The Channel Islands At War

by Peter King

  Five years is a long time in a child's life, living under conditions of censorship and propaganda. The children learnt German marching songs. Boys were soon practising and playing at soldiers, doing the German drills, the goosestep, and marching four abreast, bowing from the waist, heel-clicking, and glorying in it!

  Most realized that it was pointless to blame the children, but such behaviour was evidence of the extent to which fraternization by adults gave the Germans the opportunity to influence the young. Older boys were invited to drink with the Germans particularly on occasions like Hitler's birthday. In April 1944 a witness saw boys who had been drinking brandy with the Germans rolling home drunk and 'heiling' Hitler as they went. A few of those indoctrinated in this way proved to be informers when other youths discussed escape or resistance; for example, in November 1944 the Jersey Physical Culture Club was closed after discussion of escape had taken place because someone had informed on them.

  From the beginning, fostering good relations was part of official policy. At the highest level officials were chosen to present the acceptable face of fascism, and consolidate good relations with the Island ruling class. But the policy applied to ordinary Islanders, backed by the Führer himself. He drew a distinction between British subjects living on the Islands, and the 'native' Islanders whom he curiously saw as 'French' and therefore opposed to being members of the British Empire. He believed they could be won over to support the Reich, 'if our occupation troops play their cards properly'.

  The Operation Hardtack report in December 1943 included the sentence: 'the population generally is not hostile to the Germans". The voices of those like Sherwill and Carey who praised the Germans saying 'the conduct of the German soldiers is exemplary', and 'the German authorities, both military and civil, have treated us with humanity and consideration' were never balanced by open criticism because this was an offence: and the Germans took full advantage of this to pretend their occupation had been a very model of civilized occupations. Von Schmettow told Carey in 1944, when the population was deprived of every basic necessity of life, that the Germans had "made every effort to prevent every hardship that could be avoided', and von Aufsess, chief of administration, confided to his diary the view that up to December 1944, "our conduct of affairs in these Islands has been reasonably fair and decent'. When, in 1945. Morrison and the British and Island governments all agreed with this view it must have seemed remarkable to those who had lived through live very different years.

  There were individual decent soldiers, and kind-hearted administrators, but bonhomie was policy and propaganda, not evidence of a genuine desire to behave liberally. Early in January 1941 the Germans were busy with their first propaganda film. On Sark they asked a local couple if they would walk past Stocks Hotel, their headquarters, driving cows, and saluting as they passed. They were told the film was being made 'because the Sark people have given no trouble and had been very kind'. The couple declined. At social events cameras were present to record them for military magazines, or films. A series of dances with the troops was organized and the censored local press had to report them as successes. There were sporting events, including a Luftwaffe-Jersey match during the Battle of Britain won by Jersey 5-1.

  Gradually for many Islanders the truth about military occupation emerged: that it brought no joy to anyone, neither civilians, nor, after June 1944, the soldiers themselves. The soldiers' mood could quickly change from outward friendliness as Molly Finigan found. Sometimes she stayed behind after school to forage for potatoes that had fallen off farmers' lorries, and the troops usually ignored her. One day a German seeing she had a basketful of potatoes chased her down Truchot Street shouting at her, and although she was a girl of only thirteen or fourteen gave her a hard kick with his army boot. Strict laws forbade criticism of the German forces, or remarks suggesting they deserved to be dealt with by British forces. A waitress who put down four meals and said, 'four dinners for four gangsters', received a month in prison.

  One well-known case was the imprisonment of Mrs Winifred Green, who worked as a waitress at the Royal Hotel. Also working there was a pro-German woman who constantly taunted Mrs Green so she could inform on her. Matters reached a crisis during staff lunch one day. Mrs Green was asked if she wanted any rice pudding. You can have it, said the woman, if you say 'Heil Hitler' first. Mrs Green's reply: "To Hell with Hitler for a rice pudding - and one made of skim milk too!', led to her appearance before a military court on 13 October 1941 when she received a sentence of six months. After two weeks in the Island gaol, and several days in Granville Prison, she was sent to Caen to serve her sentence.

  Other incidents were more violent. In October 1941 a hairdresser had been sent over to Sark where a German soldier set on him calling him a bloody Swiss, hit him in the jaw and almost kicked him out of an hotel. Not content with that he followed him along the lane shooting with his revolver. Sentences gradually increased so that a local boxer who struck a German ended up on the Continent for the rest of the war. Frank Mallett, owner of an engineering and joiner's business at St Sampson's had an argument with a German interfering with his lathe, and when he pushed the German back the soldier fell over. Mallett was sentenced to pay a line of 5,000 marks, and to six months in prison.

  Mrs Tremayne heard of a man put in prison for saying, i wish a few Spitfires would come and settle them', and a particularly tragic case of this kind was that of John Ingrouille. A 15-year-old boy of limited intelligence, he worked as a cook, and made silly remarks, including one that he could find 500 lads to fight the German soldiers. He was informed against by a mother and her daughter and sentenced in December 1940. He was left in Caen Prison for 18 months, and then moved to Germany. His parents begged for the case to be retried. It was, in Germany, and the sentence then increased. Ingrouille remained in prison to the end of the war, by which time his health was undermined, and he died at Brussels on 13 June 1945 on the way home. This was one reality of German occupation: informers, a savage sentence, and death.

  Islanders had little means of redress against soldiers, particularly when poor people were unaccompanied in the courts by Island lawyers as was often the case. On 25 August 1944, Mr Jehan of St Saviour's in Guernsey disturbed a soldier digging up his potatoes. He and his son gave chase. The German killed Mr Jehan and wounded his son. No action was taken, and von Aufsess simply saw the event as the 'first intimation of the coming battle for food'. In the one case of rape by a soldier, however, the Germans acted fairly. A drunken soldier raped an elderly woman in Guernsey. The Germans provided a translator and allowed the woman to give evidence from a separate room during the court martial. He was sentenced to death, and almost certainly shot in France.

  In the meantime, co-operation by the Island authorities, and the vast majority of Islanders, and the lack of serious sabotage or resistance made life for German soldiers in the Islands preferable to that anywhere else in Europe. When they arrived the Germans were described as 'living like fighting cocks'. The rate of exchange was fixed at five occupation marks to the pound. So eager were they to buy anything in sight that they purchased rationed goods and food stocks in spite of prohibitions. Described as leeches and locusts the soldiers rushed to buy cigarettes, wine, toiletries, jewellery, and clothes. Mrs Cortvriend described them in women's clothes shops where, 'There was a continental absence of prudishness among the shoppers who showed no diffidence in presenting their wives most intimate garments, much the worse for wear, to match for size, and a stalwart grey-clad soldier holding a dainty piece of feminine lingerie against his own body to judge of its measurement was a customary sight and afforded much amusement to shop assistants.'

  A German soldier manhandling a 50 mm PAK anti-lank gun into position somewhere on Guernsey

  A German sentry at the Forest Hotel in Guernsey. A squadron of Hurricanes had been based there for a short while in the spring of 1941 - hence the notice

  Searchlight and machine-gun at Chateau a l'Etoc on Alderney of the kind used to pre
vent escapes from beaches

  So many clothes and so much footwear was bought that this helped to create serious shortages for Islanders who were forced to make wooden shoes, or clothes from curtains and blankets before the end of the occupation. In ordinary shops Germans demanded to be served first, and this was made law in March 1944. Special shops were set up for the soldiers to buy imported goods from France, and this naturally added to the bitterness of Islanders gradually deprived of almost every basic domestic item.

  There was good living for the troops, except in Alderney. as far as accommodation and administrative offices were concerned because they moved into empty hotels, and took the best (unmined) beaches for themselves. From September 1941 they had priority in all places of entertainment, and to the local cinemas and theatres were added soldatenheims or military clubs. In St Helier the officers’ club was at Fort D'Auvergne, while NCOs and other ranks had theirs at the Mayfair Hotel. One for all ranks was situated at St Brelade's Bay Hotel. In Alderney. where accommodation was limited, the Connaught was taken over by the commandant, and the soldatenheim was located in a former Roman Catholic school. In Sark the Germans burnt down their first hotel, the Bel Air, and moved to the Dixcart and Stocks until the commando raid forced them inland to the Manoir. The Germans commandeered bicycles, motor cycles and cars and used them with reckless abandon, driving on the wrong side of the road. Orders against this had little effect, and although the rule of the road was changed to the right in 1941 serious accidents continued.

  Brothels for the troops were established in 1942, with the exception of Alderney where only the Organization Todt had one, and the soldiers had to make do with groups of imported French women. Guernsey had two brothels at St Martin's for the officers, and in Saumarez Street for NCOs and the ranks. In Jersey there was only one at the Victor Hugo Hotel at Greve d'Azette. The Todt brothels were at George Street in St Peter Port, while in Jersey their first one was loyally demolished for the fortifications, and was re-located at the Norman House Hotel.

  By and large the discipline of the German army was good. Returning from church in July 1942, Mrs Tremayne saw an open air court martial taking place on the lawn of Le Manoir where three soldiers were being tried. A crowd of onlookers leaned on the wall watching while the officer roared and bellowed at the accused in whose eyes, i have never seen such terror or fear'. But in the case of three offences: dangerous driving, drinking, and theft, the courts for all their severity did not prevent the crimes: and after June 1944 theft turned to scavenging for food on a massive scale involving considerable violence. The Germans had to admit failure to check it in spite of death sentences. Although Julia Tremayne paid tribute to German efforts to curb drunkenness at Christmas-time in 1942 it was not really curbed. In July next year she complained troops got drunk at the Vieux Clos, smashed all the furniture, and then drove round the Island on a further binge.

  Above all. the military authorities failed to curb looting which broke army regulations, the German occupation terms, and the Hague

  Convention. Down to the summer of 1944 it was mainly concerned with theft of property; afterwards with stealing food. All too often looting was accompanied with senseless destruction which added to that caused by billeting and building fortifications. As early as August 1940, unit commanders were alerted to this problem, but from the first many Germans acted as if they were in a conquered territory. One of Mrs Cortvriend's friends had troops billeted in his house, and was invited to attend a party there by the officer. When he turned up, he found all their most valuable possessions in use even down to his clothes which were hanging up to dry on the linen line. He lost some of these possessions when the unit moved, and others lost not only moveables, but fittings like baths, mantelpieces, and basins. These war crimes went unpunished, and inflicted additional misery on thousands of Islanders, particularly on evacuees who returned to find their property destroyed or looted. Order followed order, but in 1943 reported incidents of looting were running at over 330 a month.

  After June 1941, Island service had an added attraction for the troops: it was not the Russian front. As early as August that year troops assembled at St Peter Port for Russia resisted orders. Some committed suicide: others were shot, and the officers involved were forced to march from the harbour to Vazon and back in bare feet. The remainder were herded on board. Just opposite the Finigan's house was the depot for troops leaving the Island. 'Many a time we have seen these young soldiers hiding in our gardens among the bushes trying to evade the count when they were all lined up in the street. We knew of German soldiers trying to injure themselves to prevent their going on active service. They would deliberately fall over our garden wall into the road below and we did hear that two had died through their head injuries." Nevertheless some German troops were discontented even with life on the Islands, and occupied their time with drunkenness, sexual licence, and violence. As years passed, the 319th Division felt bored and isolated, and the quality of the troops declined. Mrs Tremayne heard of troops threatening suicide, and several did kill themselves. In May 1944 she heard of "great restlessness among the German troops'. Once D-Day and fighting in France cut off the Islands there were no more imports from France, no more leave, fraternization was forbidden amidst increasing privations. Desertions occurred, and in one case a Jersey girl was sentenced to death for hiding a deserter. Before the final year of occupation, however, good relations usually prevailed apart from occasional outbursts of anger or bitterness on Islanders' part, and lapses of discipline among the Germans often due to drink. Soldiers were sent on leave to the Island because of the relaxing atmosphere.

  The consequences of this relatively friendly situation were serious. The Germans were able to recruit workers, and even forced labour from among civilians, and this benefited the German war effort. Massive German fortifications went unsabotaged, and the Germans were able to shelter and repair planes and ships engaged in the Channel battle, capture Allied personnel, and maintain valuable communications uninterrupted.

  The Channel Island guns protected a sweep of the French coastline from direct attack. It may be true that a terrible fate would have awaited the Islanders if they had carried out sabotage, but this terror did not deter people elsewhere in Europe. Mrs Cortvriend pointed out that all Germans, however civilized or pleasant, were cogs in the same war machine, good relations were maintained to help protect the garrison in its war work, and the right balance of force and friendliness secured this protection admirably.

  Hitler's inselwahn or Island madness about the Channel Islands created the most powerful fortress in Western Europe, the construction and maintenance of which added to the horrors of occupation. By early 1944 one-twelfth of the resources in terms of fortifications and hardware for the whole Atlantic Wall was concentrated on the Islands where 1,623 concrete defences of one sort or another had been built. The Wall could have been ten per cent stronger along its whole length including the Normandy beaches had this material and the efforts of 16,100 Todt workers involved been directed elsewhere. According to Rommel's chief of staff. General Hans Speidel, the Island coastline of 92 miles boasted the same number of heavy batteries and only one less strongpoint than the 620 miles of coastline from Dieppe to St Nazaire. When the garrison surrendered it was not only troops who were captured, but a 1,000 guns, and 50,000 tons of ammunition. Successive commanders in the West opposed this policy, and after D-Day Rommel begged that the forces be withdrawn. Instead they were subjected to a long-range siege, and their absence from the battlefield was among many factors helping defeat the Germans in France. For this error Hitler was almost entirely to blame because of his Island obsession.

  Hitler's motivation was confused, contradictory and strategically wrong, but Keitel and Jodl at OKW offered no objection, and the Army High Command (OKH), and Army Group D in the West had perforce to accept. The problems involved were very great - and the allocation of resources therefore correspondingly large. Weather presented a serious hazard as the sinking of two
ships in the January gales of 1943 showed. Bringing armaments detached from the Maginot Line to the Islands was bound to expose shipping to Allied air attack. Quarries were opened on the Islands and this in turn necessitated the construction of railway systems to move the material due to the poor roads. 'Difficult terrain", said a report in September 1941, 'will necessitate the employment of considerable construction forces'. Islanders were to be conscripted for several months in 1943, while others helped in paid employment in quarries and power stations, or in transport.

  The decision to strengthen the garrison over a fourteen-month period was taken on 15 June 1941 following a report by Keitel, which stated "the infantry defence of the Channel Islands is insufficient'. Ten days later there was a Führer conference to consider the Islands. Hitler was convinced, 'that raids against the Channel Islands were most likely with the aim of regaining possession of the Islands, and by engaging German forces to prove the willingness of the British to aid Russia. Bold action by the enemy must be expected.'

  His thinking on what this action might involve was highly confused. At one point he spoke of small raids on moonless nights in periods of bad weather; at another of larger raids when tide and weather conditions were favourable. Even allowing for full scale attack his preparations were excessive, and a mixture of other reasons was put forward. The British could raid German submarine bases from the Islands if they captured them and, once there, the Islands would become another Malta for them. Strong German control would protect a large part of the French coast, and provide a forward base for Channel communications. In fact, the strategic arguments were all weak; the real reason for the excessive fortification was that as an OKW document said on 10 June 1941, ·consideration must be taken that after the conclusion of peace the Channel Islands will remain German territory and must be unassailable'.