THE WWII GERMAN OCCUPATION OF SARK – TIM’S GUIDED WALKS TOUR

Last weekend I went on Tim Osborne’s guided walk around Sark. This was an interesting tour covering multiple events that happened between 1940 and the liberation in May 1945.

The tour is a full day in Sark leaving on the first boat in the morning and returning from Sark at the end of the afternoon. Tim is very knowledgable about the occupation of Sark and really brought the stories to life. He had also secured access to private property to enable us to see some of the key sites not normally open to the public.

During the day we walked in the footsteps of the commandos that undertook Operation Basalt and Operation Hardtack 7. This is the start of the tour after refreshments upon arrival.

The site of the Operation Basalt and Operation Hardtack 7 memorials is a great spot to admire the stunning views out over the Sark coastline.

Photo © Nick Le Huray

We walked from there through Dixcart Valley and up to a fairly steep path up the side of the valley.

Photo © Nick Le Huray

This took us towards La Jaspellerie, the white house in the photograph below. We stopped at various key points along the way and Tim explained the story of the raids as they happened.

Photo © Nick Le Huray

After this we followed in their steps to the Dixcart Hotel and then on to Stocks Hotel for a brief refreshment stop before going into a tunnel in the grounds.

The second tunnel was just up the hill and a little more challenging as there was no lighting and it was a little muddy. Despite having walked by this tunnel many times I was completely unaware of it.

Photo © Nick Le Huray

Following this we walked up to the top of the valley to the visitor centre and then on to a delicious lunch at the Island Hall.

After lunch we visited the site of a Lancaster crash landing. Following this we visited the graveyard at the church and Tim told us about some of the people that were buried there.

The penultimate stop was at the former German headquarters and the cottage adjacent to it where they surrendered on 10 May 1945.

The final visit was to a house where a murder took place and a complicated investigation ensued. A really fascinating murder mystery story!

Following this we made a beeline to the top of the hill and had time for a quick drink before heading down to the boat to return to Guernsey.

This tour not only tells you the history of the occupation of Sark but also allows you to enjoy walking around car free Sark and enjoy the views and enjoy the peace and quiet.

I have given an overview of the tour and a few photos to give a flavour of what you can expect if you go on this tour in the future. I haven’t gone into great detail as that would spoil the tour should you wish to go on it.

Tim is running this tour again in September so give his page a follow on Facebook and look out for it, the link is below. He also does other walking tours in Guernsey and Alderney.

https://www.facebook.com/events/272337598527136/?ref=newsfeed

If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorized posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.

If you have questions or information to share you can contact me by email on Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.

I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.

Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.

© Nick Le Huray

“OCCUPATION. AN ISLAND STORY” – FILM BY TRISTAN TULL

Today I came across a tweet from The History Islands (@HistoryIslands) highlighting this film by Tristan Tull. (@RegentsMedia) from 2021.

The film is about life in Jersey during the Occupation. Surviving islanders telling their stories interspersed with archive footage, animations and photographs.

Whilst there have been a number of other documentaries over the years this one has a different style. It doesn’t trot out the same old footage. I really enjoyed watching it and recommend it. Tristan has kindly made this free to watch on Vimeo. You can click the link below to watch it.

If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorized posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.

If you have questions or information to share you can contact me by email on Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.

I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.

Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.

© Nick Le Huray

CAN WE LIGHTEN THE LOT OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDERS?

Just a short blog today to share an article from 4 October 1941. You can read the article below.

If you have read any of my blog posts you will know that one of the things that irritates me is that many people think, and repeat, the story that we were totally forgotten about during the war. This is far from the truth. 

You just have to look at some of the calls to action that were raised by many in the UK. Take Lord Portsea for example, whom I wrote about here and here. I also wrote about how the idea that Churchill had forgotten about the Islands is frankly rubbish. You can find that here

It is of course understandable that those who were trapped in the Channel Islands would feel that way. Channel Islanders had little or no news from the outside world aside from underground news services and illicit crystal radios. Again you can find more here.

In the Sphere of 1941 another article proves that we were far from forgotten. Islanders would have of course been unaware of this at the time and would have not seen it until after the war.

The Sphere – 4 October 1941 © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

I hope that the article above is of interest.

If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorized posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.

If you have questions or information to share you can contact me by email on Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.

I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.

Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.

© Nick Le Huray

LOVE AND WAR ON SARK – PHYLLIS & WERNER

Whilst I am working on researching some in depth articles I thought it might be worth sharing this video. It was made as part of the Imperial War Museum film Project in 2018. There is some video footage from the occupation in Sark and from Guernsey.

It features the story of a Sark girl Phyllis Baker & Werner Rang a conscripted German medical orderly who went to Sark to treat the sick.

There is an in depth article about them here.

After the war whilst Werner was a POW in England they kept in touch and they were later married.

I met both of them a number of times when I visited Sark in the 90s and early 2000s. I didn’t know their story, I just knew that they were incredibly friendly people who ran a jewellery shop in Sark. This video is well worth a few minutes of your time to watch.

If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorized posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.

If you have questions or information to share you can contact me by email on Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.

I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.

Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.

© Nick Le Huray

GUERNSEY APPEARS ON “FORTRESS BRITAIN” ON CHANNEL FOUR

Channel Four has a new series “Fortress Britain” with Alice Roberts. Episode two features Guernsey and Alderney. From thirty two minutes in you can find the bit that deals with Guernsey and Alderney.

It features various things including Pierre Renier of Festung Guernsey talking about the Underground Hospital, an interview with Roy Burton who was here as a child during the occupation, and Colin Partridge talking about the camps in Alderney.

Well worth a watch and you can find it on the link below. Apologies to those readers that can’t access Channel 4 from where they live.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/fortress-britain-with-alice-roberts/on-demand/74745-002

If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorized posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.

If you have questions or information to share you can contact me by email on Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.

I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.

Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.

© Nick Le Huray

THE ROBIN HOOD POLICEMEN -PART TWO & A FILM

Last year, for the anniversary of their arrest, I wrote a blog about the entire police force of Guernsey being arrested.  Their crime was stealing food from German stores and giving it to civilians. You can read about it here.

Yesterday I became aware of an animated short film that explains what happened in a fairly concise way. The images used are quite clever; as some of them are using well known photographs of people and places as inspiration for the animation. Some of these places wouldn’t have existed at the time of the occupation but would be familiar now.

The film was made six months ago at the time of writing (March 2023) and is an unusual format to tell the story but gets the message across quite well. It even covers the underhand methods that the Germans used to try and get the officers to confess and the suggestion that they might be pardoned after the war by the local authorities.

If you look at it with the benefit of hindsight you might think of it as naive of anyone, be it the local authorities or the policemen themselves, to believe that the Germans would behave in a fair way and not use underhand tactics. However, you have to remember that at this time there was little access to information from the outside world and hadn’t been since June 1940.

Occasionally articles appeared in the British media in the post war years. Eventually they petered out with the odd exception in recent times referenced in my previous blog. Out of the post war articles the one below, from the Sunday Mirror, is probably the most comprehensive.

Sunday Mirror – Sunday 26 November 1950
Image © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

As you will discover when you watch the short video at the end of this blog there were many implications for those officers after the war. Inspector Schulpher, who had been in charge of the force, was investigated in 1946 and had to fall on his sword and resign shortly after resuming his position.

Daily Herald – Saturday 02 February 1946
Image © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

Moving to the present day another year has passed with the 81st Anniversary earlier this month on 5 March. You may be wondering if there have been any developments in that year. An article in the 30 January 2023 edition of the Guernsey Press indicated that they might, finally, get a pardon this year. I won’t be holding my breath, but if they do get around to it, the families would have closure.

Guernsey Press – 30 January 2023

Thanks to all those that have kept the pressure up to get the pardon. I truly hope it will be granted. Enough of my waffle and time for the short film.

Film from Simple History YouTube Channel

If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorized posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.

If you have questions or information to share you can contact me by email on Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.

I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.

Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.

© Nick Le Huray

A STRANGE CHARACTER APPEARS IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS!

This blog post is a slightly different one as it relates to events in the 1970s but about the Channel Islands during the Occupation of 1940-1945. It really is quite a curious tale, and it is hard to see what the character involved thought he might gain by his actions.

It lead me to a connection between Jersey and one of the most successful and well known double agents of the Second World War, as well as a traitor that was tried for treason after the war.

I recently found an article in the Guardian newspaper about a visit to the Channel Islands in October 1974. A man who claimed to be a former British Intelligence Officer turned author, Peter Tombs certainly seems to have been an interesting and controversial character throughout his life. He made strange claims about Martin Bormann and I found another, not immediately obvious, connection to the Channel Islands in that story. More about that later in this blog post.

He claimed that “he might take out a prosecution against the islands collectively under an ancient law of “harbouring of the King’s enemy”” when he appeared on a television show during his visit to the Channel Islands.

I wondered what motivated him to make this claim and why, if you were going to do so, you would travel to the very islands you are accusing to make those accusations on the local TV station. Much less be surprised when it provokes a hostile reaction from the population.

He claimed to have written a book on the subject although I cannot, at this time find any trace of, or of any legal action that he claimed he was going to launch.

He was believed to have completed a book, provisionally called “The Traitor Isles,” which accuses the Islanders of extreme passivity during the five years of occupation during the last war. He is considering taking out a prosecution against the Islands collectively under a sixteenth-century treason law for “harbouring of the King’s enemy.”

Guardian article 9 October 1974: Channel Islanders committed ‘treason’ in second world war.

One has to wonder why nobody checked on his past, previous claims, and accusations. I appreciate that it is much easier check the bona fides of people in the internet age but he had hardly been a stranger to the British national newspapers at the time.

Channel TV are quoted in the article giving their reasons and the reaction to the interview. Sadly I cannot find any footage of the interview.

A spokesman for Channel TV said last night: “Our switchboard was jammed with angry callers after the programme. Only one or two offered information about black marketeering and collaboration. The great majority very much resented what Mr Tombs said. We decided to invite him over when we heard about his book and like any good journalist we wanted to investigate it further.”

Guardian article 9 October 1974: Channel Islanders committed ‘treason’ in second world war.

He claimed that he had spoken to islanders and high ranking Germans that supported his story.

Now I am not saying that there weren’t people that made profits from the black market or that collaborated, these are well documented. Action was taken against those that had profited in 1946 to confiscate those profits and others had to live with the consequences.

He was going to launch a court case or at the very least to get questions raised in the House of Commons. I have searched the National Archives, British Newspaper Archive and Hansard. None of these provide any evidence of either or the book being published.

You can read the article about his appearance on Channel TV, the local ITV station for the Channel Islands here.

So who was Peter Tombs the British intelligence officer? Well it would seem that it was doubtful that he was a British intelligence officer at all. He first appeared in an article in 1969 where he claimed to be a double agent for South Africa & Tanzania.

Daily Mirror – Friday 11 July 1969
Image © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

This was quickly denounced by the South African Premier.

Daily Mirror – Saturday 12 July 1969
Image © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD

A couple of years after the interview in the Channel Islands he made some “interesting” claims in the Birmingham Daily Post. According to Tombs, Martin Bormann was alive and well and farming in Norfolk.

A series of articles in this vein followed. This was a little odd, not least because Bormann’s body had been found, and he had been declared dead in 1973!

Birmingham Daily Post – Tuesday 09 March 1976
Birmingham Daily Post – Tuesday 09 March 1976

His claim about Bormann was supported in the next article by another interesting character.

Diss Express – Friday 19 March 1976
Image © Iliffe News & Media Ltd. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

The man that supported his claim, Mr Eric Pleasants, obviously forgot to tell the reporter how he came to be in Berlin in 1945. The reporters also missed that Eric Pleasants had been tried for treason in 1946 and that he had a book written about his life in 1957.

Diss Express – Friday 26 March 1976
Image © Iliffe News & Media Ltd. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

Curiously Tombs claimed that he wanted to ensure that Bormann came to no harm. Which is an odd sentiment when talking about a senior Nazi! After the article above the story disappeared. One can only assume that he liked the publicity and got some sort of strange kick out of it.

When I looked further into Eric Pleasants and how he found himself in Berlin I discovered that he had been tried for treason in absentia in 1946. I then found that he had a connection with Jersey. He had left England in May 1940 to try and avoid military service. Caught up in the occupation of the islands he was sent to prison a number of times, during this time he met Eddie Chapman. Chapman was in prison in Jersey and went on to become “Agent Zig Zag”.

Following his deportation to Germany he joined up to fight for the Germans in the British Free Corps. He deserted and was captured by the Russians and wasn’t freed until 1954.

You can read about Pleasants here and Chapman here.

That is the end of this blog. If I find more I will share it.

If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorized posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.

If you have questions or information to share you can contact me by email on Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.

I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.

Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.

© Nick Le Huray

THE CHANNEL ISLANDS AT WAR -THREE PART DOCUMENTARY

I am busy writing a couple of in depth posts at the moment, working through almost six hundred pages of information from the National Archives. These are primarily military intelligence reports relating to the islands. As a result there has been a bit of a delay in getting things out on the blog at the moment. I want to make sure that what I write takes everything into account.

In the meantime you might enjoy these three documentaries with a lot of archive footage and interviews with people from both sides that lived through the occupation years. Sadly many of those interviewed are no longer with us.

They are presented by John Nettles, who not only starred as Bergerac in the TV series, but has produced excellent documentaries and books about the occupation. He has spent a lot time doing this and these are well worth a watch.

If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorized posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.

If you have questions or information to share you can contact me by email on Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.

I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.

Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.

© Nick Le Huray

FILM – JACKBOOTS, BUCKETS AND SPADES

Things have been a bit quiet on the blog for the last few weeks as I have had a bad dose of the flu! Hoping to get things back to normal soon because I have a lot of research from the archives to write up for forthcoming blogs.

In the meantime you might enjoy this film that I found from 1995. Fronted by the late Hugh Scully it features some great archive footage and interviews with people that were here during the occupation of the Channel Islands. This includes some German personnel, islanders and slave workers.

A few of these are people that I have written about before, click the links to go to the blog posts about them.

Hubert Nicolle – M.C. – Hubert comes home, the first commando landing in Guernsey and A secret mission 3/4 September 1940 – Nicolle returns with Symes.
Dame Sibyl Hathaway (recorded in 1974) – What Happened in Sark and Rose Cottage and the liberation of Sark.
Bob Le Sueur MBE – A truly remarkable man.

Topics covered include distribution of news from the BBC, secret photos sent to the british intelligence service, a secret transmitter, deportations and a lot more.

Well worth a watch if you want to hear some first hand accounts of life under occupation.

I have a list of other films that you can find here.

If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorized posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.

If you have questions or information to share you can contact me by email on Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.

I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.

Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.

© Nick Le Huray

ALDERNEY FORTIFICATIONS – FILM WITH DAN SNOW

If you have read any of my blog posts about Alderney, and even if you haven’t, you might find this short film interesting.

Dan Snow takes a look around some of the fortifications and explains the history. Well worth a watch and provides some context for other blog posts which are linked below.

My blog posts about Alderney can be found below.

If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post or here. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorized posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, places to visit and films that may be of interest.

You can also follow the blog on Twitter at @Fortress_Island where I share other information and photographs. If you prefer Facebook I also have a page there.

If you have questions or information to share you can contact me by email on Contact@Island-Fortress.Com.

I will be adding more as time permits. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Please share it on social media or add a comment if you did. Feedback is always appreciated.

Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.

© Nick Le Huray

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