P-O Life reader and contributor, James Trollope, bought an old photo album at auction and discovered a treasure trove…
Only fragments survive to witness the passage of more than 60,000 people interned in the Camp of Rivesaltes between 1942 and 1966.
One of the most successful escape routes for allied airmen wishing to cross the border into Spain was right here in the P-O, known as the Pat Line, after the man who set it up.
O’Leary radioed London with the message “Pas plus de bateau que de beurre au cul!”
The war is nearing it’s end. The Germans occupying France are on edge and expecting the Allied Invasion at any time.
The Comet line, so named because of the speed needed to whisk stranded airmen down through occupied France to safety, helped hundreds of allied soldiers and airmen to escape from occupied France.
During the Second World War, resistance movements in the Pyrenees-Orientales helped hundreds of refugees, allied soldiers and airmen to escape from occupied France across the border into Spain.
Young Australian Bruce Dowling arrived in France in 1938 to improve his French. He ended up helping hundreds of allied servicemen to escape from occupied France and paid the ultimate price, beheaded by the Nazis 29th birthday in 1943.
Enamoured of both the beauty and long and fascinating history of Port-Vendres, the Great Port Vendres Tapestry Association was started in July 2015 to create a large tapestry of the history of the town.
A simplification of the convoluted military history of the Cote Vermeille