The Channel Islands At War (3 page)

27-8
Failure of last raid on Jersey and death of Captain Ayton

1944

3 Mar. The Channel Islands declared fortresses. Knackfuss

replaced by Heider. Lieutenant Braun becomes commandant of Sylt camp

6 Apr.
GUNS
trial. Legg, Duquemin, and Falla imprisoned in

Frankfurt and Naumberg. Machon and Gillingham died in prison

8 Two Guernsey men become the only civilian escapers

from
Alderney

5 May Schwalm's order to hand Sylt inmates over to the SS if

there was an invasion
19 May FK515 becomes PKI with a reduced status

May-Aug. Air war over the Islands with attacks on forts, ports,

and shipping: 22 raids sink 12 ships and damage 13

17 June Hitler declares the Islands must be defended 'to the

last'

24 Alderney bombed. About 200 civilians evacuated to
Guernsey

27 Capture of Cherbourg, Granville (30 July), and St

Malo (17 Aug.), cuts the Islands off from supplies

July Removal of camp inmates to St Malo and later

Buchenwald. Some escape in Belgium. OT workers evacuated

7 Sinking of
Minotaure
by the British with the loss of 250 lives including French Jews

27 Lancaster shot down south-west of Alderney. Captain

Massmann, the harbour commandant refuses to allow the rescue vessel to put out. Arrival of German casualties for underground hospitals at La Vassalerie in Guernsey and St Lawrence in Jersey

8 Aug. HMS
Rodney
shelled
Blu
cher
battery in Alderney

killing two Germans

25 Mr Jehan of St Saviour's killed and his son wounded
trying to drive off German marauders

1 Sept. Violation of food regulations made subject to the death

penalty

9 End of the gas supply in Jersey

Sept. Vice-Admiral Friedrich
Hüffmeier
replaces von Hell-

dorf as Chief of Staff
7 Oct. Deputy E. Le Quesne sentenced for having a wireless,

and then released after only a fortnight

11
Douglas Le Marchand shot while trying to escape

25
Admiral Krancke placed in charge of Island administration

3 Nov
Frederick Noyon a
nd William Enticott escape with
information on the food shortage

5
Germans permit th
e bailiffs to appeal to the Red
Cross

7
Britain agrees to Red Cross relief provided Germans maintain the basic rations (Germany accepted this 23 Nov.)

11
Four drown off Jersey trying to escape when

2 Dec
Mmes, Malherb
e and Schwab sentenced to death
for anti-German propaganda

21
End of the gas supply in Guernsey

27 to 30 Dec
First visit of the Red Cross ship
Vega
with 750 tons
of food, and medical supplies.
Other visits: 7-11
Feb., 6-9Mar., 5-8 Apr. and3-7 May)

1945

8 Jan
Two American airmen become the only successful evaders on the Islands

13
Telephone service ends. Three milkless days start. The first cases of malnutrition in the German forces reported

16
Order banning the cutting of all timber

23
Escape of the le Page b
rothers and Xavier Golivet with
naval information

25
Electricity supply ceased

17 Feb
Bread ration ends (until 12 Mar.)

22
Five escape from Jersey with military information

28
Hüffmeier
replaces von
Schmettow
, and naval captains

von Kleve
and Re
ich put in charge of Jersey and
Guernsey. Majo
r General Rudolf Wulf placed in
command of 319 division

7 Mar
Explo
sion at the Palace Hotel, Bagate
le kills nine Germans

8 to 9
German raid on Granville releases 55 POWs and captures 30 men

18
Attempt to kill Major General Wulf fails

25
Hüffmeier
's picture p
alace speech saying there would
be no surrender

23
All communal kitchens, cafe's, and ovens closed

28
Von Helldorf banished to Herm Island

8 M ay
Operation
Nestegg
liberation fleet arrived
off the
Islands

9
German surrender
. 27,000 POWs captured. Jersey,
Guernsey and Sark liberated. Brigadier Alfred Snow
sets up military government
13 German POWs start to leave

14-15 Visit of Herbert Morrison, the home secretary

16 Alderne
y liberated

7 June Visit of King George VI

25 Evacuees begin to return from Britain

Aug. 2,190 deportees return after being screened at

Stanmore. Germa
n POWs clear 117,000 mines from
the Islands

25 New lieutenant governors arrived, and the government

of the Islands restored
12 Dec. The Wa
r Honours List largely ignores escapers,
prisoners, and resisters
15 Start of the return of 685 people to Alderney

Part 1

The Sound and Fury
of
Battle

War Comes to the Islands, June and July 1940

In the spring of 1940 life in the Channel Islands, like that in mainland Britain, had been little changed by real war. People wanting to visit the Islands for Easter were assured by the home secretary that there were no travel restrictions, but sadly not every visitor who accepted his assurance that all was well was able to return
. Mr and Mrs Dunkley of Ramsgate
who went to see relatives were trapped on the Islands, and the whole family were deported to Laufen early in 1943. However, the Islands were still seen that spring as a safe haven from the expected mass-bombing of Britain. Some evacuees were sent there from Southampton, and Sark offered to take 15 children. The Peace Pledge Union urged men who did not want to be called up to take agricultural work on the Islands and over a hundred arrived in Jersey. Trapped by the German invasion some of them worked for Organization Todt when it was established on the Islands. One of them, Derek Leister, grandson of a German baker from Camden Town, found his way from Jersey to a girlfriend and flat in a suburb of Berlin and membership of John Amery's British Free Corps.

No one had any reason to suppose the Islands would be invaded, and preparation for war was piecemeal and slow. An Air Raid Precautions organization was set up under Major William Crawford-Morrison, but no shelters were constructed. There was a National Savings Campaign, and a Special Aid Society to provide comforts for soldiers at the front. The ancient defence forces of the Islands - the Royal Guernsey Militia and the Jersey Insular Defence Corps - were embodied, and a few measures of self-defence, like the construction of a machine-gun post to protect the Guernsey telephone exchange and the blocking of roads with obstacles, were carried out in early summer. The last regular army unit had just left the Islands although there were fortifications like Fort George south of St Peter Port. About a thousand assorted military personnel were still there including naval ratings, the Royal Army Service Corps, and an army technical school for boys. These were joined in the period before demilitarization by Royal Engineers, small anti-aircraft units, and briefly, two squadrons of Hurricanes. The last units were only despatched to the Islands on 14 June, and it seems clear that until then at least it was proposed to retain and even defend them. A machine-gun training school

equipped with fuel dumps and a military hospital was set up on Alderney.

But successive defeats in Norway and Belgium, and the collapse of France; produced a change of heart at the War Office. On 15 June the Imperial General Staff recommended to the cabinet that complete demilitarization take place, and agreement was given the same day in spite of grumbling from Churchill. Britain needed all the troops she could get, and had no resources to fling across the Channel to defend the Islands. It was a sensible decision. The next day, the administrator in charge of Alderney, Judge Frederick French, was told that military evacuation had to take place within six hours - although official notification was not given to the bailiffs in Guernsey and Jersey until two days later. Within four days, military evacuation was completed at such speed that only on Alderney was there time to destroy facilities. The Royal Engineers who came to Jersey for this purpose were rebuffed by the bailiff, Alexander Coutanche, and as a result recently completed cables to France stayed intact. The limited civil defence and fortification measures were put into reverse, and the Island militias joined those of military age leaving the Islands. Lastly, on 21 June the two lieutenant-governors, who were also military commanders of Jersey and Guernsey, withdrew delegating their functions to the bailiffs.

There followed an administrative comedy of errors that turned to tragedy. Because the evacuation of troops from France was still going on, followed by that of Island civilians, it was decided by the Home Office that the press release prepared for 22 June to say the Islands were demilitarized should be delayed, and the War Office agreed saying the Germans probably knew anyway through intelligence sources. On 24 June a message from King George VI was received by the bailiffs, but as this referred to the withdrawal of the armed forces the Home Office stressed that care should be taken not to publish the message. In Guernsey the bailiff, Victor Carey, read it out two days later on a loudspeaker from the window of the
Guernsey Evening Press
in South Street, and few therefore knew the message had come. Four days after the civilian evacuation was completed, the BBC was allowed to mention the demilitarization on 28 June, but it was only on the day that the Germans started their occupation that the Foreign Office officially informed Germany about demilitarization.

Near as they were to France the Islands were not left long in doubt about events there. As early as 9 June clouds of smoke could be seen rising from French harbours, and soon fishing boats, with crucifixes nailed to the masts and pathetic bundles of possessions in their bottoms, arrived with the first refugees. Six boat loads reached St Peter Port and also brought over nearly a hundred French naval ratings. On Sunday 16 June Coutanche received a telegram from London which asked the Islands to help evacuate the remaining personnel from St Malo. Potato boats and small craft were commandeered that evening and put under the command of the yacht club commodore, William Le Masurier. A destroyer arrived in St Helier to take a native pilot on board for the trip to St Malo. Soon afterwards the first of 17 boats put out for France as a British task force

complete with NAAFI canteen arrived to cope with any rescued troops. The Island boats brought off the demolition party, wounded troops, civilians and a party of Belgian nuns, although the main bulk of the troops from St Malo were carried straight across the Channel.