New Britain herald., 1916-08-18
BELGIAN COAST IS STRONGLY FORTIFIED
Prepared to Resist German Attack
 from the Sea

Correspondence of the Asso. Press.)
 Rotterdam, Netherlands, July 2S.- Correspondence of the Asso. Press) A correspondent who has just been permitted to visit the Belgian coast reports on the formidab ble defensea that have been raised there. A long line of barbed wire entanglement stretches along the coast, and an end less series of long slender ships guns protrude from the coarse grass of the dunes, and behind the dunes crouch the heavy howitzers.
 No Spot Unguarded.
 Underground dwellings of bomb proof concrete form part of the great trench along the entire coast, he says NO spot is unguarded. Everywhere the endless line is occupied by sailors, who endeavor to find relief for the monotony of their life in gardening and in the care of their pigs, goats, ra abbits and birds.
 Here and there one comes across an enormous unexploded shell, hurled ashore by one of the big British war ships, and which now forms the Orna- mental center of a flower garden. ! saw a big fellow among them, some of 38 centimeter caliber.
 What one sees in the way of de- struction is the work of the fast tor pedo -destroyers, which have on occa- sion hailed smaller shells on the coast al towns with their quick firing guns. The corners of houses are gnawed away; here and there a gable exhibits great holes. But the damage is not very bad at least not in Ostend and Zeebrugge, much less than one would , have supposed. Even on the seaside l IL %o 1o do r06 The big bath hotel at Ostend is un- ' touched and the great glass Kurhaus 1 shows no breakage in its innumer- able panes. A few big buildings by l Zeebrugge have been leveled to the l ground, but that was the work of the
 Germans, owing to the fact that these | buildings helped to direct the enemy's fire on the occasions when he sought 1 to destroy the most susceptible fea-
 ture of the harbor, the big dock.
 | Ruins Seen Everywhere.
 ''The real work of destruction be- gins where the French land guns have | been able to have their say. Middle | kerke is a mass of ruins. It is a re-
 markable fact that 600 people con- l tinue to crouch there. The school IS
 even still attended by eighty children
 But every house has it's underground
 refuge, such as the soldiers construct
 in the front lines. Shells still fall Tn
 the place almost daily
 | MiddlekCrke is now in such a state
 that the Germans no longer take up
 quarters there, but prefer to live in
 dwelling-holes burrowed in the dunes l Some streets always lie open to the ] French observers and gunners. Long
 walks can be taken in the southern part of the place, by winding cover i ways that have been broken and dug 1 out, half in, half under the earth, i through garden walls houses and eel | lars. A deep trench is the only sate l communication with the Westende 1 watering place, where no house re- mains standing. In the village of 1 Westende, which is if possible even
 more thoroughly knocked to pieces
 than the watering place, I noticed that the enenays shells had spared the part ! of a wall of an inn on which was in- ] scribed it's name, Tn den Vrede, | "(The Peace Tavern.l"