Old Calais The Calais canal went past the end of our road. It was there that my aunt took me to our allotment to hunt for snails that she would bring them home to cook.   The passenger harbour. The railroad strongly influenced the development of the harbour of Calais. The arrival in 1848 of the first train of the Paris-Calais line provided the necessity of a station able to welcome the travellers on the trans-channel journey. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Channel maritime traffic stabilized so that in 1815 about ten French boats and as many English were used in the Channel. In 1820, the harbour at Calais was not completely installed and could only welcome vessels of low tonnage. The railroad track was lengthened in 1849 to the harbour edge, near to which was constructed the first harbour station open to the public in August 1849. The building, nicknamed the "Paradise station” was illuminated by gas and was constructed in wood with a roof made of zinc. It included a hall 20 metres wide and 100 metres long. This arrangement was inconvenient, the ships at dawn could not come alongside the quay at high tide, which obliged the harbour to adapt the timetables. The constant influx of the travellers aggravated the situation. The railroad track was extended to the tidal embankment. The passengers were brought by train to the "Paradise station” and the boat service of could operate at a fixed hour. In spite of these improvements, the harbour could not satisfy the flow of travellers. The project of a new harbour was opened in 1877 and on June 3, 1889. The new harbour and the new harbour station were inaugurated with a ceremony by the President of the Republic, Sadi Carnot. The evolution of the harbour was bound closely to that of the ships. The ships increased in size, in 1854 some of them made the crossing in 1 hour and 30 minutes. The harbour station accommodated passengers of prestige. In 1906, it saw king Edward VII, the king and the queen of Norway, the queen of Serbia, the prince and princess Adolf of Sweden, and the kings of Greece, Spain, Portugal. The trains on their arrival stopped on the quay between the harbour station and the quayside. Thanks to the extensive digging works, the embankments were 5 metres to low tide, which permitted steamers to be able to arrive at any hour.  The total cost of the harbour work rose to 45 million francs. The ships of the Company of Calais North, or the Company of London Chatham, accomplished the crossing, pier to pier, in less than one hour. A regular service of 3 journeys every day at precise hours (morning, afternoon, night), permitted a journey of Paris to London in 7 hours whatever is the state of the sea. The new harbour assured the services of international trains by assuring the correspondence of the ships. These trains joined Basel, Berlin, Brussels, Brindisi, Constantinople, Warsaw, and not forgetting the famous Orient - Express. Apart from the ordinary services, the ships served as transport for a new category of travellers brought by the railroad: the excursionists. From 1848, tickets at reduced prices were available to make the crossing and to spend some hours ashore. Bathing in the sea was recognized to have medicinal virtues. There were different ways to get into the water, plunging or sudden immersion, the bather threw himself into the waves or he was seized and thrown into the water by his companion. Thirty bathing carriages pulled by an old horse drove the bathers to the waves. Every carriage was accompanied by a seaman for the ladies and a good swimmer for the men. The bather could remain sat on the steps of the cabin for a total immersion or to bathe some parts of the body. At the beginning of the years 1900 sea bathing started to become an attraction. Decency obliged that clothes concealed most of the body. The women, for example, wore baggy breeches, with jackets closed at the neck, caps and even black stockings against jellyfish. The guide-bathers wore trousers and a long jacket of wool in the water, the women guide-bathers were clothed with a long dress of wool attached at the neck and covering entirely the body. Men and women bathed in separate zones delimited by posts planted in the sea. The sea dam with tiled walkways was endowed with electric lighting in 1894. After 1918, the terrace was prolonged eastward and tennis courts were created. Wooden chalets first appeared on the dam, which were a success, then on the sand in duplicates rows. After the Great War the chalets continued their progression and ended up joining with Blériot-Beach. The children played between the multicoloured tents. Achille Bressons organized public baths for the less wealthy Calaisiens, thanks to the installation of a vast tent with a guard and where, in return for 20 centimess instead of one franc, for the individual cabins, one could change and dry oneself. Calais had a casino on the sea front. This was completely destroyed during world war two. You can still see the rails of tramlines in parts of Calais. Most of  the cobblestones have been removed. This is Place d'armes before the destruction of the second world war. All that is left now is the Watch Tower, that miraculously survived. The market is still held there on Saturdays and Wednesdays. The second world war. On the 1st September 1939, the German army invaded Poland. Hitler decided to end what he called the monstrosities of the Versailles Treaty and the Polish corridor; in 1919The German territory had been cut in two  to give Poland access to the sea. Hitler fixed his mind on the recovery of Danzig and the invasion of Poland. He wanted to terrorize not only the Poles but also the French and the English. "That's what awaits you, he was saying." On the 3rd September 1939, in the wake of England, France declared war on Germany to defend it's ally Poland. The winter of 1940 was difficult. In the spring ration cards were set up to feed the population. In May, Belgium and the Netherlands fell. The sky darkened over Calais with many waves of German aircraft. Calais became one of the objectives of the German army. On the 24nd May, the 10th Division Panzers1 encircled Calais. 3000 British soldiers led by General Nicholson and 800 French defended the city and the port. The troops were insufficient to keep the perimeter of the city, heavy fighting took place in the streets of Calais. Nicholson had been told by Churchill to resist at all costs to allow the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. On May 26 at 16:45, Calais had to  surrender. The Germans were on the Channel, the British Expeditionary Force, the Belgian army, and the French army were encircled. In Paris, the prime minister, Paul Reynaud removed Gamelin and a new saviour was found General Weygand, 72, one of the architects of the victory of 1918. Reynaud appointed as vice president another former glory, Marshal Petain, 84, who, however, turned his back on his policy. Weygand was obliged, in turn find a reply. Toward Dunkirk. Hitler watched. He wanted to spare England, he was still seeking a separate peace and Goering said that his aircraft were able to prevent any embarkation, 400,000 men were distraught, crammed, with a last hope of escape by sea, Churchill ordered to fetch them. This was Operation Dynamo. Destroyers, minesweepers, trawlers, tugs, barges, pleasure yachts, and even the Thames fireboat, anything that floats was sent across the Channel to rescue the besieged, with British generals, including Montgomery. The French contained the Germans on the outskirts of Dunkirk, with a price of heavy losses under the Luftwaffe Stukas and bombers. The embarkation managed to save 215,000 English and 120,000 French. The French were taken to Britain to attempt a last stand. The English were directed toward re-equipment centres. Churchill put it into perspective. He lucidly said: "You do not win wars with evacuations. Yet this was, in those first days of June 1940, born the "Spirit of Dunkirk". On 4 June the Germans entered Dunkirk. They discovered a fabulous booty, the remains of the British army. On the beach littered with wreckage, British Spitfires and carcasses of Allied ships showed the violence of fighting. Hitler proclaimed: "Dunkirk is the biggest battle of all time, and June 4 will become a  German national holiday." 80,000 French, were sacrificed in the defence of Dunkirk, taken prisoner. Churchill said: "During those four critical days, the French have contained seven German divisions. They have thus made a splendid contribution to the salvation of their comrades. England could not continue the war without their sacrifice." The following day, the occupation was put in place, a curfew was instituted in Calais from 21:00 to 6:00 in the morning. The national armistice was signed on June 22. The Calais sky became witness to the battle of Britain and the numerous air battles where the victims often fell into the Calais region. The resistance organized itself to collect and transmit information of military use to the allied cause. The survival of Britain, now alone against Germany was played in the Atlantic. The war raged between the U-boats and Allied convoys carrying military hardware. The war was on the ocean, dependent on American aid, Britain watched with concern the maritime routes used by German submarines, U-boats which, at the end of 1939, had sunk nearly 750 000 tons of Allied shipping. Reich's navy, the Kriegsmarine built submarine bases in the French ports of Brest, Saint-Nazaire, Lorient and Bordeaux and its submarines stationed there were ready to depart to hunt Allied ships. After losing powerful battleships such as the Graf von Spee and the Bismarck, the German Navy was weakened, its remaining large ships were now safe in the Norwegian fjords. The only ships in a state of combat, the submarines become the instrument of control of the seas. The "packs of gray wolves" masters of the Atlantic, April 1941. In one month the Luftwaffe and the German U-boats, nicknamed the "gray wolves" sank around 600.000 tons of Allied ships. After the Luftwaffe had been sent to fight on the Eastern Front, there only remained in the Atlantic long range bombers. These identified Allied ships and transmitted their position to the submarines waiting in packs, to cause carnage among the convoys. The entry into the war of the United States did not change the situation, the American fleet was for the moment confined to the Pacific. The German submarines continued their attacks and sank around 6.5 million tons of ships in 1942. The situation became critical for the Allied convoys, the transportation of military equipment to Britain was on the verge of stopping.  Life aboard the submarine was cramped, fifty crewmen were difficult to place among the military equipment. Eating, sleeping, working in a few square metres, the submariners were sometimes several weeks without seeing daylight. Even if the submarine was forced to the surface every three days to renew the air, the crew was not allowed out, the men savoured this moment to scan the horizon with binoculars. It was then that the U-Boot became easy prey for detection and attack, announced within the submersible through loudspeakers, the struggle was particularly challenging for the sailors. Until 1942, many attacks were on the surface, the U-boats were equipped with a gun, but the response of the allied ships forced the submarine to undertake deep dives, often dangerous. The Strange Enigma machine, resembling a typewriter used the German Enigma code for messages to be transmitted between headquarters and troops on the ground. The armies of the Reich were all equipped with the Enigma machine, with an infinite number of combinations, it remained unbreakable. The Poles, first, then the British secret service, embarked on the decryption of German messages. In July 1941 the British seized the books containing the codes used by enemy ships to transmit the weather. From 1942, the Allies, put to work their best scientists, able to pierce the secret of the Enigma machine, they are then able to determine the position of U-boats in the Atlantic. In the spring of 1943, the Allies reorganized their convoys by increasing the number of escort vessels. New long range radar was installed onboard aircraft involved in the fighting. The number of allied vessels destroyed decreased significantly, and the quantity of German submarines sunk increased. At the end of the Battle of the Atlantic, the Allies lost 45 000 sailors, among them were 30 000 British. Despite these heavy losses and the constant threat of U-Boots, the Allies were actually winning this long battle of the oceans.  At the end the year, the conflict became worldwide with the entry into the war of the United States after the attack by Japan on the base at Pearl-Harbour. In February 1944, the Germans considered Calais as the likely place for an allied landing, many Calaisiens had to leave. June 6, the landing in Normandy took place, information arrived in Calais two days later. On the 27th, Fort-Lapin fell to the hands of the Canadians. There was then another bombardment, the 28th brought lieutenant colonel Schroeder to accept a cease-fire and evacuate the 20 000 civilians still staying in Calais. Several thousands inhabitants came out of their cellars to listen to a Canadian representative announce to them that an armistice of 24 hours had just been concluded to facilitate the evacuation of the city. It was then an unforgettable scene, 1000 chests singing the Marseillaise then the song of Tipperary drowning the harangues of the French officer who came to address the crowd. The German garrison surrendered, a military column moved toward Calais. Commander Mengin who had prepared the offensive, was killed before seeing the total surrender of the city. My mother on the doorstep of my grandmother's shop, before Calais had Hypermarkets. I remember the bullet holes in the front of the shop, some small, rifle, some large, machine gun? I wonder what happened to the Germans who were defending the shop. Was Hitler notified that my grandmother's shop had been taken by the allies? My father in hospital after helping to liberate France. my mother is looking rather tense. He landed with the invasion troops on D Day. my mother met my father in a field, while he was driving a Bren Gun carrier. He couldn’t speak French, she couldn’t speak English. It must have been a fascinating conversation. When my father met the family, my mother's father had dust and ceiling plaster on his head and shoulders. There was a hole at the front of the house and a hole at the back. A shell had passed right through the house without exploding. My father left my mother and Calais to go with The liberation troops to Berlin. On the left you can see my mother imploring him not to leave, either that or to pay for the purchases that he had made at the shop! No one else paid for their purchases! my grandmother was a terrible business woman! He came back to Calais. Otherwise I would not be creating this Web site. This is what was left of Calais after the bombers and artillery had finished their work. The best way to kill soldiers in a building is to destroy the building. Calais was left to rebuild, but there was no work for an ex British soldier who could not speak French. My parents moved to London, then Welwyn Garden City.