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Authors: Peter King

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Naturally it was Allied air-crew that Island attention focused on most. On 3 June 1943 the body of Sergeant Dennis Butlin was picked up at La Pulente, and soon afterward
s that of Sergeant Abraham Holde
n at Samares. They were buried at Mont-a-l'Abbe Cemetery on 6 June, and at their burial on Jersey hundreds lined the route and two lorry loads of wreaths followed the cortege. Information about air war over the Islands is notoriously incomplete, but there were 23 confirmed Allied air losses, and there were others like Squadron Leader Gonay, a Belgian, killed when his plane crashed on a farm at St Ouen in June 1944. Mrs Cortvriend said that, 'the mere sight of a British or Allied plane was a thrill and a signal for rejoicing to most of us'. On Sark a Lancaster bomber managed to land in what is now known as 'Aeroplane Field'.

Whenever possible, Islanders did their best to treat Allied air-crew with kindness, although that was as far as they dared to go in view of German warnings. In Guernsey when the first plane, an Anson, crashed and four crew cam
e ashore in a dinghy at Portinfe
r, they were looked after by Reginald Blatchford of the St John Ambulance Brigade before they were handed over to the police. Pilot Officer Robert Stirling whose Hurricane came down near Lihou Island, managed to walk in darkness along the causeway to Guernsey in April 1941. The 23-year-old Scotsman also managed to avoid a German cycle patrol, and sheltered at Mr and
Mrs T. Brouard's house at L'Eree
overnight.

At the time of the Nicolle-Symes affair, Schumacher's order had made it clear that anyone who sheltered British subjects "particularly members of the British armed forces, shall be shot', and this order was reissued on a number of occasions. In August 1941, for example, the
Guernsey Evening Press
contained this order over Carey's name: 'Attention is called to the fact that under the Order relative to protection against acts of sabotage, dated October 10th 1940, any person who hides or shelters escaped prisoners of war shall be punished with death. The same applies for the hiding or sheltering of members of enemy forces, for instance, crews of landing aircraft, parachutists etc. Anyone lending assistance to such persons in their escape is also liable to the death sentence.' Mrs
Tre
mayne saw this notice. 'Just fancy', she wrote, 'it might easily be one of our own and someone we know'. No accurate figures are available for Allied air losses in the Channel Islands, but the list includes ten deaths, sadly not all as a result of enemy action. The pilot of a Spitfire that crashed to the south of Guernsey in May 1944 was killed when his parachute failed to open. Usually crews that came down over land or ditched in the sea were rescued and the list also includes at least 20 rescued crew members. The Germans co-operated in such rescues, although there is one unexplained incident that took place off
Alderney
. In January 1944 four crew members were saved from a Lancaster that ditched to the west of the Island, but at some time late in June that year another Lancaster crashed west of Essex Castle. Captain Massmann, harbour commandant at Braye since 1943, did not order out any boats, and two of his staff later stated 'all of us were surprised that nothing was done for their rescue'. After the war Massmann was brought to London with a view to prosecution, but none took place.

Although most air-crew and naval personnel were sent to stalags in Germany, there was a POW camp at Mount Bingham in Jersey, and it was from this camp that the only successful escape and evasion took place by two Americans, Captain Edward Clark, and Lieutenant George Haas. They escaped on 8 January 1945, and a German order soon appeared stating, 'They will attempt to obtain shelter and help from the English civilian population. It is expressly announced that anyone who takes in or extends help in any way to Captain Clark or Lieutenant Haas will be punished by death'. After four days Clark and Haas reached East Lynne Farm on Grouville Bay owned by Wilfred Bertram, one of the Isla
nders who actively helped escape
rs. The Americans got away from the bay on 19 January, and Bertram was later awarded the United States Medal of Freedom.

The victims, both people and planes, of air war are a reminder that the Islands were in a war zone. Air war over the Islands had the regrettable dimension that the RAF were bound to sink supply ships, and vessels containing Todt workers and POWs, and even to inflict losses on the Islanders. Raids had to be faced by a population whose powers of resistance were already sapped by occupation conditions, and there were only rudimentary civil defence precautions and ever decreasing medical facilities. According to one writer there were at least 22 raids in the Channel Isles resulting in "3 deaths and 250 injuries - many of these Todt port workers caught at their jobs or on transports to and from France. Attacks on air facilities in 1940, on the ports in 1942, and on ports and military installations in 1944 were the worst raids, but, as in Britain, there was a constant menace from planes. Even in
the most peaceful year, Mrs Tre
mayne referred in May and June 1943 to serious fighting that 'has been going on all this week around the Islands and live shells from the Guernsey guns have been whistling over Sark, breaking glass and scattering over the roofs of houses. Our huge bombers have been flying over, very low, and they have sunk a minesweeper off Sark and lots of ships in Jersey harbour".

The first raids that Mrs Tre
mayne noticed were three consecutive night attacks on Guernsey Airport in August 1940 which she described as 'perfect Bedlam'. During the night of 23 August she experienced the fall of the first bomb in Sark. 'The noise was so heavy, and the suspense and worry until we could hear at daylight what had happened, were intense. It is a mercy no fire was started, or it could never have been put out, as there is no water and no appliances of any sort. It fell near the Manoir [the Old Vicarage], all Mrs Cook's block had the glass shattered and holes cut in the roofs everywhere.' In July 1941, when the airport was the target again, German guns shook her house with their reverberations. The bombing, she wrote, 'is almost hourly now, night and day', and she found it 'very alarming at times'. On 3 September Julia and her daughter Norah stood on Gouliot top and watched an air attack by many planes on barges moving towards Guernsey, and later on the airport. 1942 opened with more severe raids on Guernsey now mainly directed at the harbour and sufficiently large for the glow of the fires to light up Sark eight miles away. The raids went on for several nights, two ships were sunk, and Polish Todt workers killed. Damage was done in St Peter Port itself.

 

1944 was the worst year for raid
s, and as early as April Mrs Tre
mayne heard the noise of guns and bombs. Mrs Cortvriend on Guernsey noticed an attack on 27 May by USAAF Thunderbolts aimed at the barracks and Fort George. One person was killed and several injured by shrapnel from German anti-aircraft defences. A bomb exploding near her house fractured their water-pipes. From then on 'scarcely a day passed without large formations of
planes flying overhead'. Mrs Tre
mayne heard that the raid on Fort George killed a number of Germans at a football match. On 15 June she recorded 'another hellish night", and her comments continued with little intermission for the next three months. Mrs Cortvriend and Mrs
Tremayne
described the destruction in St Peter Port which was the main target in their islands. Windows of the town church, St Peter's, the main shops, and many houses were blown in, and people cut by flying glass. At night, said Mrs Cortvriend, 'from our bedroom we were able to witness brilliant flare and tracer bullet displays, while the beams of numerous searchlights swept the skies. The boom of our naval guns could often be heard ... large fires were distinguished on the French coast, and heavy explosions shook our house throughout the days and nights.' There could be little doubt the Islands were often in the front line of their own particular blitz.

 

One day in February 1942, Norah
Tremayne
was looking out to sea when she saw three ships go by: they were the
Scharnh
orst, Gneisenau,
and
Prim Eugen
escaping from Brest and returning to Germany, a vivid reminder of the naval war that also affected the Channel Islands. Once, on 12 August 1944,
hms
Rodney
bombarded Aldern
ey to try and destroy
Bl
ü
cher
Battery, which severely damaged a gun and killed two Germans. The usual naval target was enemy shipping: E-boats and submarines, supply ships, and troop transports. German naval personnel were buried on the Islands, and many more British sailors are remembered still on Charybdis Day, 17 November, which commemorates the worst British loss of the war in the Channel during Operation Tunnel on the night of the 23/24 October 1943. The intention was to attack a convoy of 12 German ships, but six destroyers led by the light cruiser
hms
Charybdis
encountered an escort of E-boats, and the cruiser sustained direct hits sinking almost at once with the loss of 462 lives.
hms
Limbourne
was hit with the loss of 42 lives, and subsequently had to be sunk. Bodies from the disaster were washed up on the Islands, including a stoker on Sark, and on the shores of France. When the burials of some of these took place large crowds of Islanders attended, and the turn-out so worried the Germans that such demonstrations at funerals were banned.

 

It has been stated there were six or seven major convoy battles in the area, some of these taking place in February and September 1943, and August 1944. In February 1943, two destroyers sank two trans
ports and possibly two mine-sweepers on the Alderney-Che
rbourg route, and German losses included the Harbour Commandant, Parsenow. Battles at sea in dark and fog were bound to lead to exaggerated accounts. In August 1944 Mrs
Tremayne
said, after a convoy battle which it was too misty to see, that several boats were lost and 'the sea must be full of dead bodies'.

The size of the garrison meant that at least 500 Germans a week were moving in both directions, and sometimes they were caught by the Royal Navy, or met with accident in treacherous waters. In January 1943 the
Schockland
sank off the south coast of Jersey after hitting a rock. Most of the Germans together with 15 prostitutes from German brothels were below decks and had to negotiate a single ladder before climbing through an 18-inch square hatch. As a result perhaps half the complement of 250 perished. They were buried at St Brelade's churchyard which became the main German burial ground on Jersey with over 200 graves. On 4 July 1944 the
Minotaure,
carrying Sylt prisoners and Todt workers from
Alderney
, sank with two other ships not far from St Malo. About 250 were drowned including a number of French Jews. By the end of the war the graveyards of the Channel Islands contained at least 560 German dead although most Luftwaffe casualties were taken off the Islands. The cemeteries also contained a substantial number of British dead from air

 

and sea battles, and victims of accidents caused by the war, like deaths from mines. War had by no means passed the Islands by as Morrison and von Schmettow had suggested.

 

 

Inselwahn:
Hitler's Channel Fortress, and its Garrison

 

 

By far the most obvious effect of the German occupation was the presence of the garrison, and by far the most long-lasting impression made by it was the construction of massive fortifications which still exist. 'The Island echoes', wrote one observer 'with the coarse singing of the troops on the march". Wherever Island people went there were troops, marines, engineers, anti-aircraft forces, and a host of organizations necessary to run a modern army. They swarmed into holiday hotels using them as billets and offices, and their fortifications soon impinged on every stretch of coast destroying houses and farms, denying access to roads and beaches, and ruining agricultural land. Soldiers in their everyday lives, and carrying out mock battles and training were oppressive in themselves. 'I am so weary of this occupation and the sight of the Germans', wrote one woman who had had Germans standing in her house just staring at her, or invading her garden.

 

"The mental torture", wrote Mrs Tremayne, 'from this German occupation is becoming indescribable'. Some, like the teacher on Sark, broke down under the strain, and it will always be impossible to say how many lives were shortened by the experience of occupation, or how many suicides resulted from mental pressure. According to Doctor Lewis there were three in Jersey shortly after Occupation, and there were at least three caused by the threat of deportation in 1942-3.

At first the Islands were held by small forces on the main Islands
and token contingents in Alderne
y and Sark. As late as June 1941 there were only 13.0(H) military personnel on the Islands, but then two decisions were taken that altered the position. On 15 June a major strengthening of the garrison was ordered, and on 20 October an order to fortify the Islands was given which led to a massive increase in troops, and to the presence of the Organization Todt and its slave workers, as well as
other organizations like the Reichsarbe
itsdienst (RAD). By the end of 1941 there were 15,000 Wehrmacht, 5,000 Luftwaffe, and 1,000 Kriegsmarine forces on the Island. The Luftwaffe men were 'flak' or anti-aircraft and maintenance and re
pair crews, and the Kriegsmarine
defended the harbours. Two companies of engineers, the 14 on Jersey, and the 19 on Guernsey and Alderney accounted for 1,400 troops wh
ile supply forces accounted for
3.5(H). There was constant movement of forces to and from the Islands, but on paper at least the garrison reached a strength of 37,600 in April 1942 equal in size to the evacuated population and giving a ratio of one German for every two inhabitants.

BOOK: The Channel Islands At War
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