Whilst trawling through the British Newspaper Archive I found this reference to a letter from Guernsey in the Nottingham Evening Post of Saturday 17 August 1940.
This is curious for a number of reasons. Firstly the scheme for sending letters by Red Cross was not established until later in 1940, indeed the scheme was still being arranged in October 1940, in any event was initially restricted to ten words then later increased to twenty five words. Initially you could only send a message in reply to one received although this was changed later. You can find more detail about the Red Cross letter system in the article I wrote here.
It therefore isn’t possible that this letter came through the Red Cross. If you read the newspaper article I will continue to consider below how and why this information appeared in August 1940.
Image © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.
The article refers to the letter coming through “the usual route of France, Spain and Lisbon” which wouldn’t have been set up at this stage being only six weeks after occupation of the Channel Islands on 30 June 1940.
So how did this information arrive in England? It is possible, but unlikely, that it was a letter that somehow got out of Guernsey but that would seem to be unlikely. Even a Red Cross Message once the system had been set up later in 1940 took six weeks to arrive. So how would a letter, in the unlikely event it had managed to be sent by some means via all of these countries, manage to arrive six weeks after occupation but containing information from July 1940.
My initial reaction was that this must have been information garnered from one of the early commando raids either “Anger” or “Ambassador” or the attempt to rescue those stranded and then given to the media. This happened for later raids and appeared in many newspapers at the time. This ‘letter’ was only reported in one newspaper so that seems unlikely in this case. To read about those raids click the links above.
It is unlikely that it was information garnered from an escape from Guernsey. There were a spate of escapes on the first few days of July and possibly one in August, although it may have been early September, and again normally information appeared across multiple newspapers.
The only other way I can think a letter may have got out via this route was the French consul in Guernsey. Again this would seem unlikely but may be a possibilityin the initial days of occupation.
All in all a bit of a mystery that will probably never be solved but I thought it was worth sharing. If anyone can shed any light on this I would love to hear from you.
Whilst writing I should mention I am co-hosting a podcast talking through the occupation of the Channel Islands with local guide and historian Keith Pengelley. You can find links to all the major podcast platforms here or just go to your usual podcast app and search ‘Islands at War’.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading the blog post.
I also co-host a podcast with Keith Pengelley in which we talk about the occupation of the Channel Islands month by month using first hand accounts, diaries and our research in the archives. You can find us on all the major podcast services. Just search “Islands at War” or visit our podcast page here.
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© Nick Le Huray
