Numerous other operations against enemy destroyers, torpedo boats and submarines were carried out during the year, as recounted in Sir Reginald Bacon’s book, and in the autumn, when supplies of the new pattern mines were becoming available, some minelaying destroyers were sent to Dover; these vessels, as well as coastal motor boats and motor launches, were continually laying mines in the vicinity of Zeebrugge and Ostend with excellent results, a considerable number of German destroyers and torpedo boats working from Zeebrugge being known to have been mined, and a fair proportion of them sunk by these measures.

In addition to the operations carried out in the vicinity of the Belgian coast, the Dover force constantly laid traps for the enemy destroyers and submarines in waters through which they were known to pass.

Lines of mined nets laid across the expected track of enemy vessels was a device frequently employed; submarines, as has been stated, were used on the cross-Channel barrage to watch for the passage of enemy submarines and destroyers, and everything that ingenuity could suggest was done to catch the German craft if they came out.

Such measures were supplementary to the work of the destroyers engaged on the regular Dover Patrol, the indomitable Sixth Flotilla.

A great deal depended upon the work of these destroyers.  They formed the principal, indeed practically the only, protection for the vast volume of trade passing the Straits of Dover as well as for our cross-Channel communications.  When the nearness of Zeebrugge and Ostend to Dover is considered (a matter of only 72 and 62 miles respectively), and the fact that one and sometimes two German flotillas, each comprising eleven large and heavily armed torpedo-boat destroyers, were usually based on Bruges, together with a force of large modern torpedo boats and a very considerable number of submarines, it will be realized that the position was ever one of considerable anxiety.  It was further always possible for the enemy to send reinforcements of additional flotillas from German ports, or to send heavier craft with minesweepers to sweep a clear channel, timing their arrival to coincide with an intended attack, and thus to place the German forces in a position of overwhelming superiority.

Our own Dover force at the commencement of 1917 consisted of one light cruiser, three flotilla leaders, eighteen modern destroyers, including several of the old “Tribal” class, eleven old destroyers of the 30-knot class (the latter being unfit to engage the German destroyers), and five “P” boats.  Of this total the average number not available at any moment may be taken as at least one-third.  This may seem a high estimate, but in addition to the ordinary refits and the time required for boiler cleaning, the vessels of the Dover Patrol working in very dangerous, foggy and narrow waters suffered heavy casualties from mines and collisions.  The work of the Dover force included