The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1918-12-28
90 BIG WORK IN
OSTEND DISTRICT
Engineers Speedily Reconstruct
Roads and Bridges
Wrecked by Shell.
SOLDIERS WORK IN The RAIN
Correspondent Describes Trip to Os-
tend--Finds Roads Once Badly
Torn by Shells Almost as
Good as New.

American Press Headquarters, Brit
ish Front.-We had an impressive il
lustration today of the accomplish
ments of the engineers in this wal
when we drove into Ostend.
The chief of the American mission
at Belgian headquarters had warned
us dramatically against an attempt tC
make the trip. At least three days
would be required he said. The roads
were torn up by shells and mines and
congested with troops. Yesterday a
light car had taken twelve hours to
make twenty miles. But we started
out and had as smooth a road as any
boulevard in the middle West for the
entire distance. There were several
places where we had to make detours
through villages, and as the dozens of
bridges across the canal near Ostend
were all blown up we had to drive on
about five miles to temporary bridge.
We averaged about thirty miles an
hour.
Soldiers Work in Rain.
Most of the road was kept up by
British labor battalions, excepting the
section near Christel, through the aw
full Flanders swamps, where Belgian
soldiers worked necessarily in driv-
ing rain. We heard they had worked
all night without rest, and so auto
matte had their operations with pick
and shovel become that they did not
stop to look up when our speeding car
threw Shiny mire all over them. For
Il camp they used the long lines of
German pill-bOx forts. At one place
we saw about twenty of these squat
chambers, with walls three feet thick
and made of concrete, REINFORCED
with steel pipes. Direct shell hits ap-
parently bounced harmlessly off these
forts The twenty pill boxes in sight
were in a straight row, and behind
them were half-dozen larger ones to
protect the rear.
When we had passed the desolate
waste of water, mud and swamp reeds
and got into other lowlands that had
been drained and tiled we saw more
pill boxes in a reserve line Bel
gian peasant was using one as a
chicken house, and the low apertures
for machine guns lent themselves
readily as entrances and exits for the
fowls. Descendants of these chickens |
should be III the old family home for /
a thousand years hence, or, say, a mil
ion years. Pill boxes are something
hat will stand almost everlasting age.
The scores of drainage sluices across
he roads had all been covered with
temporary bridges by the Belgian en-
sinetrs following up the German de-
ibid
IRE not as neat and workmanlike as
he ones the British and Americans
'uild, but they hold the traffic, and
hat is the important thing just now.
Through the suburbs of Ostend we
assed cheering Belgians dressed for :
hurch. The people were so prayer
ully grateful to the British that they
ID not seem to mind the mud we Spat-
cred all over them. Many of them
an off the road behind trees, and | :
rom their mud screen shouted greet
lgs to the English. AS the extraor-
mary Flanders mud would even
luirt up to first floors of houses many Z
the people, learning from expert
ace, had taken to second stories, from
hich they clapped their hands and
aved flags. The only damage we saw )
Ostend was the wreckage of the :
arine and railway stations and the 7
lattered glass in buildings on the sea
ont, due to the air conclusions from
ritish monitors pounding the retreat \
& enemy. :
Ruined by Shell and Bomb. S
The piers leading out into the sea
ON the harbor basin showed effects
British shells and bombs, and near
e end of the pier was the gallant old
ndictive, after its magnificent part =
the Zeebrugge bottling-up exploit,
lere she served as a boarding ship =
d carried the great superstructure to
rmit British marines to climb on the
ebrugge mole, had been filed with y
ncrete and sent in to block Ostend
U-bOat and destroyer base The
adjective made it impossible for siz- =
e ships to get into Ostend, and the n
just before the retreat, tried
complete the work by sinking a
II ship alongside the Nndictive
1owover, there is still room at high ~
e for small relief ships and barges.
fact, we saw a converted trawler
the American Red Cross already in
harbor, ~ well AZ many similar -
fish ships