HMS Vindictive carried assault troops during the British raid on German-held Zeebrugge, Belgium, in April 1918. The operation attempted to block the canal used by U-boats by sinking obsolete ships in its entrance. Although only partly successful, the raid was celebrated in Britain as an example of extreme naval courage.

The raid generated patriotic poems and recitations that revived the cadence of Victorian naval ballads during mechanised war. Vindictive's scarred hull allowed poets to personify the vessel as a wounded combatant and to frame a limited operation as heroic legend.