The Channel Islands At War (6 page)
In spite of disaster at Dieppe that summer, the plan was resurrected before the end of the year as Operation Constellation. Three separate plans for the Islands were drawn up, and a serious effort was made to collect information under the code-name Concubine. All three plans involved large forces. That for Alderney required the dropping of nearly 5,000 tons of bombs while that for Jersey involved air attack, infantry and commando landings on the coast, and parachute drops from 190 aircraft of the Airborne Division on the race-course, airfield and at St Peter's Mill. The climax of the operation was to be a three-pronged advance on St Helier with a tank column coming from the north, and other forces from east and west and it is clear evacuation of remaining civilians was to be considered suggesting widespread devastation. Fortunately these plans were stillborn, and after D-Day, massive German fortifications, and the fate of French coastal towns subject to air attack, were convincing arguments against attempting any such invasion.
But in June and July 1940 when the Islands fell Churchill was involved in the creation of the commandos based on striking companies recently employed in Norway. He told General Ismay on 4 June that 'we should immediately set to work to organize raiding forces', and two days later came his vital minute ordering the planning of such forces. The director of military operations prepared blueprints, and on 5 July the first commando brigade (Number 3) was formed at Plymouth under Major John Durnford-Slater. It was unclear if their main purpose was to harry the enemy tying down his forces, and encouraging resistance, or whether they were intelligence gathering units. Naturally the organization was at its flimsiest in the early months, but the Channel Isles provided an obvious testing ground, particularly since military men with knowledge of the Islands were available in the services.
From July to September 1940 a se
ries of small operations were carried out along the south Guernsey coast which while providing some military information were hamstrung by lack of resources, ended in failure, and presented the Island government of Carey and Sherwill with a serious crisis. Every raid faced some Islanders with the problem of aiding the invaders, and therefore raised the collaboration-resistance issue for the first time.
Twenty-year-old Hubert Nicolle serving in the Hampshire Regiment was the first man sent to Guernsey. His expedition was so amateur that he had to buy his canoe at Gamages before travelling down to Plymouth to set off for the Island in a submarine on 5 July. It was impossible for the submarine to come close inshore, and Nicolle and Sub-Lieutenant Leitch h
ad to row two miles to Le Jaonne
t Bay. Leitch landed him and Nicolle
made his way inland meeting two old friends. The second of these, Thomas Mansell, agreed to obtain information about the airport for him and donning dark glasses Nicolle then borrowed a bicycle and cycled home. His Uncle Frank Nicolle was assistant harbour-master, and he was able to provide naval information. From a local grocer given the task of supplying the garrison Nicolle obtained details of German ration strength. On 9 July, three days after his arrival, Nicolle made for the bay where a dinghy appeared which landed two men and then took him back to the submarine.
The two men arriving were second lieutenants Philip Martel and Desmond Mulholland, both Guernsey men who had been asked to make a reconnaissance and guide in a raiding party on the night of 12 July. But after hiding out for two days and returning to the beach the two men found nothing happening, unaware that the attack had been postponed for 48 hours. Martel had visited his sister, Mrs Michael, but he was unwilling to return to her house so the two men set off to hide on the Island in a barn near Vazon and in a house that belonged to Colonel and Mrs C
antan, son-in-law
and daughter of Sibyl Hathaway. The Dame claimed in her memoirs to have taken them supplies under the pretext of visiting her property. The two men went to Sark to try and get a boat, but German restrictions on fishing boats made this impossi
ble, and a boat they stole at Pe
relle Bay in Guernsey broke up on the rocks. They were cut off and in great danger.
Operation Ambassador took place on the night of 14-15 July. It was meant to be a three-pronged attack. One part, would land at Point dc
la Moye
and make for the airport to destroy planes and fuel. A second one would land at Le Jaonnet to intercept relieving troops going to the airport, and a third party would land at Petit Port to immobilize a machine-gun post there. Unfortunately there was a shortage of proper landing-craft, and in tough sea conditions everything went wrong. The airport gro
up failed to land, as did the Le
Jaonnet group misled by a faulty compass. The group who landed at Petit Port found no machine-gun post, and when it came to taking them off this proved impossible. Their boat was smashed after five attempts, and as the Germans were now alerted they had to be left behind although there was a reserve plan to return on the night of 17/18 July. Four soldiers, McGoldrick, Drain, Ross and Dumper, therefore had to stay hidden. They found a garden shed at the home of Doctor and Mrs Sullivan, a retired couple where they hid for two days, but unknown to them the relief force had been cancelled in order to cut losses. The men found refuge with Walter and Ada Bourgaize, at their general shop at Torteval even though German troops were billeted nearby. After one or two nights at the store, and failure to obtain a boat, they realized they would have to leave. Corporal Dumper left all his personal possessions behind, which caused the Bourgaizes considerable worry because they included u service revolver which had to be buried in a tin under the coal tip. The four soldiers were arrested walking along the road to the airport, and sent to Lamsdorf Stalag for the duration of the war.
Martel and Mulholland had still to be rescued. Another Gucrnscyman, Stanley Ferbrache, volunteered to go to the Island and bring them back.
He landed on 3 August at Le Jaonnet from a motor torpedo boat and then called on his uncle, Albert Callighan. That night he went to the bungalow where Mulholland's mother, Mrs Le Masurier lived, but she told him he was too late. The two men had surrendered the previous week. Ferbrache had to content himself with collecting information and even walked round the airport perimeter. He was taken off on the night of 6 August. In spite of these failures it was still thought valuable to establish contact with the local population, and Hubert Nicolle was sent back with another Hampshire
Regiment Guernse
yman, James Symes. They landed at Petit Port on 4 September, and went first to Nicolle's uncle, Frank. The two men were to remain at large for five weeks, and precipitate severe German reaction.
But Churchill was still determined on attack, and Operation Tomato was in preparation to land forces of up to 500 men who would immobilize Guernsey and Jersey aerodromes as well as landing on Sark and Alderney. Captain John Parker, an Islander whose father still lived there, was chosen to obtain intelligence, and discover the fate of the four missing men. Unfortuna
tely, his landing at La Corbiere
was in the wrong place. He fell into a ditch, startling a German sentry, and was promptly arrested. He and his father were interrogated, and Parker was then sent to the Cherche Midi in Pa
ris, and later to a POW camp. Ke
yes probably wrote with some relief to Churchill that, 'I understand from my conversation with you today that in present circumstances you do not wish me to proceed further with the project against the Channel Islands.'
Parker's capture on 30 September a week later brought to an end the first attempt to bring war to the Islands.
Martel and Mulholland surrendered to th
e Germans on 28 July and Nicolle
and Symes on 21 October, as a result of a policy adopted by Ambrose Sherwill on behalf of the Island government. As early as 18 July Sherwill had drafted a complaint to the home office about the dispatch of missions saying Carey, he, and 'many prominent people' objected to them although it is noteworthy that all the ordinary Islanders who met the troops gave them assistance. This was not, however, the policy of the ruling group who were thoroughly alarmed on two grounds: such events would damage good relations with the Germans or precipitate action against the population as a whole, and secondly, their own relatives and government positions were at stake. Nicolle's uncle was harbo
ur-master, and his father, Emile
, was secretary to the Control Commission. C
arey's secretary, Louis Guilleme
tte found out his brother was to have been used in a raid, and Sherwill naturally feared his serving son, John, might be involved. In Jersey, Coutanche had a serving son who might be involved, and the Le Masuriers knew of an attempt to land Robert on Jersey. In Sark, Sibyl Hathaway knew Martel and Mulholland had visited her daughter Amice's house. As a result o
f the four agents' presence, She
rwill, both Nicolles, and H.E. Marquand, the States Supervisor, were to lose their posts.
These factors would undoubtedly have weighed with Shcrwill as much as the safety of the Islanders as a whole, and i
t led him to take action which in other European countries would have been seen
as collaboration. When in desperation Martcl and Mulholland arrived at Havclet House willing to su
rrender She
rwill backed their decision, although a further effort was made to rescue them a week later. Sherwill rang up Doctor Maass after providing them with uniforms, and the two men surrendered. They were in
terrogated and then sent to POW
camp for the rest of the war. Mrs Michael and Mrs Le Masurier were confined under house arrest at St-L6 until January 1941.
Nicolle and Symes presented a more serious challenge to the Germans as the weeks passed, and gradually involved an increasing number of Islanders in their fate. Hubert Nicolle stayed with his uncle, and
met his girlfriend, Jessie Mariette
, while James Symes went to st
ay with his girlfriend Mary Bird's parents. Her father, Wilfred Bird, was working at Elizabeth College, and the two evaders spent three nights in the college cricket pavilion and had meals with William Allen, the groundsman, who lived in a cottage nearby. The two men made four escape attempts which failed, and a ban on the use of fishing boats resulting from some successful Island escapes blocked any chance of getting away. The arrival of the first Isla
nd Military Commander, von Schme
ttow, and his subordinate in Guernsey. Major Bandelosv, meant pressure was stepped up because the Germans had no way of knowing how many British troops were still at large. On 11 October Bandelow wrote to Sherwill saying he knew soldiers were present, and stressing that harbouring such people was a serious crime. He said that he would arrange a date by which time all those at large must surrender: 'Those reporting up to that date will be treated as prisoners of war; also no measures will be taken against their relatives who had assisted in hiding them. Those members of the British forces who may be found after this time limit must expect to be treated as agents of an enemy power.'
Sherwill's reply, which even he later described as 'a bit too smarmy', stressed his appreciation of this gesture, condemned escapers and any assistance to military activity against the regime, and ended, it gives me ground for confidence that at a per
iod when the nations to which we
respectively belong are locked in combat... it is possible - though only in the Channel Islands - for a German officer and a British official to enter into friendly correspondence..."
Von Schmettow and his officers were anxious to give a good impression, and to assert some degree of independence from Paris where General Schreiber, head of the military government organization, was calling for severe action. After some argument it was agreed to issue a statement on the lines proposed by Bandelow. The men in hiding were to report to St Peter Port police station by six in the evening on Monday 21 October, and a few minutes before this time Nicolle and Symes appeared.
The two men were taken to Fort George and interrogated by Captain Schroder of the Feldpolizei. Their role as spies was appreciated, and after a court martial they were sentenced to death. A further order was issued stating that anyone harbouring British subjects who had returned to the Islands and who did not report this by 5 November would be shot. On 2 November William Allen, Mary Bird and her parents, Thomas Mansell, Jessie Mariette and her parents, Mr and Mrs Frank Nicolle, Mr and Mrs
Emile
Nicolle, Mr and Mrs Louis Symes, and Sherwill were all arrested. They were questioned, and then removed to the Cherche Midi Prison in Paris. Von Schmettow and Schumacher were angry that their word as officers that neither course of action would be taken had been overruled, and after considerable argument Symes and Nicolle were let off a second trial demanded in Paris by Schreiber and sent to be POWs.
But the German promise not to punish anyone was broken. A collective punishment was imposed on the Island including a fine of £3,000 and the confiscation of wireless sets until a few days before Christmas. The captives remained in solitary for 50 days until they were
released on 30 December from Che
rche Midi Prison. They were only allowed out 'to empty their sanitary buckets in a cesspool in the yard. Soon Captain Nicolle was denied this privilege after he was caught giving part of his bread ration to an RAF prisoner in the c
ell opposite him. Hubert Nicolle
had a bullet flattened on the wall beside his head when he had climbed on a chair and table to have a look out.' Only at Christmas time were they let out together, and forced to sing Christmas carols, but by then tragedy had struck. Depressed by solitary confinement, Louis Symes was found kneeling in his cell, his eyes fixed on an open Bible, and his wrist arteries severed. He had committed suicide three days before Christmas.
