HELIGOLAND.

Thames Star, Volume LXII, Issue 17388, 28 March 1928, Page 7

HELIGOLAND.

ONCE GERMANY'S GIBRALTAR, Once Heligoland was Germany's Gibraltar and the pride of her military engineers. Now it, is a peaceful siren of the North Sea. As many as eight great steamers take thousands of 'German excursions there to spend their Sundays and holidays. The island, from the sea. looks like a great funnel of black rock rising out of the water. Describing a visit made recently, a London journalist said:—Our vessel dropped, anchor about a quarter of a mile from shore and we were taken off by a flotilla of motor-barges .and landed at curious little stages, on wheels thrust out into the water. We found ourselves at once in the midst of seaside crowds on pleasure bent. "We might have been at a small Brighton or-Bournemouth, save for the language. \ There are kiosks selling sweets, fruit, sausages, and a great refreshment, oavilion with a band playing in the stand liefore it. A little beyond are acres of newly fillcd-in land. The filling consists of blocks of concrete. These are some of the fragments or the proud fortress tjiat once frowned from yonder hilltop.

A sharp plateau rises straight up in solid rock for a couple of hundred feet. We may take the lift or climb the terrace steps. Refreshment bars, restaurants, and beer gardens crowd along the edge of the terrace above. We made our Way along one of tlje narrow streets with'tiny wooden houses that were mostly built during British occupation and' emerged in the open on a grassy terrace, that commands the whole North Sea. Here are to be seen enormous circles of solid concrete. These mark the pits and bases where the.fort disappearing guns used to sit. Every gun on the island has been removed and destroyed

and the great pits have been filled with concrete. The' elaborate network and system of bastions and connecting galleries have been blown into the frag-