Thank you Vusi and Andy for this. A tragic and very moving story that touches everyones hearts. May the Saints Bless this wonderfull lady! Rob
On behalf of Allan and his mother, many thanks everyone for your kind words, I'm sure his mother will be pleased to see such an interest in her recollections from 1940.. Allan has kindly sent me a picture of his mother when she was about twenty years old which I have added to the bottom of post number 3. Regards Andy
Dear Vusi, Please pass on to your mother our sincere and deeply felt gratitude for what she did for those wounded soldiers during the war. My father, who is a Dane, fought in the WW II but luckily never was seriously wounded. However he saw many of his friends die, and the memories have left deep scars. People like your mother made the situation tolerable. God bless her.
Does anyone know if the Zuydcoote P.O.W. hospital still exists and if so, what it is used for now, please?
If you meant the one above. Many of the building are dis used now (4 years ago). The main building is still in use and I believe it's still a Hospital. I approached it 4 years ago from the beach and walked as far as a car park at the rear of the main building and I approached it from the front. I didn't get that close to the main building but the out buildings that are disused still contain many scares from the fighting in 1940 and you can get very close to those. A Ps can't believe all my pics have gone
This is one of the outbuildings photographed in 2010 absolutely pockmarked with bullet holes or something bigger!
That's one of them. IIRC that building is on the left as you approach the main building along a road. There's quite a lot of wooded area around the buildings at the ground is very uneven. I never had time to get out and walk around properly but the terrain stuck me as it had been created by either artillery/bombs etc or it was defence works of a sort. It reminded me of a wooded military training area in Nottingham when I last saw it.
Thanks for the information (and the photograph). Given its location and historic connection with one of the key events of WW2 it seems odd the building has not been made into a museum or heritage centre (such as the Hartenstein Hotel at Oosterbeek, for example).
Visited Dunkirk for first time in 2010 and to be honest there does not seem that much local interest , but France has been ravaged by two world wars, has hundreds of battle sites and had many towns totally destroyed with thousands of civilain casualties so maybe understandable. . Craig
As Andy said the main hospital building is still used as intended (Understandably they aren't very keen on Battlefield Tourists) but the outbuildings lie disused although they were being used by the Local emergency services last year for training. There's lots of battle damage to the buildings and there also remains a nice example of what I've been led to believe is apparently a small German Flak tower from the occupation tucked away in the trees nearby?
Well spotted on the flak tower. I never knew about this. Last year me and my mucker had a proper look around and those outbuildings and hospital. The out buildings appear to be used now for a nature type place I think. We sneaked into a couple of other buildings that were just being used for storage and had a look around. At the back of these out buildings we found a disused railway line and train station/platform and when we went in to the hospital some of the walls near the beach still had bricks knocked out which we think are firing holes used by the defenders. I've often wondered if any British units were defending that hospital-I bet it would make a great story.
