World War I[edit]
During World War I, the city became an important unloading port of the allied troops, and particularly in the latter stages for the United States Army. When they entered the war in 1917, they developed the town and port infrastructure, by adding additional drinking water storage ponds for the town's water treatment plants, and a refrigeration terminal to the docks for shipment and storage of meat and dairy products to supply their troops.
However, the presence of legal brothels (Maisons Tolérée) resulted in a diplomatic incident. As a result of strict reformist public health concerns at home, the American Expeditionary Force placed the Maisons Tolérée off limits, resulting in a dispute between the towns brothel owners backed by the mayor, versus the US Army forces. With the dispute escalating, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau sent a memo to Gen. John Pershing offering a compromise: American medical authorities would control designated brothels operated solely for American soldiers. Pershing passed the proposal to Raymond Fosdick, who on giving it to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker promptly responded: "For God’s sake, Raymond, don’t show this to the president or he’ll stop the war." Only after the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, when the US Army could no longer plead military necessity as grounds for curtailing leave, did venereal disease rates among US Army troops shoot up.[2]
Inter-war period[edit]
The post-war period brought about a period of economic depression for the ship builders, who consequently diversified into building seaplanes from 1922. In 1926 the district of Paimbœuf was suppressed and merged with the district of Saint-Nazaire, thus reinforcing the influence of the city on the south bank of the Loire River.
Although having built the SS Paris, between 1913 and 1921, and SS Ile de France between 1925 and 1926, as a result of the 1930s Great Depression the French government commissioned a series of state programs to aid national economic activity. The state owned shipping company Compagnie Générale Transatlantiquecommissioned the ship builders of Saint-Nazaire to construct a new large passenger ship, which as a result between 1928 and 1934 created the Albert Caquotengineered the Louis Joubert dry dock – at 3937 feet x 196.850 feet, the largest of its kind in the world at the time – necessary to be able to accommodate the construction of the SS Normandie. In 1932, the casino of Saint-Nazaire came bankrupt and was resold to the town of Nantes: the site was redeveloped from 1935 with the first part of the current Saint-Louis school.
As a result of the national general strike of June 1936, to ensure completion of the nationally prestigious project SS Normandie, the government nationalised the various private shipyards into one state owned entity, the 1861 founded Chantiers de l'Atlantique.
World War II[edit]
After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht army at the start of World War II, the combined forces of the French Army and the British Expeditionary Force failed to hold the oncoming onslaught. As part of Operation Ariel, Saint-Nazaire like Dunkirk became an evacuation point for the British back to England, with those successfully embarking including the writer John Renshaw Starr.
On 17 June 1940 an estimated 9,000 British Army soldiers were embarked aboard the Clyde-built troopship RMS Lancastria, which was then attacked and sunk by German Junkers Ju 88 bombers, mainly from Kampfgeschwader 30, taking with her around 4,000 victims.[3] It is the worst disaster in British maritime history, and the worst loss of life for British forces in the whole of World War II. Winston Churchill banned all news coverage of the disaster on learning of it and it remained largely forgotten by history.
U-boat pens[edit]
Following the surrender of France to German forces later in June 1940, the port immediately became a base of operations for the Kriegsmarine and was as such the target of Allied operations. A heavily fortified U-boat Saint-Nazaire submarine base was built by Organisation Todt shortly after occupation, with its 9 m (30 ft) thick concrete ceiling, was capable of withstanding almost any bomb in use at the time.
The base provided a home during the war to many of the most well known U-Boat staff, including:
- Commander Georg-Wilhelm Schulz who transferred 6th U-boat Flotilla from Danzig to the port in February 1942, where it became a combat flotilla.
- Kapitänleutnant Carl Emmermann – took command of 6th U-boat Flotilla over from Schulz in November 1942, until it left Saint-Nazaire for Norway in August 1944
- Lieutenant Commander Herbert Schultze – second in command of 7th U-boat Flotilla from September 1940
The base still stands today, as its extremely sturdy construction makes demolition uneconomical. The base is now used by cafes, a bar and on the roof is an exhibition about Saint-Nazaire.
St. Nazaire Raid[edit]
Main article: St. Nazaire Raid
The huge Joubert drydock built for SS Normandie was the only port on the Atlantic capable of servicing the German battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz. This gave the port a strong strategic importance to both the Axis Powers and the Allies during the Second World War.
After Operation Rheinübung on 18–27 May 1941, in which the Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen were to have ended the operational raid at Saint-Nazaire, but which resulted in the sinking of HMS Hood and the sinking of the Bismarck; the need for the Allies to take the Joubert dry dock out of operation was increased.
On 28 March 1942, a force of 611 British Commandos and the Royal Navy launched the St. Nazaire Raid against the shipyards of Saint-Nazaire, codenamed Operation Chariot. An obsolete American-built destroyer HMS Campbeltown was used as a ram-ship loaded with explosives, and it and the commandos succeeded in destroying the gates and machinery of the Joubert drydock, preventing its further use by Nazi Germany during the war.[4] Of the 200 who were expected to return, 120 were alive and half were wounded. Five Victoria Crosses and 69 other awards were rewarded. The Joubert dry dock was not brought back into operation until 1948.
After Operation Chariot[edit]
The U-boat threat to supply convoys across the Atlantic made Saint-Nazaire a constant target of Allied air forces, in the face of determined Luftwaffe fighter opposition to the daylight raids by USAAF Eighth Air Force bombers. On 3 January 1943 Col. Curtis LeMay led 85 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 1st Bombardment Wing against the U-Boat pens at Saint-Nazaire, on the Eighth Air Force's sixth raid against the facility. LeMay also introduced the combat box defensive formation, echeloning three-plane elements within a squadron, and squadrons within a group, to concentrate defensive firepower against fighter opposition. Only 76 aircraft found and hit the target, and during the mission seven bombers were shot down and 47 damaged.
As a result of the raid, on 14 January 1943 under directive (S.46239/?? A.C.A.S. Ops), the Allies implemented incendiary bomb tactics against U-Boat pens, under the Area bombing directive. To minimize civilian casualties during air attacks, the Allies devised a plan to force an evacuation of the town. For three days in 1943, British Royal Air Force and American aircraft dropped scores of leaflets warning the population of a planned fire-bombing raid. At the end of the third day, the raid came and burned the entire city to the ground. Casualties were light as most of the civilians had heeded the warning and fled to the safety of the countryside, but after that point except for the self-contained U-boat base, Saint-Nazaire remained abandoned until the end of the war.
After D-day and the liberation of most of France in 1944, German troops in Saint-Nazaire's submarine base refused to surrender, and they holed up (as did their counterparts in the La Rochelle and Lorient bases). Since the Germans could no longer conduct major submarine operations from the bases without a supply line, the SHAEF commander, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to simply bypass these ports, and the Allied armies focused their resources on the invasion of Germany. Saint-Nazaire and the other two German "pockets" remained under Nazi control until the last day of the war in Europe, 8 May 1945.
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