(Top) Homes on Walcheren Island, Netherlands, were flooded by wartime bombing of Dutch dikes. (Bottom) By 1950, Marshall Plan funds had repaired the dikes, reclaimed the land and rebuilt the homes.

In October 1944, Allied bombers destroyed the dikes protecting Walcheren Island, a German military stronghold, as part of a major series of battles to secure shipping routes into the port of Antwerp.

Today, due to ongoing land reclamation, Walcheren is no longer an island. Instead, it is part of the Dutch mainland in the Zeeland province, near the mouth of the Scheldt estuary. (Library of Congress)