The confidence of the people in the besieged fortress, which had become somewhat shaken, was at once restored and rose higher than ever. And I desire here to express my admiration for the conduct of the British naval squadrons, which was beyond praise. Their behavior and courage were alike unequalled, and whatever criticism may have been advanced in the British press at that time of sending these naval forces into Belgium, it is my sincere belief that these troops played an exceedingly important part. While they did not prevent the fall of Antwerp, they succeeded, at all events, in holding back the German advance for a time, and covered the Belgian army’s retreat, first through the city, thence to the other side of the Escaut, in the country of Vaes, toward St. Nocalos, Ghent, and Ostend. The British marines were the last to leave Antwerp. During the night of October 8-9 a small number of them fell as prisoners into the hands of the enemy; others evaded the Germans by crossing into Holland; the remainder followed in the wake of the Belgian army.
Antwerp itself was bombarded for thirty hours unceasingly. The bombardment started in the evening of Wednesday, October 7, and continued until the following Friday morning. During this time it was estimated that no fewer than 25,000 shells fell into the city, shaking it to its deepest foundations.
We remained at the hospital until the following day, Thursday. We had removed the majority of our patients to Ostend. Only a few remained under the care of the brave nuns. I myself was preparing to leave, when a shell burst right in the centre of the operating room close upon the ward where I was occupied. I was slightly wounded, and I left the hospital a few minutes later.
This was on Thursday, October 8, and as I rode on my bicycle through the now deserted streets I could hear above my head the whizzing of the shells fired by the enemy in the direction of the Belgian army headquarters.
The Belgian army headquarters were then at the Hotel St. Antoine, on the Marche aux Souliers (shoe market), a small thoroughfare which leads from Place de Meir to Place Verte. On the day following the fall of the city, I rode back to Antwerp on my bicycle, and to my great surprise I saw that while every vestige of buildings on the opposite side of the street had disappeared–blown into atoms by the German shells–the Hotel St. Antoine had not been touched. The shells had merely grazed the roof of the building before crashing down the opposite side of the street.
The night of October 8-9 was terrible and sinister. From the roof of the house we lived in, at Capellen, we observed the city being devoured by the flames. From the spot where we witnessed this awful scene, it looked as though the whole city were on fire. The oil reservoirs were burning at the same time that other parts of the city were being consumed by the devastating element. In the midst of this horrible carnage, we could see the tower of the great, magnificent cathedral pointing, like the finger of God, toward heaven. It was visible for a minute, then invisible–swallowed up in enormous tongues of fire. In the distance toward the south, where total darkness prevailed, we could observe from time to time flashes of the explosions caused by the German artillery vomiting its volleys of shells on the burning city.
It was an appalling spectacle which lasted through the night. The formidable vibrations caused by explosions repeated on an average of 300 per minute was an experience which is still painful for the imagination to dwell upon. Then on the morning of Friday, October 9, a dismal silence followed the carnage on the fortified city. Antwerp as a Belgian fortress was no more!