After surviving one of the worst disasters in British submarine history, Dick Sandford, known to his comrades as ‘Uncle Baldy’, was catapulted into the forefront of one of the Royal Navy’s most audacious operations ever mounted. Steve Snelling charts a story of tragedy and triumph against the odds, culminating in the bravest feat of the 1918 raid on Zeebrugge.
SANDFORD’S FINEST HOUR Zeebrugge Raid’s Submarine ‘Bomb’
In the freezing darkness of a January night Lieutenant Dick Sandford scoured the mist-shrouded waters of the Firth of Forth with a growing sense of unease. As officer of the watch aboard the cumbersome steam-driven submarine K6 engaged in a major fleet exercise, he had been studiously following the stern light of the nearest vessel, K3, in an effort to stay on course. But moments earlier, he had been forced to take evasive action to avoid another submarine, later identified as K12, which he spotted heading in the opposite direction straight towards him. In missing her, he lost sight, momentarily, of the K3. Searching around, he suddenly spotted a white light dead ahead. Taking it to be his ‘missing’ guide, he promptly resumed station behind it.
Scarcely had he done so than he heard a ship’…
