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Updated: May 10, 2025
As I entered the porte-cochere two poor wrecks of war were being led out by their nurses more men burned in the powder explosion at Waelhem, their seared faces and hands covered with oil and cotton just as they had been lifted from bed. The phrase "whistle of shells" had taken on a new reality since midnight.
There were men with faces chewed by shrapnel, men burned in the explosion of the powder magazine at Fort Waelhem, when the attack on Antwerp began dragged out from the underground passage in which the garrison had sought momentary refuge and where most of them were killed, burned, and blackened.
When they dropped in a river or canal, as sometimes happened, there was a waterspout. And when they dropped in a village, that village disappeared from the map. While we were watching the bombardment from a rise in the Waelhem road a shell burst in the hamlet of Waerloos, whose red- brick houses were clustered almost at our feet.
Many of the wounded came to us, and they were the worst cases we had so far seen. On Thursday Fort Waelhem succumbed after a magnificent resistance. The garrison held it until it was a mere heap of ruins, and, indeed, they had the greatest difficulty in making their way out.
These howitzers had already disposed of the fortifications of Liège, Namur, and Maubeuge, and it was only a question of days and hours when they would make a breach in the outer defences of Antwerp. Their fire was concentrated on Forts Waelhem and Wavre, south and east of Antwerp.
This buoyed up the spirits of the Belgian soldiers and redoubled their efforts. Under cover of the continuous fire of their guns, the Germans made determined efforts to cross the river Nethe at Waelhem. Desperate fighting, which lasted all night and until early in the morning of October 4, took place. This attempt, however, failed.
Catherine, Waelhem the last two only a few miles north of Malines Breendonck, Liezel, Bornem, Rupelmonde, Haesdonck, Doel, Blauwgaren the last two guarding the Scheldt at the point of its entrance into Holland, one on each bank Stabroek, Ertbrand, Brasschaet, Schooten, and Gravenwezel. Between these outer forts there were redoubts of considerable strength, which were armed with 4-inch guns.
Winterbottom started back with her blood-soaked freight for the Belgian lines. Thompson remained in the fort to take pictures. When darkness fell he made his way back to the village of Waelhem, where he found a regiment of Belgian infantry. In one of the soldiers Thompson recognized a man who, before the war, had been a waiter in the St.
Catherine, Waelhem, Heyndonck and Willebroeck, to the Scheldt at Ruppelmonde. Two or three miles behind this outer line of forts a second line of defence was formed by the Ruppel and the Nethe, which, together with the Scheldt, make a great natural waterway around three sides of the city. Back of these rivers, again, was a second chain of forts completely encircling the city on a five-mile radius.
After the fort of Waelhem had been silenced and such of the garrison as were able to move had been withdrawn, word was received at ambulance headquarters that a number of dangerously wounded had been left behind and that they would die unless they received immediate attention. To reach the fort it was necessary to traverse nearly two miles of road swept by shell-fire.
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