The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-01-14

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 I visited it last week the foundation of one corner had been laid and the brick and stone construction had risen to the first floor. Great quanti- ties of red structural steel. imported from America, lay here and there in- side the high board fence which sur- rounds the site. The stone cutters were busy and gangs of masons were at work. The building covers a full square of ground. It is. on the high est land in the city and it's tower will be seen for miles over the coun- try.
 How They Bombarded Antwerp
 On my way to Antwerp. I saw the place where the guns which sent shells as big around as flour barrel distance of ten miles into that city, were mounted. The site, l am told, had been fixed by the Germans be- fore the war. They were set up on the foundation of a wooden villa which covered a bed of reinforced concrete of great thickness The villa was taken away and these huge seventeen-inch guns, whose enormous size astounded the world, were placed there. The bombardment lasted 36 hours and during a part of this time the guns dropped a shell every minute. A gun could fire only limited number of shells be- fore it had to be allowed to cool The damage done to Antwerp was small and the cathedral escaped, for the Germans expected to maintain the port as one of their great war stations of the future and to use it as hrr, <.l., d txl is loaded pistol that I hold against England's throat" In all only roo buildings were destroyed and some of them were such that the city was glad to have them removed. The Antwerp of today. shows no signs of the war.
 On October 2, when Antwerp was surrendered by the mayor of the Bel gians and the British had left the city and fallen back upon Ghent, where two days later they retired, The Ger mans went on to take Ghent and Bruges. and within less than a week had reached .Ostend. at which time the Belgian army was on the River Yser.
 You may remember the great battle of Yser which lasted ten days, the fight taking place upon the land,
 
 was the first battle in which aviators were successfully employed. and it was the one in which the Belgians shot holes in the raised banks of the river, so that it's water, increased by the inflowing tideg spread over the country, inflicting severe losses upon their enemies. s5- sssss,. sts.ss
 The BattIefieIds of s"Wfpers''
 It was at about the same time that the battles of Ypres or, as the British Tommies called it. ..Wipers" began. The first shell descended on that town on October, ', and two days later 20,000 Germans passed through it. Six days after that the first Britishrsoldiers came in and on Octo- Der 19sthe British met the Germans in a contest that lasted three weeks and resulted in. the Germans losing q quarter of d million of men and the allies more than one hundred thou sand Another battle took place there in 1915, and a third ins 1917, when the British advanced and pushed back the Germans. In each of--these bat ties there was fighting throughout the surrounding country which wiped out towns and villages and caused about the worst destruction that Belgium suffered during the. war.
 To understand the devastation one must recall Ypres of the past. More than two centuries before America was discovered the city had two hundred thousand inhabitants and was one of the richest industrial towns of the world. It's people wove wooden cloth, silks. and velvets, and excepting the cathedrals. the Cloth hall of Ypres was the finest build- ing of the Middle Ages. It was used by the Drapers Guild as it's ware house and exchange. Another great structure was the cathedral puitt about the. same time, and connected with the Cloth hall was the Nieu- werck, begun the same year that the Mayflower came tp. anchor near Ply and others wefe < rich in carvings, s.s.s stS stssg tsf,s s .s-*s.s