 Before the Second World War, one of the great landmarks in Belgium was the 600-year-old Gothic cathedral in the city of Antwerp. Towering over the city, this architectural achievement was a spiritual symbol, linking the inhabitants with a great cultural past. The cathedral as well as other old buildings reminded the people of a way of living that had stood the test of time. Another aspect of Antwerp before the war was a forward-looking energetic spirit. Antwerp built the first skyscraper in Europe 25 stories high. Selecting the best from the past and the present, the people preferred a mild attitude toward life. They looked with contempt on the fascist ways that had developed in Nazi Germany a short distance away. Antwerp, since the Middle Ages, had been a trading center. Its port was the greatest on the continent of Europe. The harbor, with its vast machinery capable of handling tremendous volumes of import and export trade, brought Antwerp into close contact with the world outside the city. But one contact became inevitably a clash. A war between great powers threatened the peaceful life of Antwerp. For a few months of 1939, Belgium tried to preserve its neutrality. Then Hitler, choosing Antwerp as one of his first targets, sent his planes swooping over the city, bringing to it death and destruction. Napoleon once said, Antwerp is a gun pointed at the heart of England. To add of Hitler, the capture of Antwerp was a natural step in the plan to conquer England and the rest of the world. Antwerp was taken. For four years, the Belgian people existed and suffered under German rule. Finally, the Allies invaded the continent, bringing the hope of liberation to the conquered peoples of Europe. As the invasion proceeded, supplying the forces became an increasingly severe problem. The beaches became a crowded bottleneck of supply. The Allies needed a major harbor to feed the tremendous drive toward Germany. The enemy knew this. They bombed and wrecked La Havre and all the large ports along the northern coast of France. Deprived of harbors, we found roads were the only answer. Roads became our lifelines, stretching farther and deeper into France. Supplies moved over one-way routes in a 24-hour delivery system now famous as the Red Ball Express. Day and night, the trucks rolled along the roads of France, bringing gasoline, ammunition and food to frontline depots. The huge Allied force in France had only one small port, Cherbourg, through which supplies might flow. Cherbourg was hundreds of miles from the fighting front. The lines were stretched to the breaking point. We needed a port desperately. Antwerp, Germany's key to the invasion of England, could unlock the door to Germany. In a sudden eight-hour thrust of 110 miles, the British 11th Armored Division fought their way to the city. The troops rolled through the outskirts of Antwerp almost unchallenged. Several months before, no one would have dreamed that Antwerp was to be taken so easily. For four years, the people of Antwerp had known only oppression. Now the suddenness of liberation was overwhelming. In one day, life in the city changed entirely. The Belgian underground came out into the open, cleaning up small pockets of resistance. The thrilled inhabitants couldn't wait to express their happiness. During the day of liberation, there was street fighting one moment and rejoicing the next. The British tanks rumbled through the old city, past ancient buildings that would continue to tell of Antwerp's age and great past. Moving out into the edges of the city, Allied forces met stiffened resistance as the Nazis made a last ditch but hopeless stand. In the dock area, German snipers remained to cause some trouble, but Canadian troops soon pushed them back across the shelf ripper. Ultimately, the dock area was cleared, although German troops held on for a while in the islands guarding the entrance to the port. Amazingly, Antwerp was taken almost intact. The whole port system of canals and docks fell undistroyed into allied hands. The Germans had their explosives in place ready to demolish the harbor, but they waited too long. The underground seized the locks and over 600 cranes. These facilities were captured in such excellent condition that they could be used without delay. One obstacle remained. The entrance to the port had been heavily mined. Mine sweepers that had done service along the British coast combed the lower Shelt River, one of the most heavily mined areas of World War II. On November 28th, the first Allied ship, the Fort Kataraki, came down the Shelt River. It docked amid little fanfare, but its arrival signified a great change in the European supply picture. The cranes swung into action. Antwerp became the funnel for 50% of the Allied equipment arriving in Europe. Supplies poured in for the armies on the continent of Europe, for the Canadian First Army, the British Second, the U.S. Ninth, the U.S. First, the U.S. Fifteenth, the U.S. Third, shells, gas, tires, food, tanks, and bells, bells for the towns of Belgium. As the bells went back into the churches, the doubt and fear that had grown in the hearts of Belgian civilians began to subside. The bells told a joyous message. The enemy had gone. There were friends about now. There was nothing to fear. And then suddenly, the flying bomb, a thousand pounds of dynamite capable of vast destruction. The bombs were aimed at the port of Antwerp, the port so vital to the Allied invasion of Germany. It was the Germans' trump card and it was being played in earnest. The number of bombs that rained down on Antwerp steadily increased. Some of them landed in the port. Many landed in the city. Life in Antwerp was transformed. Each bomb killed or wounded an average of 38 people. Old women accustomed to a round of housekeeping and shopping were suddenly crushed under tons of debris. The lives of children playing in the streets were violently interrupted. Bombs became a ghostly setting for those who escaped death. Antwerp, its port and its people would have been wiped off the earth. Were it not for the defense system known as Antwerp X? The story of Antwerp X began before the bombs came. Allied intelligence knew that the Germans had been building launching sites east and southeast of Antwerp. Counter-preparations had been made. Under General Claire Armstrong, a combined organization of American, British and Polish gunners were assigned to the defense of the city. It was their job to defend the city against the V-1. Against the V-2, which traveled too fast to be seen, there was no defense. We knew that the German attack could come from many directions. Our strategy was one of shifting defenses. When the V-1s began to come over from one direction, batteries would be shifted quickly. So that several belts of anti-aircraft fire, one behind the other, could protect the city. To make this strategy a success, new lines of attack had to be expected. And anti-aircraft units had to move quickly from one position to another. The gun crews around Antwerp learned to meet the extraordinary demands made by their jobs. A move order was just a couple of points on a map. But to the men it meant something more, something vital and urgent. They had seen the damage and death that the V-1s could bring. They knew that lives in Antwerp were at stake. They learned the importance of moving quickly. At all hours of the day and night, the small towns of Belgium shuddered as heavy equipment rushed along the quiet streets on the way to new positions of defense. The men got to know their jobs so thoroughly that handling the guns became second nature to them. It was like walking or talking. It seemed they had done it always. They learned speed in setting up, speed in getting the word through, speed in firing. They learned accuracy. When the bombs first came, our gunners shot down only one out of every two bombs. Before the shooting was over, they were bringing down better than nine out of ten. It wasn't the gunners alone. At each step in the process of bringing down a bomb, there were men whose place in Antwerp X was vital. Observers moved far forward into frontline positions to spot the V-1 soon after the takeoff from Germany. From these forward outposts, they flashed the earliest warning of an approaching bomb. Back at the battery, the signal comes in and the gunners go to work. In a matter of seconds, each man is at his post doing the job upon which all Antwerp was depending. A job of cooperation, a team of American and British troops blending its efforts. Through rapid estimations, the course of the bomb was plotted. Plotting was based on information received by radar units. Antenna's scan the skies, listening, feeling, searching to discover the course of the bomb as exactly as possible. The bomb comes into range of the gun battery. And now the gun crews have their target. When one belt of guns failed to bring down a V-1, there was at least one other battery backing up the first. Sometimes four and five belts of guns guarded the bomb lanes to Antwerp. For 160 days, the men of Antwerp X were on duty every day. And there were a few nights when a man could get continuous sleep. Sooner or later, there came an ominous sound in the night. The motor voted the skies. The V-1 flickered and glowed like a tiny firefly in the darkness. For 160 days, the people of Antwerp and the men defending it turned their eyes toward the sky. The black puffs were from our own guns. They were our defense. But the people saw them as the spots of a new disease that might have flicked them endlessly. They wondered, how long can they keep it up? Will the supply ever give out? Will the bombs ever stop? On some days there was a fine sky. Perfect weather for a holiday. But this was not typical winter weather. More commonly, skies were gray. Often the targets were blurred by fog. Play and late in all kinds of weather. People gathered to watch, especially the children. To them it was a great show. No matter that the V-bombs were deadly, this was a performance, rain or shine. It was fascinating to be a spectator. But to the civilians it was a matter of life and death. Their homes and their city were in the balance. The gunners were their protectors and defenders. Their only hope against the deadly weapon in the sky. Action was frequent. The outcome was always in doubt. Sometimes a hit was freakish, damaging the flying mechanism so that the bomb hurtled to the ground in a crazy spin. To the gunners, life went on. A round of work and little sleep. The season changed. Winter was a new plague, adding discomfort to danger. There was cold and mud. Through the winter, Germany continued to hammer antwerp with V-1 and V-2 bombs. Thousands of buildings were totally destroyed and many thousand more were severely damaged. People in the city were dazed. Those who had lived all their lives in antwerp were suddenly lost in their city. The children looked on, not understanding. The wreckage was beyond their comprehension. But the V-1 left its mark on them physically and mentally. Then, in the early part of December, there were five days of quiet. There was no putter of V-1 bombs. There were no V-2s. The sky was silent. But though there were no targets, the air was charged with danger. This calm was false and sinister. Each man felt it. The enemy had stopped for a reason of their own that was something to worry about. Then, the silence broke. The German high command realizing the importance of the Allied supply source poured all its ground strength into a huge, dangerous counter-abensive, the Battle of the Bulge. Antwerp was the goal. Reach Antwerp and the Allied drive would falter and fail. Our position grew dangerous. Our men were forced back. We lost valuable equipment. The Allies met the drive throwing everything they had against the enemy. Every man, every piece of equipment. Our highly specialized army rushed cooks, clerks and cartographers into front-line fighting positions. Standard fighting methods were thrown overboard. Anti-aircraft guns fired point-blank into the enemy attack. But although the Allies suffered great damage, the result of the Battle of the Bulge was now clear. von Rundstedt never reached the city that was his destination. Through it all, the port went on operating. The Belgian dock workers heroic in the face of constant danger continued to bring in the materials that were to reach the front in time for final victory. Truckload after truckload rolled through the streets of the city to the western front. In February of 1945, the Bus Bomb attacks reached a peak of intensity. The bomb was coming in now from a new direction, from the north at much shorter range. By continually shifting our defenses and through a heavy defense in depth, we met the final onslaught. Antwerp X was a success. Firstly, the strategy had been right. Secondly, the execution of that strategy, the record of gunners, had been brilliant. During one period of six days, 91 bombs came over of which 89 were shot down. The number of bombs that penetrated the defenses of Antwerp were only a small proportion of the destructive avalanche that might have reached the city. The shooting was over. Hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition fired into the sky had saved a city and protected a vital port. Antwerp X had played a major role in bringing the war in Europe to a rapid conclusion. Antwerp survived a war while being in the very center of it. The people had paid a price in lives and property. But beneath the surface, there had been a profound change. During four years of terror and suffering, they had gained a deeper understanding of human values, a renewed love for their traditions of culture and goodwill. The citizens of Antwerp look about them now, at the old buildings, the old landmarks, still standing, reminders of the destruction that might have come to them, reminders of the evil that might have afflicted them not for four years, but for 40 or 400. Their city lives on, a monument for the whole world to see, an affirmation of the good that is in mankind that can survive.