Show agent relates war ravage in editors note this is n tenth in in a series benes of articles by miss josephine cp hine I 1 mines on her trip to holland will wh it the war I 1 le eft f it what hat about war devastation in in F drope yes the scars lie are still there but the people aunt arent letting that bother them you dont ilon t hear tin the gruesome storie stones s ol of the war wai unless you ask for foi them the I 1 he people are aie forgetting the past and working for the future furuie it t take us long to sey see war devastation as harbors are quite important places when it tomes comes to war the plymouth england barbor was heavily fortified and the Lel lavre france one badly destroyed st one of my brothers bio theis docked at this same game gaibor in in france fiance early eaily in in im 1015 and he said then their boat had to wa wait i t outside the harbor several days as only t two wo boats could dock at the same bame tinie time I 1 most alost of the il mess liess there lias has been cleaned up but there tire aie still pieces of sunken boats above tile the water and reconstruction and cleaning up going on all through our oui adde to the Il hague agnie holland we saw s i results of bombing but then again railroads laili raili oads something else that we vii and the enam enemy wanted to do away with tile the dutch say s ly the Gein ians paid fileni a five year friendly visit during that time they tool too then their food clothes machinery and nien men for foi forced labor destroyed destio cd many buildings and flooded land but they t take iway away then their will to work ahen hen it was all over when the germans left the country they not only lift left them high find dry but low find and wet in leaving tile the germans germ ins as is well as the allies before ai arriving living broke abiol c up some of the dykes W we 0 lad had the opportunity of visiting the largest of these inundated areas it was a iam acre polder area aita ait a of reclaimed i land the germans bombed the dyke in in april of dj 1945 i before leaving leasing the country and the fresh water came rushing in the dutch people say they surprised themselves as to how bow quickly they were able to re drain this land they built a new dyke inside the bombing of the old one and had the water out by december Decem bei of the sanie same year just sevki seven months when we visited this thib area there were no trees except young newly planted ones we could see water marks on some of the buildings which measured 10 1 feet above the ground the sea level and indicates how far below the sea the land is is crops looked very productive in in 1941 however no salt water got on this land farm buildings were still being rebuilt many were still in in condition the hard thing for foi tile the farmers after the war was to get yields back to normal to feed all the hungry people thirty thousand had starved to death during the occupation much of the land was flooded and all was badly baal depleted before the war holland was using more commercial fertilizer per hector than any other country in in the world then their supply was practically all cut off machinery was wab taken away to germany and none had been imported for foi several years farm animals had been killed for meat because of lack of food to feed them it took tinie time and energy to bring yields and production back to normal about one third of tile the destruction from bombing in in 11 holland 0 hand was in in the city of rotterdam Rott eidam erdani the germans went into the lowlands may 10 30 1040 they told the people to surrender or they would destroy their cities the people however tried to hold bold on as long as possible and put up a fight rotterdam Rott eidam on the mass river river felt the results bombing there lasted for foi tit three ree days das during which time thile a large laige section of tho the city was completely wiped out one girl I 1 met from rotterdam Rott eidam told us how the first day there was much shooting from the river avei their family had all been in in the living room when a large bullet swept through no one was hurt the next day then their house was bombed and completely destroyed desti oyed an order came for all mothers and children to leave the city she said her oldest sister sibber and brother were to too 0 old to go so tho the sister posed as th the e mother of her little brother and they left with the other thousands of P people e le on the crowded roads loads wi mth th op no 0 p place lace to go they camped outside upside t the he city until her father and brother found them sometime later and they could find it a place to live while in in rotterdam Rott eidam dain she showed us the spot among the other blocks and blocks of blank spaces where when their house had stood there are numerous other stories of individuals and what they did during those days of occupy 1 tion perhaps like to hear them later i |