Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1919-01-16
DO BIC 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 war
when we drove into Ostend.
The chief of the American mission
at Belgian headquarters had warned
us dramatically against an attempt to
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 a 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 a 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
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 a 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 reserve line. A Bel
gian peasant was using one as
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 in the old family home for
a thousand years hence, or, say, a mil
ion years. Pill boxes are something
that will stand almost everlasting age.
The scores of drainage sluices across
The roads had all been covered with
temporary bridges by the Belgian en-
gineers following up the German de-
strOyerS. These bridges and culverts
are not as neat and workmanlike as
the ones the British and Americans
ouild, but they hold the traffic, and
that is the important thing just now.
Through the suburbs Of Ostend we
passed cheering Belgians dressed for
church. The people were so prayer
fully grateful to the British that they
did not seem to mind the mud we spat-
tered all over them. Many of them
ran off the road behind trees, and
from their mud screen shouted greet
ngs to the English. AS the extraor-
binary Flanders mud would even
squirt up to first floors of houses many
Of the people, learning from expert
ance, had taken to second stories, from
which they clapped their hands and
waved flags. The only damage we saw
in ncfn +Io of @Io
marine and railway stations and the
shattered glass in buildings on the sea
front, due to the air conclusions from
British monitors pounding the retreat
ing enemy.
Ruined by Shell and Bomb.
The piers leading out into the sea
from the harbor basin showed effects
Of British shells and bombs, and near
the end Of the pier was the gallant old
Vindictive, after it's magnificent part
in the Zeebrugge bottling-up exploit,
where she served as a boarding ship
and carried the great superstructure to
permit British marines to climb on the
Zeebrugge mole, had been filled with
concrete and sent in to block Ostend
as U-boat and destroyer base. The
Vindictive made it impossible for siz-
able ships to get into Ostend, and the
Germans, just before the retreat, tried
to complete the work by sinking a
mail ship alongside the Vindictive.
However, there is still room at high
tide for small relief ships and barges.
In fact, we saw a converted trawler
of the American Red Cross already in
the harbor, as well as many similar