Postcard of Calais market before 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; On the 3rd September 1939, in the wake of England, France declared war on Germany to defend its ally Poland. In May, Belgium and the Netherlands fell. The sky darkened over Calais with waves of German aircraft. On the 24nd May Panzers encircled Calais. 3000 British soldiers 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, the British troops 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 French Government was in chaos.
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 of British troops, 400,000 men were
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, troops with their British
generals, including Montgomery.
The French troops 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 said
lucidly: "You do not win wars with evacuations.
Yet this was, in those first days of June 1940,
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 the
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, or 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 of Calais was
put in place, my mother’s family prosperity and
dignity was lost, a curfew was instituted in
Calais from 21:00 to 6:00 in the morning. The
national armistice was signed on June 22. The
occupation was a time for France of suffering
plundering, slave labour and deportation. 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 sky over southern
England and the Atlantic. The war raged between
the U-boats and Allied convoys carrying military
hardware.
The war on the ocean, dependent on American aid,
was watched by Britain with concern on the
maritime routes used by German submarines,
U-boats 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. The old U
boat pens are now pleasure marinas, they
withstood endless RAF attacks, they were so
strongly built that they are now impossible to
demolish. 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, submarines
become the instrument of control of the seas.
In 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, waiting 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. When the attack on Pearl Harbour
was announced in my father’s barracks there was
a cheer, Britain was saved, 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, 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 and navy on the ground. The armies
and navy 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
Calais people had to leave.
On June 6, the landing in Normandy took place, the information arrived in Calais two days later.
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D-day.
The planning of the invasion of the European continent started on January
14th, 1943 during a meeting in Casablanca between Roosevelt and Churchill,
Stalin had asked persistently for the opening of a second front in Europe
to relieve the red Army which had supported the bulk of the weight of war in
Europe. Military deaths in World War II: Soviet Union 10,700,000 Germany 5,533,000 United States 416,800 United Kingdom 382,700 France 217,600 The operational range of fighters and logistical pressures reduced the possibilities of the invasion to two choices: Pas-de-Calais and Normandy. Although Pas-de-Calais had the best beaches and a quickest access to Germany, it was considered to be too obvious a choice, being too well defended. Normandy was therefore chosen. On the allied landing of June 06, 1944. with the hope of a near deliverance, it was necessary to wait for months during the violence of the bombardments. With the capitulation of the Germans on September 30 at 17:30, the German occupation was ended and the Calaisiens returned from shelter in the fields. Calais survived the first world war, but its strategic position in the second world war nearly brought about the total destruction of the historical part of town. |
On the 27th, Calais fell to the hands of
the Canadians, the 28th brought a cease-fire to evacuate the 20
000 civilians still staying in Calais.
Several thousand 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, an allied military
column moved toward Calais. Commander Mengin who
had prepared the offensive, was killed before
seeing the final surrender of the Germans in the
city.
This is 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
grannies shop had been taken by the allies?
My father was in hospital after helping to liberate France, my mother is looking rather tense. my father 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 my mother’s 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.
Calais postcard after the war. this is what was left of Calais.
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 not speak
French.
