Heist railway station

The Schipdonk Canal (French: Canal de Schipdonk or Dérivation de la Lys; Dutch: Schipdonkkanaal or Afleidingskanaal van de Leie) is a canal in the Belgian provinces of East Flanders and West Flanders. With a length of 56 km (35 mi), the canal runs in a northerly direction from Deinze, turning to a north-western direction roughly halfway along its route to the North Sea with which it meets on the coast near to Heist. It crosses both the Ghent-Bruges Canal and for its final 20 km (12 mi) runs parallel with the Leopold Canal as it approaches the north Belgian coast. For most of this final section the two canals are separated only by a dyke.

Heist-aan-Zee, Heist or Heyst, is a town (formerly a municipality, until 1971) in Knokke-Heist, West Flanders, Belgium. It was a prominent summer beach resort in the 1890s. It had a beach front lined with hotels and a "dike" paved walked way on a storm fender. Fishing boats were moored on the beach, and one could purchase a ticket to bathe in the sea.

Duinbergen is a railway station in the town of Knokke-Heist, West Flanders, Belgium. The station opened on 29 June 1920 and is located on line 51B. The train services are operated by National Railway Company of Belgium (NMBS).

Zeebrugge (Dutch pronunciation: [zeːˈbrʏɣə]; from Brugge aan zee [ˌbrʏɣə ʔaːn ˈzeː], meaning "Bruges-on-Sea"; French: Zeebruges) is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with hotels, cafés, a marina and a beach.

Knokke Casino (also called Knokke-Heist Casino; French: Casino de Knokke; Dutch: Casino Knokke) is a sea-front casino in the town of Knokke, in the administrative community Knokke-Heist, in the province of West Flanders in Flanders, Belgium.

Knokke-Heist (Dutch pronunciation: [ˌknɔkəˈɦɛi̯st]; French: Knocke-Heist) is a municipality in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the towns of Heist-aan-Zee, Knokke, Duinbergen, Ramskapelle and Westkapelle. On January 1, 2006, Knokke-Heist had a total population of 34,063. The total area is 56.44 km2 which gives a population density of 603 inhabitants per km2. Knokke-Heist is located along the North Sea in a polder area on the Belgian border with the Netherlands. It is Belgium's best-known and most affluent seaside resort.

SM UB-10 was a German Type UB I submarine or U-boat in the German Imperial Navy (German: Kaiserliche Marine) during World War I. UB-10 was ordered in October 1914 and was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen in November. UB-10 was a little under 28 metres (92 ft) in length and displaced between 127 and 141 t (125 and 139 long tons), depending on whether surfaced or submerged. She carried two torpedoes for her two bow torpedo tubes and was also armed with a deck-mounted machine gun. UB-10 was broken into sections and shipped by rail to Antwerp for reassembly. She was launched in February 1915 and commissioned as SM UB-10 in March. The U-boat was the first of her class to commence operations when she entered service on 27 March 1915. UB-10 was the first boat assigned to the Flanders Flotilla, the unit in which she spent her entire career. Her first two commanders were Otto Steinbrinck and Reinhold Saltzwedel, fifth and eleventh, respectively, among the top-scoring German submarine commanders of the war. UB-10 was credited with sinking 37 ships, about two-thirds of them British fishing vessels. The first ship sunk, the neutral Dutch steamer Katwijk, provoked outrage in the Netherlands and helped turn Dutch public opinion against Germany. That sinking was also the impetus behind a renewed effort to avoid attacking neutral ships by U-boats. In a 13-day span in July and August 1915, UB-10 sank 23 ships, and by herself accounted for nearly all of the tonnage sunk by the Flanders Flotilla in the latter month. She was also responsible for sinking the British destroyer HMS Lassoo in August 1916. UB-10 had two close calls with British submarines near the Schouwen Bank off Zeebrugge in 1916 and 1917, but survived both. By 1918, UB-10 had been converted into a minelayer by the replacement of her torpedo tubes with four mine chutes. UB-10 was seriously damaged in a British air raid on Flanders in July 1918, and was decommissioned in September 1918 in a worn out condition. She was not deemed seaworthy to sail to Germany when the bases in Flanders were being evacuated by the Germans in October 1918 and was scuttled off Zeebrugge in early October.

SM UB-59 was a German Type UB III submarine or U-boat in the German Imperial Navy (German: Kaiserliche Marine) during World War I. She was commissioned into the Flanders Flotilla of the German Imperial Navy on 25 August 1917 as SM UB-59.She operated as part of the Flanders Flotilla based in Zeebrugge. UB-59 scuttled 5 October 1918 off Zeebrugge at 51°19′N 03°12′E during the evacuation of Belgium by German forces.

Knokke railway station (Dutch: Station Knokke, French: Gare de Knokke) is a railway station serving Knokke-Heist and Knokke, in West Flanders, Belgium. The station was built in 1920. It is run by the National Railway Company of Belgium (NMBS/SNCB) as a terminal station located on the railway line 51B from Brugge and has services to Brussels-South and beyond to Tongeren. The Kusttram terminus is located outside the station with trams to Oostende and beyond.

Knokke (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈknɔkə]) is a town in the municipality of Knokke-Heist, which is located in the province of West Flanders in Flanders, Belgium. The town itself has 15,708 inhabitants (2007), while the municipality of Knokke-Heist has 33,818 inhabitants (2009). Knokke is the most north-eastern seaside resort on the Belgian coast. It lies adjacent to the Dutch border; separated from the Dutch territory by the Zwin nature reserve. Knokke came into existence as a result of the construction of dikes that were to protect the area around the 'Zwin' sea-arm. Originally a vacation haven for the city folk of Brussels in the early 19th century, artists such as James Ensor, Alfred Verwee and others started to frequent the small hamlet to paint its beautiful vistas. The artists rented a small miller's cottage and founded the Cercle des Artistes in 1880. It gradually became a resort town with upscale clientele, restaurants and shops. St. George's Anglican Church serves the English-speaking community. Nowadays Knokke is well known for its beaches and for the dike system to which it owes its origins. The largest of Belgium's ten casinos, Knokke Casino, is located on a seaside promenade and is open 20 hours a day. The town lies at the northern end of the Belgian Coast Tram line and is also served by NMBS trains at Knokke railway station. The N34 connects Knokke to De Panne.

Zwankendamme is a village in the municipality of Bruges, West Flanders, Belgium.

The Zeebrugge Raid (Dutch: Aanval op de haven van Zeebrugge; French: Raid sur Zeebruges) on 23 April 1918, was an attempt by the Royal Navy to block the Belgian port of Bruges-Zeebrugge. The British intended to sink obsolete ships in the canal entrance, to prevent German vessels from leaving port. The port was used by the Imperial German Navy as a base for U-boats and light shipping, which were a threat to Allied control of the English Channel and southern North Sea. Several attempts to close the Flanders ports by bombardment failed and Operation Hush, a 1917 plan to advance up the coast, proved abortive. As ship losses to U-boats increased, finding a way to close the ports became urgent and the Admiralty became more willing to consider a raid. An attempt to raid Zeebrugge was made on 2 April 1918 but was cancelled at the last moment, after the wind direction changed and made it impossible to lay a smokescreen to cover the ships. Another attempt was made on 23 April, with a concurrent attack on Ostend. Two of three blockships were scuttled in the narrowest part of the Bruges–Ostend Canal and one of two submarines rammed the viaduct linking the shore and the mole, to trap the German garrison. The blockships were sunk in the wrong place and after a few days the Germans had opened the canal to submarines at high tide. Lessons were learned during the operation that would be put to use in the Second World War.