The Channel Islands At War (2 page)

But Islanders must accept both sides of the story. The book also reveals how ordinary people suffered emphasizing that wartime and occupation hazards went together, and affected particular families in several, not just one, respect. The book describes the resistance that took place. It gives details of brave acts of defiance that led to imprisonment and death. There were Islanders who helped the British military, Island escapers, and Todt workers. There were many more escapers than is often realized, some of whom took out valuable information. The record of the courageous and patriotic, by the standards of those times, is made plain.

There is, however, the other side. As German brutality and Island sacrifice is revealed, the argument that it was a moderate occupation, and therefore did not justify official resistance, wears increasingly thin. It begins to look like a justification for mistakes in policy by the British government and the Island governments. The conduct of the Island governments which Cruickshank called passive co-operation looks increasingly like collaboration of various kinds. Collaboration by black-marketeers, Jerry bags, informers, and those who worked with the Germans is along the lines familiar enough in Denmark or Norway of the time. The Island governments opposed resistance and while, occasionally protesting and helping with individual acts of generosity, carried out German orders concerning the Jews deportation and other matters to the letter. In all this there emerged two occupations: one for ordinary Islanders and one for the privileged classes.

Peter King

Hurstpierpoint 1990

A Selected Chronology of Events in the Channel Isles 1940-1945

1940

12 June Imperial staff presented a paper to the cabinet on the

Channel Isles. First French refugees arrived in Alderney

15 Decision to carry out demilitarization of the Islands made

19 Islands informed of decision to demilitarize, Germans

not told until 30 June, and to evacuate on an
ad hoc
basis

21 Victor Carey, bailiff of Guernsey, and Alexander

Coutanche, bailiff of Jersey, sworn in as acting governors. Guernsey Controlling Committee set up

21-3 Haphazard civilian evacuation: 30,000 go, and 60,000

stay

28 Air raid on St Peter Port, Guernsey, and St Helier,

Jersey kills 44 people
30 Operational conference for invasion of Channel Isles

meets in Paris. Operation
Gru
ne Pfeile
started by

Luftwaffe. Occupation of Guernsey

1 July Jersey occupied. Arrival of Albrecht Lanz and Erich

Gusse
k, the first German commanders
1-2
First e
scapers from the main islands, to be followed by

c.80 from Jersey, and c.80 from Guernsey

9-28 Philip Martel and Desmond Mulholland land in

Guernsey, give themselves up, and
are
sent to France

13 -14 The first 'commando' raid on Alderney fails

1 Aug Ambrose Sherwill broadcasts on Radio Bremen

9 FK 515 military government established under General

Friedrich Schumacher with HQ at Victoria College, St

Saviour's in Jersey

16
Purchasing mission established at Granville by Raymond Falla

4 Sept.-21 Oct
Hubert Nicolle and James Symes hide on Guernsey. On their surrender three officials
are
deprived of office, wireless sets confiscated, and a heavy fine of £3,000 is imposed

27 Sept
First anti-Semitic Laws introduced (others on 31 May 1941 and 26 June 1942). The arrival of the first military commander, Colonel Graf Rudolf von Schmettow

2 Nov
Fifteen Guernsey Islanders imprisoned in Cher
che Midi, Paris where Louis Syme
s committed suicide (Dec 22)

1941

17 Mar
Execution of Francois Scornet at St Ouen's Manor, Jersey

21
Carey denounces sabotage as 'stupid and criminal'

24
Bread rationing starts

30
Arrival of 319 Division. The garrison eventually rose to

a maximum of 36,960 early in 1943

May
–
Aug
Work party of 15 Sarkees go to maintain St Anne

breakwater

15 June
Hitler orders the fortification of the Islands

June
Geheime Feldpolizei
131 (troops), and 312 (civilians) established in the Islands with HQ at Silvertide, St Helier, Jersey, and the Albion Hotel, St Peter Port, Guernsey

8 July
Carey issues a poster offering £25 reward to informers for chalking up V-Victory signs. Kathleen Le Norman and Mrs Kinniard imprisoned at Caen for this offence Major Carl Hoffmann becomes Commandant of Alderney

Aug.
Milk rationing starts

13 Oct.
Mrs Winifred Green sent to Caen for using insulting words

18
Major Friedrich Knackfuss replaces Schumacher in charge of FK515

20
Hitler's Fortification Directive. Major-General Erich M
ü
ller becomes Commander until September 1943 with his HQ at Hotel Metropole, St Helier and later at La Corbinerie, the Oberlands in Guernsey

Nov.
Visit of Dr Fritz Todt whose organization based at St Malo, and later Cherbourg, begins a fortification programme. Some 16,000 OT workers came to the Islands.

Dec.
Fuel rationing introduced.

1942

Jan. Raids on St Peter Port by RAF sink ships and kill

harbour workers. Dr Wilhelm Casper succeeded by Baron von Aufsess as Chief of Administration in Jersey. Four camps (Helgoland, Norderncy, Borkum and Sylt) start on Alderney

Feb. The first of three German brothels opens. Lieutenant-

Colonel Zuske, appointed Commandant of
Alderney

Mar. Eighteen Guernsey policemen involved in black market

activities arrested

6 Apr. Start of the teaching of German in primary schools

21 Auguste Spitz and Theresia Steiner, Austrian Jews,

deported

2 May Three boys fail to escape from Jersey with military

secrets. One drowned, two imprisoned. One, Maurice Gould, later died at Wittlich Camp. Start of
Guernsey Underground News Service (GUNS)
with a circulation of about three hundred

June Sherwill returns as Attorney-General in Guernsey.

Bulletin of British Patriots
published in Jersey. Ten hostages taken. Herbert and George Gallichan sentenced to Wolfenbuttel and Dijon for producing the bulletin

26 June Surrender of all wirelesses.

7 July The extended Jersey railways reopen for quarry

purposes

8 Aug. Casquets lighthouse raided and seven Germans

captured

15 Sept. Deportation order issued by Knackfuss on orders from

Berlin

16,18,29 1,186 deported from Jersey: 26, 27, 834 from Guernsey

and Sark. Suicide of Major John Skelton to avoid deportation

19 Escape of two fishermen and two girls from St

Sampson's in Guernsey
Sept. Edward and Nan Ross imprisoned for feeding Todt

workers

Oct. Order issued forbidding Germans to fraternize with

Island women

3-4 Oct. Operation
Basalt
in Sark. Two Germans killed and one

captured. Lieutenant Herdt court-martialled

12 Trial by court-martial of 14 boys involved in riot at the

time of the deportations

Nov. Lancaster crashes on Aeroplane Field, Sark. Three

crew captured. This was one of c.30 Allied aircraft which crashed on the Islands or nearby.

1943

Jan.
The
Xaver Dorsch
went aground at Braye, and the
Schockland
sank off Jersey

6
Stanley Green, who had provided photography for resisters, and cut telephone wires, was sentenced for having a wireless and sent to Fresnes and Buchenwald

18
German made compulsory at all
educational institutions

12,
13,
25, Feb,
Second deportation order. Suicides at Grouville and Beaumont. 87 deported from Jersey, and 114 from Guernsey and Sark; no news of them for six weeks.

23
Feb.
Sylt becomes a concentration camp with 1,100 prisoners

Mar.
Captain Maximilian List becomes Sylt's camp commandant

3 Mar.
Illegal conscription of Island labour begins and, in spite of protests, continues until 24 August

30 A
pr.
Illegal reduction in bread ration which continues in spite of protests until 1 August

6
June
Franzeph Losch, a Todt worker, executed at Fort George for possessing a wireless transmitter

13
Two Guernsey fishermen killed and two injured when their boat hits a mine

22
Mrs Louisa Gould and Harold le Druillcnec senten
ced for hiding a Todt worker. Le Druille
nec ended at Belsen, and Mrs Gould died at Rav
ensbru
ck in February 1945

2 Aug.
Complete ban on fishing

14
Four men and three women escape to Dartmouth from St Sampson's

Sept.
Von Schmettow resumes command of the military, and moves his HQ to Guernsey.
Colonel Siegfried Heine replaces him in Jersey

23-24 Oct.
Convoy battle west of the Islands. Loss by the British of HMS
Charybdis
and HMS
Limbourne
with 504 killed

Nov.
Lieutenant-Colonel Schwalm becomes
Alderney Commandant

17
Charybdis
Day when 41 of the naval dead in the convoy battle were buried, and large numbers of the public attended