Malo-les-Bains Beach

Malo-les-Bains is the long fine-sand beach of Dunkirk, in the Nord department of Hauts-de-France, on the North Sea east of the port. In May and June 1940 it was the main embarkation beach of Operation Dynamo. It suits visitors following the Dunkirk evacuation, families on summer days and anyone who likes a seafront walk past Belle Époque villas.

Gaspard Malo and the dunes east of the port

Malo-les-Bains owes its name and its growth as a resort to Gaspard Malo, a shipowner and son of a Napoleonic-era privateer, who bought the dunes east of the port in the 19th century. It became a commune in 1891, separated from Rosendaël, and merged into Dunkirk on 1 January 1970.

The 1940 evacuation from the Dunkirk pocket

In May and June 1940 the beach was the centre of Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of soldiers trapped in the Dunkirk pocket. Dunkirk's tourist office puts the total at some 338,000 men carried to England on about a thousand vessels; more than 200 boats were sunk, and nearly 140 of the roughly 600 Little Ships were lost. A memorial on the western seafront, about 1 km away, honours the armies of the Dunkirk pocket. The Dunkerque 1940 museum, in the casemates of Bastion 32 that served as the French command post, tells the story in the city.

The Crested Eagle at Zuydcoote

Several wrecks from 1940 still lie along this coast. The best known, the British paddle steamer Crested Eagle, was bombed on 29 May 1940 while carrying troops and run aground; its remains emerge from the sand at low tide on Zuydcoote beach, east of Malo. Choose a big low tide, check tide times and arrive well before low water.

Villas and beach huts on the Digue de Mer

Behind the sand runs the Digue de Mer, a flat, paved seafront promenade lined with listed villas from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and colourful beach huts, with terraces and small restaurants. The LAAC, Dunkirk's museum of contemporary art, is about 1.5 km away. During the Dunkirk Carnival, the Malo band parades on the Sunday after Mardi Gras.