number of people, it is safe to say that the enemy never realized until long after the operation had been abandoned its real nature or the locality selected for it.

Some officers with experience of the difficulties encountered during the landings at Gallipoli expressed doubts of the practicability of the operation in the face of the heavy fire from large guns and from machine guns which might be expected, but the circumstances were so different from those at Gallipoli that neither Sir Reginald Bacon nor I shared these doubts.  The heavy bombardment of the coast batteries by our own shore guns, which had been greatly strengthened for the purpose, the rapidity of the landing, the use of a dense smoke screen, the fact of the landing being a complete surprise, the use of tanks for dealing with hostile machine guns, the interruption to the enemy’s shore communications by heavy artillery fire, and the bombardment by monitors of the coast well to the eastward of the landing place as a feint, were all new factors, and all promised to assist towards success.

Of the supreme importance of the operation there could be no question.  Ever since 1914 the Navy had been pressing for the recapture of the ports on the Belgian coast, and they could only be taken by means of a combined operation.  Sir John French (now Field-Marshal Viscount French) himself had in the early days of the war pointed, out the great importance of securing the coast, but circumstances beyond his control were too powerful for him.

It was in these circumstances that the decision to undertake the operation was made, and when it became necessary to abandon it owing to the inability of the Army to co-operate the intense disappointment felt by all those who had worked so hard to ensure its success can be realized.

The Harwich force, consisting of the 5th Light Cruiser Squadron and the flotilla of destroyers, was the only other British force stationed in south-eastern waters if we except the local craft at the Nore.  The 5th Light Cruiser Squadron and the flotilla were under the command of Commodore (now Rear-Admiral) Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt, an officer whose vessels were, if we except the Dover patrol, more frequently in contact with the enemy than any other British force in Home waters.  Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt had several functions to perform: