Among the numerous mayors in Blois, a name stands out, that of Henri Drussy.

Born in Veuves, near Onzain, in 1893, Henry Drussy was a former fighter, during World War I, and was badly injured. He was appointed Mayor in Blois in 1941, after the death of his predecessor, Emile Laurens, during the bombings of the city by the German army.

Privileged interlocutor of the German occupier, he tried relentlessly to protect his fellow citizen. He took care of the refugees and of the rehousing of war-related homeless people. As a member of the resistance, he was arrested twice by the Germans.

He died on the 24th October 1944.

The reconstruction of Blois

The city of Blois was destroyed in the summer of 1940. The flying German aircrafts bombed the city from the 15th to the 17th June 1940. The fire triggered by the bombings, destroyed more than 200 blocks of flats and damaged more than 1300 buildings, mainly located in the lower part of the city between the castle and the Loire river. Thousands of homeless inhabitants were sheltered in wooden huts. 230 deaths were officially recorded.

In the Autumn 1940, the Mayor Henry Drussy requested that Charles Henry Nicod started the rebuilding of the city. This Parisian architect believed in the Athens Charter principles whose aim was to protect the architectural heritage.

The building excavations started as early as 1946 but the rebuilding of the town centre housing only ended in 1948. The whitewash extracted from the Loire river covered the new materials on the front of the houses. The roofs were made of wood and covered with traditional slate. The Allées Camp used for German prisoners from 1944 to 1947 served to rehouse the families who had lost their home in the town center.

The Resistance roundabout is a symbol of this architectural policy in Blois. It opens onto widened quays to accommodate the growing traffic.

Refoundation of France

In November 1944, Louis Keller was appointed Prefect of Loir et Cher by General de Gaulle. His goal was to re-establish the authority of the central government as quickly as possible to avoid excess and revenge during the extrajudicial purge and to quickly disarm the resistance fighters. His main challenge was to deal with the different tendencies of the Resistance. This led him to untenable situations that pushed him to leave his position at the end of December 1944. On October 21st, 1945, the first legislative elections since 1936 took place. Women, having obtained the right to vote since April 1944, participated in this election. Loir et Cher elected 4 deputies: Robert Mauger for the SFIO, Bernard Paumier for the Communist Party, Gabriel Chevallier for the Popular Republican Movement and Robert Bruyneel for the Democratic Alliance.

Henri de la Vaissière was born in Saumur on the 14th of December 1901. From June to October 1925, he took part in the Rif War, on the borders of Spanish and French Morocco. At the end of the conflict in May 1926, he received his first military distinctions for his bravery and the quality of the missions entrusted to him.

After the armistice of the 22nd of june 1940, he joined the French Resistance and adopted the pseudonym VALIN. On the 1rst February 1944, he was appointed commander of the O.R.A. (Resistance Organization of the Army) for Loir-et-Cher and commander of the F.F.I. (French Forces of the Interior). He divided the department into six sectors and placed an officer from the O.R.A. at the head of each one, including Captain Judes for the Blois sector.

The widow of the colonel recalls some memories of her husband’s daily life: « In this house in Sologne, there were mysterious comings and goings of gentlemen on bicycles, claiming to be from the Rural Engineering or the Public Works Department… Some were young, others older, some thin, some plump, all arriving out of breath! The Blue Room often had occupants ! There were long, mysterious conversations in the living room… The daily thought of an omnipresent danger, the relieved awakenings that it was not that night that the visit of the Germans had happened… Other comings and goings, very different, were those of people who needed something, those who came to get medical assistance. The Colonel, from Blois, sent little notes thanks to the liaison agents, looking for a shelter for the night… Life went on, with long evenings lit by poor tallow candles, everyone gathered around the small British radio set that had been parachuted in, sharing common anxieties and hopes, a sense of brotherhood and mutual understanding that was so good… »

As the end of the Nazi occupation drew nearer, increasingly bold actions were carried out, culminating in the commando operation that freed 183 political prisoners held in the Blois prison on the 10th of August 1944. These actions led to the complete liberation of Loir-et-Cher (on the 11th of August in Vendôme and on the 16th of August in Blois – right bank).

He died on December 19th, 1944, assassinated by a former non-commissioned officer who had been a resistance fighter.

The Square of Resistance is located at the junction of the Jacques Gabriel Bridge, Maréchal de Lattre-de-Tassigny Street, Drussy Street, and Denis Papin Street.

The square was liberated on the 16th of August 1944, when the Germans were pushed back across the bridge to the Vienne quarter.

It has been named « Place de la Résistance » since the 9th of November, 1949.

Resistance movements began at the end of 1940.
In Loir-et-Cher, the two main movements were organized into « Libération Nord » and « Le Front National. »

After the Normandy landings on the 6th of June,1944, all the components of the resistance united under the name F.F.I. (French Forces of the Interior) and were supported by the Front National and the Organization of the Resistance in the Army (O.R.A). The F.F.I. of Loir-et-Cher then engaged in a fight when the weapons and supplies were parachuted, under the command of Colonel Valin de la Vaissière. They mounted sabotage, ambushes, and attacks. The resistance fighters were arrested, tortured, executed or deported. About 190 people died in deportation camps or under torture, and more than 200 were shot.

Keep in mind that in 1940, the second arch was destroyed by the French to slow down the German army’s invasion. After the Normandy landings (on June 6th, 1944), a second bombing, this time by the Americans, took place on June 27th, 1944. A lot of bombs and bombshells fell into the Loire, but most notably, all the housing along the Saint-Jean and Abbé Grégoire quays were destroyed.

Concerning the Jacques-Gabriel Bridge, the damage increased during the liberation with the destruction of the three central arches mined by the Germans during their retreat.Ten months of work were needed to rebuild the bridge, and then, on September 2nd, 1945, a wooden bridge was opened to traffic while the work continued, until 1948.

Henri Tanguy, known as « Colonel Rol-Tanguy », was born on June 12th 1908 and died on September 8th 2002 in Ivry-sur-Seine.

On October 5th 1940, as he heard that communist activists were being arrested, he became a resistant. He took part in the establishment of the Organisation Spéciale (OS). The communist party entrusted him with the responsibility for the southern sector of Paris and its surroundings where he planned sabotage against the German forces. In August 1941, he organized, in Paris and around the city, the deployment of groups of men with weapons. They became part of Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP) and of the communist armed resistance movement in February 1942. In May 1943, he wrote with his wife, Cécile, the underground newspaper « Le Franc-tireur parisien ». In September 1943, he took the name of Rol, from the international brigades member, Théo Rol, killed in 1938 during the Battle of Ebre. In 1944, he dedicated himself to the liberation of Paris.

A square was named after him in Blois in September 2008.

Rebuilt after the bombings of 1940 and 1944, this strategic entrance to the Faubourg de Vienne, located at the intersection of the Jacques-Gabriel Bridge and President Wilson Avenue, was marked by World War II.

The Liberation Square owes its name to the events of August 16, 1944.
On that day, the Germans believed they would be safer on the left bank of the Loire. They decided to evacuate the city center.

Around 4:00 PM, they destroyed the artillery positioned on Châteaudun Avenue and blew up the telephone and telegraph center near the Prefecture. The order was then given to all F.F.I.-F.T.P. resistance groups to march on the city. They pushed the Germans back, reclaiming strategic points up to the Jacques-Gabriel Bridge.
At 6:30 PM, a group of resistance fighters led by Lieutenant Blaye reached the Feldkommandantur (the Grand Hôtel), which the Germans had abandoned.

The French hoisted the tricolor flag, replacing the swastika flag.
At 7:00 PM, there were no more Germans on the right bank.
At 7:20 PM, the Germans explode the three central arches of the Jacques-Gabriel Bridge and covered the city center with heavy shots, causing military and civilian losses until August 31, 1944.

The Allies refered to as the powers fighting against Nazi Germany during the Second World War, that is to say the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR, who were the victors of this war.

The British and American Allies played a vital role in the liberation of Blois and its surrounding area. Their actions were both aerial and land-based.

From an air perspective, Blois was within the air operations zone defined by the Allies.

American and British aircrafts were primarily used to neutralize, destroy and/or harass German ground and air forces and their supplies. This included, among other things, the destruction of railway lines and bridges. On June 14th, 1944, the Jacques Gabriel Bridge was bombed for the first time but the target missed, causing the death of 27 civilians on Avenue Wilson. 2 new attacks failed on June 21st and 27th, 1944. On August 6th of the same year, Blois train station was also bombed. Blois also served as a landmark during night flights for Allied airmen, guided by the Saint Louis Cathedral and its proximity to the Loire river. These missions consisted of dropping off resistance fighters in the occupied zone or exfiltrating them.

During the first weeks of August 1944, and in parallel with the work of the aviation, American ground units approached Blois by the Herbault road. Having considered that the German defenses were of little importance and in order to avoid military losses, the American commander decided to return to Vendôme, leaving the liberation of Blois to the Resistance.

Premier Septembre Street owes its name to the day of the liberation of the city of Blois. After the liberation of the right bank of the Loire river on the 16th August 1944, the Germans left the town center to withdraw South of the Loire river, in the Vienne quarter. During several days, the inhabitants lived in the fear of being killed until the occupying troops retreated completely during the night from the 31st August to the 1st September 1944.

Teacher, Mayor of Blois from September 1944 to September 1947, Charles Ruche was a member of the resistance, which led to his being arrested by the Gestapo and held in custody for 7 months. In August 1944, he was appointed mayor by the Gaullist prefect Keller after the Liberation Departmental Committee agreement. He kept his position after the elections in May 1945. This mandate was marked by the reconstruction of the disaster-stricken districts, the extension of the water factory, the Cabochon housing estate, the transfer of Augustin Thierry school to the Lunier Villa (a former outbuilding of the Departmental Psychiatric Hospital), the purchase of the former Dessaigne old people’s home to create a school for young girls. During the townhall elections in 1947, he had to resign from his mayor position for the benefits of René Calenge.