Le Touquet Paris-Plage - Paris-Plage (P-de-C), Le Nouveau Casino 1914-18. The card shows Hotel Duboc and its cafe restaurant. On rear: "Dear Margie, This is where your Uncle Bertie is in hospital. Jack / Mar 6/16 / France" The postacrd is addressed to "Mrs. Gillies 1359 Davies St. Vancouver BC Canada". Possibly associated to PM John Gillies. CONFIRM ADDRESS Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, commonly referred to as Le Touquet, is a commune near Etaples,in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. It has a population of 5,355 but welcomes up to 250,000 people during the summer. The No. 2 Canadian Stationary Hospital was granted the distinction of being the first of all Canadian units to place foot upon French soil. This unit, under Lieutenant-Colonel Shillington, after the inspection by Their Majesties the King and Queen two days previously, left the {Salisbury] Plain on November 6th, 1914. At Southampton the O.C. was detained by arrangements concerning the nursing sisters, and thus it devolved upon Major H. C. S. Elliot,61 the second in command, to take the unit across the Channel to Havre. For a few days it was billeted at Boulogne. On November 27th it opened up the well-known Hôtel du Golf at Le Touquet, on the dunes near Paris Plage, as a hospital of three hundred beds – the first of a series of Canadian base hospitals along the French coast between Boulogne and Dieppe.” Starting with 320 beds, the hospital quickly expanded to 520. The Nursing Staff of 35 had arrived in November of 1914. In March 1915, 10 re-inforcements arrived, increasing the total Nursing Staff to 42. In September, 1915, the unit moved to Outreau, taking over the site of No.2, British Stationary Hospital.