Along with beauty of the coast, there is the ever present reminder of WWII. The Atlantic wall was an extensive system of fortifications built by the Nazis along the coast of Europe to defend against an Allied invasion. The fortifications include gun placements and reinforced bunkers or blockhaus. These blockhaus are very present in the landscape today. I would have thought you would want to erase the memory of them and the war but the effort to remove these enormous structures simply must not be worth it. The fact that so many are still standing shows how strong they are.

Even with all these defences it didn’t stop the eventual invasion in 1944.

Veules-les-Roses did not escape the war. In 1940, the British and French troops fought one of the last battles of the German 1940 offensive on French soil at Veules. Eight days after the fall of Dunkirk, thousands of soldiers were encircled at Veules. Ships were sent in to rescue them but suffered heavy bombing from artillery and aircraft. One ship was lost during this and there is a memorial on the cliff to it and the battle. While many soldiers were saved, 5000 men were taken prisoner.

A lot of the seafront buildings at Veules were destroyed, including the Casino and about 30 houses.

Scottish troops were the ones who liberated Veules from Nazi occupation in September 1944 and so the main square is called Place des Écossais.