Zeeland’s Flooded Ruins: WWII’s 1944 Disaster in Color!

This deeply moving colorized footage captures the heartbreaking aftermath of the Allied bombardment of Walcheren Island’s dykes in Zeeland, Netherlands, on October 3 and 7, 1944, during World War II—a desperate strategy to weaken German defenses in Operation Infatuate, part of the Battle of the Scheldt. The film reveals the devastating floods that submerged vast areas, destroying fertile farmland, drowning livestock, and leaving thousands homeless, their lives upended as seawater swept through villages. Filmed in the weeks and months after the attack, it shows the eerie stillness of inundated fields, shattered homes, and the resilience of a population enduring immense loss. A poignant testament to war’s unintended toll, this restored archive grips history buffs and those moved by Zeeland’s wartime suffering, offering a vivid glimpse of a tragedy often overshadowed by later disasters like the 1953 North Sea flood, yet etched in Dutch memory as a sorrowful chapter of 1944.