Delmas built a coal factory in 1881 and a shipyard in 1922. The first Delmas shipping line was opened in 1925 and mostly used to transport gabbon mahogany wood from Gabon to La Rochelle. Gabbon wood was used to make boxes to keep the locally produced butter and cheese. The company was then called Delmas Frères. Léonce Vieljeux (1865-1944) married Helène Delmas and was subsequently appointed president of the company, which was renamed Delmas-Vieljeux.
Elected Mayor of La Rochelle in 1930 and reelected in 1935, Vieljeux refused, on 23 June 1940, to obey a German lieutnant who had ordered him to hoist the Nazi flag over the town hall, saying he was a colonel and could not receive orders from a lieutnant, even from a winning army. This was the first civil resistance act recorded in La Rochelle. After having refused to display the propaganda of the puppet French State in the town, Vieljeux was dismissed and expelled from the town. He came back secretely to La Rochelle in 1941 and helped to organize the Alliance Resistance network on the grounds of the company. Arrested by the Germans in 1944, Vieljeux was shot in the concentration camp of Struthof.
After the war, the company specialized in North-South (that is Europe-Africa) service. In 1996, Bolloré raided the company, then called SDV (SCAC-Delmas-Vieljeux), in a very hostile way, and incorporated it.
Still the first operator in the world on North-South service, Delmas operates today 60 ships on six scheduled lines and a lot of trucks.
Sources:
Delmas website
Website of the Lycée Léonce Vieljeux in La Rochelle
Ivan Sache, 17 December 2003