On our way home from Veere we drove through the village of Westkapelle, situated at the far western point of Walcheren, surrounded on three sides by a massive dike. The picture above, which I found on the web, was taken from the top of this dike. Westkapelle, like all of the island of Walcheren, lies below sea-level, a fact that played a big role during WWII.

On October 3, 1944, the dike to the south of town was destroyed by British bombers to inundate Walcheren and flood out German occupation troops to make liberation easier.
Even though they were warned in advance by leaflets dropped by Allied aircraft, most inhabitants of the village did not believe,that it would happen and stayed and were killed in the bombing; the village was all but wiped off the face of the earth by the bombs and the incoming sea. The Allied troops performed an amphibious landing on November 1, 1944 and liberated the island, It took until October 12, 1945, more than a year later, to finally close the gap. On top of the dike stands a British Sherman tank as a memorial to those days.

I was 10 years old then and still remember this bombardment. When it happened, even though my family lived quite a distance away from Westkapelle, we all took shelter and cowered together while the earth shook. A few days later, more dikes were bombed to speed up the flooding and one morning, when we woke up and went downstairs to the living room, we stepped in ankle deep water.
Sorry for getting carried away here, but the memory of this event is still very strong.

On our way out of Westkapelle we saw its lighthouse, which is actually the tower of a church that burnt down in the 18th century.




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