Cézembre

Cézembre is a coastal island, opposite Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine). Of a surface of 18 hectares, for a 750 meters length and a width of 250 meters, it is uninhabited, except for an open hotel with restaurant during the summer season.

The island presents a sand beach end vis-a-vis Saint-Malo (southern part) but a coast rock and escarpée vis-a-vis the broad one.

The island lodged several Ermite S during the centuries then a Monastère. It was strengthened by Vauban at the end of 17th and was used then as place of Forty. The French Army will carry out there certain military tests at the beginning of the twentieth century. It should be noted that the guns of 194 millimetres used by German into 1944 are French.

During the First World War the Belgian army installed on the island of Cézembre a disciplinary company. In August 1944, the island firmly strengthened by the Germans like element of the Atlantic Wall and the Fortress Saint-Malo , was intensely rammed during nearly one month by the allied bombers which used for one of the first times in Europe of the bombs to the Napalm. It should be noted that the first official use of napalm took place in 1942 at the time of the war between the United States and Japan. At the time of the unloading of June 6th, 1944, the American army will use it in the Norman scrap-metal. The island went only on September 2nd, the surviving German soldiers having resisted in this hell were greeted militarily by the American officers getting a foothold in the island.

Because of these bombardments, the island presents a rare vegetation and a tormented relief. The island besides was not completely déminée and the access to most of the island (except the beach) is prohibited.

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