Die04 Port de Dieppe

Dieppe harbour consists of the Pollet Channel, Avant Port, Arrière Port, Basin du Canada and Bassin de Paris. All laid out between two cliffs with a gravel beach across the front. A very popular port & town to visit from Paris by train or, by boat from Newhaven. Parisians and Londoners flocked to the town for the Casino and the beach, where bathing was to become very popular. By WW1 Dieppe was a port of arrival for British troops coming to France and the flow of casualties back to England, via its many hospitals. WW2 the Germans used their French ports to deliver and transfer materiel's up and down the coast and for E-boat refuges. As bombing increased in Europe, the small French ports became targets. LS - Luftschutzbunkers were built in dock yards and railway stations to protect the ships crews, dock workers, railway workers and passengers.
Looking at the 1944 air photos from RAF reconnaissance planes. Many LS bunkers show up and I have noted here about nine. They were just oblong blocks of concrete with an entrance each end. A zig zag passage way entrance to stop blast and two or four connecting rooms. A toilet may be added. Some were used for casualty clearing stations and a red cross would be painted on the top. The one by the dock entrance seems to be painted in camouflage and the rest un painted.
The French Government prior to WW2 ordered all schools and railway stations to have shelters. Some of these here, may have been French shelters? I have found two French shelters in France, two at Wn37 Asnelles. Both were for children's homes (Preventoriums - convalescent homes). At a small railway station south of Boulogne-sur-Mer Wn208 Gabelweihe I have found another, this one probably German.

There are also two LS shelters, one at Wn Trou02 and another at Vill01 Deauville plage est.

View north-north-west from Quai du Cavanage of Gare Maritime. Possibly a damaged shelter or bunker started to be removed.

Then -

And Now

View south from Quai Henri IV of Pont Jahan Ango.

Pont Jahan Ango.

Quai Bérigny outside the Gare Dieppe was an LS and trenches, now a car park. 2 - The two LS bunkers in the Station. 3 - One LS bunker still behind the station. There looked to be two shelters at the station, one either side. One still seems to be there today.

There looked to be two shelters at the station, one either side. One still seems to be there today.

Railway station.

General view of Dieppe Basin by Sgt. Laing.
You can just see one of the Flak positions on the dock side.

Looking south east from the dry dock.

Air photo showing the shelter.

The view today. Shelter now removed, but the Silo is still there.

1944/1945 the port well and truly in Allied hands with a lot of shipping and a railway landing ship, delivering trains to France. Also in the picture are dump trucks on a narrow gauge Locomotive à Vapeur. 1939 the little train was working for the French. 1940-1944 for the Germans and now 1944/1945 for the Allies clearing the docks.

HMS Daffodil, Train Ferry No. 3. Built for the War Office service between Richborough and French ports, taken over by the Port of Queenborough Development Company and then by Great Eastern Train Ferries Ltd., which relocated the service to run between Harwich and Zeebrugge (and briefly to Calais). The service was taken over by the LNER in 1934. Requisitioned in September 1939 to carry military cargo to and from Calais, and in June 1940 assisted in the evacuations from Jersey and Guernsey to Southampton. Taken over by the Admiralty in September 1940 and converted to a landing ship and commissioned in June 1941 as HMS DAFFODIL. She first acted as a Barrage Balloon vessel protecting the convoy assembly anchorage in Loch Ewe, and from October 1941 in moving landing craft around the U.K.  In May 1944 she was fitted with a ramp to permit the landing of railway equipment where no shore facilities existed, crossing to Cherbourg and then from September in regular service to Dieppe. Damaged by a mine off Dieppe on 17 March 1945 and sank the next day. From www.lner.info/ships/GER/ferry3.php