In this Boxing day special episode Nick takes a look at Operation Hardtack 7 raid on Sark and Operation Hardtack 28 raid on Jersey.
In this episode recorded on the 82nd Anniversary of two Commando raids on the Channel Islands. Including the only Commando raid on Jersey, Operation Hardtack 28, and the second Commando raid on Sark Operation Hardtack 7.
You can find pictures and further information on these links.
For our episode on Operation Basalt you can go here.
I wrote about Operation Basalt and my attendance at the 80th Anniversary. Plenty of information about this raid and video of re-enactment and photographs here.
Take a listen to the episode on the player below or follow us on your favourite podcast app here
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.
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 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 categorised 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 find articles, podcasts, TV appearances and other social media etc here.
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.
A few weeks it was great to welcome Paul Woodadge and Mag from WW2TV along with JD from History Underground to Guernsey.
They live streamed some videos as well as recording some other video for future use.
They had lots of activities organised for them by Visit Guernsey but on their afternoon off I showed them around a few places. The video below is talking about Operation Anger & Operation Ambassador and how Al Murray challenged the view that Ambassador was a disaster when Nick met him in September.
Woody then streamed from further around the cliffs.
I then took them to the German Cemetery at Fort George.
We then took a quick trip to the memorial for the Typhoon Pilot John Saville. After the video you can see a link to my article on this raid.
Woody has produced a great video giving a taster of their time here and his initial thoughts on their visit. Do take a look at it and subscribe to his YouTube Channel as there will be lots of more content coming out later on around the Channel Islands.
JD from History Underground filmed a lot of content which will be appearing on his channel in the future including some great drone footage so do go and subscribe to his channel ass well so that you don’t miss out.
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.
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 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 categorised 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 find articles, podcasts, TV appearances and other social media etc here.
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.
In this episode we talk about the attack on German shipping in the harbour. It was a spectacular low-level attack by three Beauforts of 82 Squadron Coastal Command.
Listen to me talk about the raid and the death of a local man who was a crane driver. For some photographs of the raid taking place and the resultant damage take a look at the two articles below.
We then look at the tragic case of George Fisher who was shot by a German on New Year’s Eve.
Entertainment in the theatres is highlighted with the formation of a new group, and we talk about Frank Stroobant who was involved in this as well as island sports. He also wrote an excellent book about the occupation.
Display at the German Occupation Museum
We talked about the censor Sonderfuehrer Kurt Goettmann
The press censor Sonderfuehrer Kurt Goettmann appointed on the 27th January 1941 at the age of 32. His previous experience included working in press offices in both Paris and London. The censor role was to ensure that anything published followed the stringent rules set out by the Germans.
We also talk more about food as that is an ever present problem.
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.
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 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 categorised 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 find articles, podcasts, TV appearances and other social media etc here.
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.
It is October 1940. More details below but you can listen here. The two commandos, Nicolle and Symes are still at large and moving around the island. Much happened in the run up to their surrender, their treatment after they surrender and the consequences following this. I wrote a more detailed article here about them.
Two weeks have passed already since the last podcast!
We are back for episode 3! We now have an appropriate theme tune thanks to our friend Jim Delbridge. He has kindly allowed us to use his song “5 to 7” from his album ‘The Navigator’. You can find details below about the song and the video.
You can find the podcast on all the usual podcast apps as well as here or listen below.
Keith and Nick talk you through the events of August 1940 the second full month of the islands being occupied by the German forces. We talk about matters both civilian and military.
Freedom of worship except for some. Major Marie Ozanne see more about her and a video here. Food & Essentials. The Bailiff’s controversial broadcast on German Radio. You can find full details of the broadcast here. A mission to rescue two commandos.
During the podcast we talk about some adverts from the Guernsey Press which are below.
We now have some intro and outro music thanks to our very talented friend Jim Delbridge.
If you listen to the podcast and like it please do like and share it with your friends. It would be great if you could also comment on the podcast on your favourite podcast app.
This is the story of eight men who made a daring escape, by small boat, to England on 6th September 1940. The escapees were Frederick Hockey, a signalman at St Peter Port harbour, his three sons Frederick, George, and Harold. The remainder were William Dorey, William Mahy, Percy Du Port, and Herbert Le C. Bichard. Apart from Frederick they were all tomato growers.
It is incredible to think that they made this journey at night, in a 20ft boat, initially to Dartmouth and then on to Brixham. A journey of approximately eighty-seven miles through some challenging waters. They also didn’t have charts!
I had read a very brief report about this escape in the 1978 Channel Islands Occupation Review and decided to see if I could find more information1. This blog post is compiled using multiple sources which are detailed in the footnotes at the end.
I managed to find quite a bit of additional information as, unusually, it received quite a lot of newspaper coverage in England in the weeks following their escape. This included the names of all involved and a lot of other information about the occupation of Guernsey. This is partly because it was relatively early on in the occupation and thoughts about family members left behind being impacted hadn’t been considered.
The British government even sent three RAF bombing raids to Guernsey, as well as bombs they also dropped leaflets and copies of the the Daily Sketch and Daily Mirror newspapers reporting the escape. More of this later.
As with the all of the escapes in 1940 there doesn’t appear to be any MI 19 reports of interviews with them, unlike the later escapes where it is possible to obtain detailed reports. MI 19, a section of British Directorate of Military Intelligence, interviewed anyone arriving in England from the continent or the Channel Islands. This was to establish that they weren’t spies and to obtain valuable intelligence about the enemy. They also interrogated German prisoners as well as listening to their conversations covertly to obtain information. If you are interested in the activities of MI 19 I recommend the book by Helen Fry ‘The London Cage’.2
This escape, and the escape immediately preceding it, had serious ramifications for fisherman in Guernsey. Following these two escapes an order was issued on 26 September 1940 that all boats, including those stored on land, were to be moved to St Sampson and St Peter Port harbours by 1 October. The Germans were worried that escapees would provide valuable intelligence to the British authorities.
As a result of these restrictions this was to be the last escape from Guernsey until some two years later in September 1942.
Planning
In a newspaper interview Frederick said he felt that “All of this German business was getting a bit two thick.”3 The Germans were importing a large number of German women into the island and they were working in cafes and other places. Frederick’s son Harold went into a cafe and ordered a cup of tea but some Germans who came in after were served first. In typical British fashion Frederick said “This was the sort of thing that makes your blood boiling angry.” The other thing that irritated him was the “oily politeness” and attempts to ingratiate themselves with the local population.
All of the restrictions introduced by the Germans were in Frederick’s words making living in the island impossible.
Expecting air raids, there had been raids in August 1940 on the airport, the Germans had made all civilians dig air raid shelters at home and at their place of work. They also appeared worried that the British may try to take back the island and had, just before this escape, commandeered a number of large yachts and boats and had them fuelled and ready for them to make their getaway should this happen.
This made the prospect of escape by civilians more difficult. Despite this Herbert Bichard approached Frederick and discreetly enquired if he had ever thought of trying to escape. They went to Frederick’s house and sat in his kitchen where they discussed the possibility of an escape. Bichard had access to a 20ft boat, the ‘Tim’, and wanted to use it to escape along with three friends.
As they were all tomato growers they needed someone with boating experience. Frederick had considerable experience of boats sailing around the Channel Islands and this was why they had approached him. He agreed on the proviso that he could take his three sons with him.
They met several times after this, in his kitchen, to come up with a plan as to how to get away. Eventually they agreed on a plan and the night they would attempt it providing conditions were suitable. They needed a pitch dark night and the right tide.
Escape
At ten thirty, half an hour after the curfew started, on the evening of 6th September the men left their homes and set off on foot. They carried a few recent copies of local newspapers, some heavy spanners and some petrol for the boat engine. The petrol was difficult to obtain despite this being only two months after the Germans occupied the island.
Frederick said that they hadn’t dared to leave the petrol on the boat so carried it in cans with them. Another report said that they used beer bottles to transport it so it is not clear which method they used. He declined to say how they had acquired it but one can safely assume they pinched it from the Germans!4
They had armed themselves with heavy spanners as they knew some of the areas were patrolled by Germans. They had decided that it was “them or us” if they were stopped by a German patrol.
In order to attempt to avoid the German patrols they made their way through fields, back gardens and vineries. You can see from the photograph below how many vineries there were in that part of the island at the time. When they got to a main road that they had to cross they spotted a German on a bicycle and ducked into the long grass clutching their heavy spanners. Fortunately, they had not seen them and they crept across the road and continued on their way.
Their first objective was to reach a small dinghy which was hidden on the small tidal islet of Houmet Benest, circled in red on the photograph, at Bordeaux harbour.
Very grateful to Zac and his dad Tim for producing this video not least because it saved me climbing over the rocks! Well worth subscribing to his YouTube Channel.
Herbert Bichard and Frederick rowed out to the boat named ‘Tim’ which was on an outer mooring. They then rowed back and collected the others from a group of rocks where they had agreed to meet them. Having returned to the ‘Tim’ they made fast the dinghy and rowed for about half a mile before they caught the tide and raised the sail.
This would have been risky as, by this point, there would have been Germans based at Vale Castle. The castle is on a hill and has an excellent view out over Bordeaux Harbour. Also there would have been sentries along the coast.
Frederick was worried about making any noise and attracting unwanted attention. Just a noisy splash of the oars could have given them away.
They were just north of the Platte Fougère lighthouse, which is a mile off of the north-east tip of Guernsey when three German aircraft flew overhead and flares were dropped. Incredibly they weren’t spotted despite the flares coming very close to the boat. One flare landed in the water only twenty yards from the stern of the boat.
They were unsure if the aircraft had been sent to look for them or if they were doing something else. What they did know was if they had been caught they would have been in serious trouble. If they had been caught they would have been sent to prison for a long time, probably in France. Realising that the noise of the aircraft engines would mask the sound of their boat engine they decided to risk starting it.
Just after passing the Casquets Lighthouse, twenty-five miles north of Guernsey and just eight miles from Alderney, their engine broke down and they had to repair it. This must have been a very nervous four hours drifting at sea, in waters that have strong currents, along with the risk of being spotted by a German aircraft or a German E-Boat, particularly given their encounter with aircraft dropping flares earlier.
Once they repaired the motor they headed for Dartmouth unmolested. Upon their arrival they were unable to attract attention to be let through the boom in the harbour so proceeded to Brixham where they were towed into the harbour by a customs launch. In total, their journey had taken some nineteen hours.
Unlike later escapes from the Channel Islands, they weren’t interviewed by MI 19 but were instead dispersed to their families around England. Frederick Hockey Senior had thirteen Children and all bar his eldest sons, who escaped with him, and his daughter, who wouldn’t leave with him when he escaped, had previously been evacuated.
One thing that did surprise them when they arrived was that the south coast of England ports had not been flattened as reported in the German-controlled newspapers.
Even before the Germans admitted that there had been an escape rumours were circulating around the island that there had been an escape and that the men had been picked up by a British destroyer. This is recorded in Ralph Durand’s diary.
Newspaper reports
This escape received extensive newspaper coverage, indeed probably the most detailed coverage of any escape from Guernsey.
Initial reports appeared in some newspapers, The Daily Sketch and Daily Mirror, on 27 September 1940. These articles are all relatively short. They didn’t really contain much of any interest.
The Daily Herald ran several days of detailed articles in October about the escape and life in occupied Guernsey. This provided details as to life in the run-up to and under the Germans in the first few months of the occupation. There are some interesting observations within these articles which are worth sharing.
In the first article5 on 16 October, the reporter, Dudley Barker, announced that through the interviews with Frederick Hockey, he would be able to provide for the first time the story of the occupation by the Germans.
After the fall of Paris and the Germans getting closer to the French coast, there was much unease and talk of evacuation, although nothing had been announced. One day Frederick was sitting in his office at the White Rock, St Peter Port harbour, and he got the first hint that things were really wrong. At two o’clock, he noticed that the British garrison was starting to embark on ships. They took everything men, guns and transport. By six o’clock that evening, they were gone and the harbour was quiet again.
Guernsey was now completely undefended. The Royal Guernsey Militia had been disbanded and the Home Guard as they would have been called in England had been disarmed.
Many had not known, with the exception of some in government, that the British were pulling out until it happened; there was a bit of an uproar with people wondering what was going on. This is referred to by Douglas Ord and Ralph Durand in their diaries.
For two days nothing happened. Then it was announced that all women and children under fourteen years old were to be registered for evacuation. Frederick was at work in the signal station when his wife and youngest children left. Interestingly Frederick notes that the boats were by no means full as some people changed their minds. He saw one ship leave which he thought could have carried four thousand and he doubted that there were more than thirty people on it.
On Saturday morning his son Harold came to see him at work and said that he was not going and neither was his girlfriend or his sister and her boyfriend. They had heard a rumour on the Friday night that those that had reached England were being compelled to sleep in public parks so the girls didn’t want to go. He did try to persuade his daughter to join the escape but she was worried that it was too dangerous so would not leave Guernsey and he could not press her to do so.
Another reason that some didn’t go was that on the Saturday the Bailiff and other leading men of the island climbed onto platforms and urged people not to leave. They said trade would carry on as usual, there would be no worry or trouble and if it came to the worst they would see that everybody got safely away. They had cars going around with posters saying ‘Don’t be yellow’. There was no compulsion but they persuaded thousands of people not to leave; he booked out large ships the government had sent with only a handful of people aboard.
Example of the posters that were placed around Guernsey
The following week the island shook itself back to normal. The tomato boats that had ceased running during the evacuation week started running more busily than ever. The lorries pulled up to the quayside in St Peter Port and the mail boats came in again as usual. He had never had such a busy week. Everything seemed so normal that a few people who had gone away to England came back again on the mail boats, although some others decided to evacuate after all though this time they had to pay their own fares.
Throughout that week he saw various German aircraft fly over the harbour initially high in the sky and then later at low level, so low he could see the pilot in the cockpit. Then on Friday 28 June 1940 the Channel Islands were attacked by German bombers. You can read about this in the article below.
After the air raid they knew that the Germans would be invading the Channel Islands they just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly.
In the next article on 17th October6 Frederick talks about the arrival of the Germans in Guernsey on Sunday 30th June. He, like most people, was not aware of the arrival of the Germans until the next day. On the Sunday afternoon, he had seen a German plane in the distance and had seen it dip but then rise again. Later in the afternoon, he saw another, and this time he did not see it take off again.
In the evening, he rode his bicycle to work. On the way, he saw people gathered on doorsteps chatting and some called out to him to see if he knew what was happening, but he didn’t have any news for them. The rest of his ride was not unusual except he felt that it was quieter than normal and those that he did see were quite nervy. He did not see any Germans.
When he arrived at the signal station his colleague asked him what he thought of things now, and Frederick told him that he didn’t like the look of it because he thought that a German plane had landed at the airport. His colleague went home, and he was alone, not that he was busy, as no ships were coming in or leaving the harbour.
It was deadly quiet except for the drone of the troop-carrying planes that started to come over about 18:00 and kept it up all night. At midnight one of the local police officers came to relieve him. This was because one of the signalmen had slipped away at the last moment on the pig boat from Alderney. The police officer had no definite news either. He asked what things were like and Frederick said very slack except for those planes going over and he didn’t know quite what to make of that. The police officer said all they could do now was hope for the best and it was his belief that the Germans had arrived.
He got on his bicycle and went home and still, there was nothing unusual to see. The island was very still except for the sound of those planes and the sound of the sea. It was a lovely night. Everything was alright when he got home, so he just went to bed.
The next morning he went down to the seawall at Bordeaux Bay which was the usual meeting place for the area and there were about one hundred people there sitting on the wall, talking and looking out to sea. They knew he had been on duty at the harbour so they asked me for news but he had none to give them. Then two German officers drove by in a car. They were the first they had seen and they were too surprised to do anything but stare at them.
The car was a Guernsey car that they had commandeered. They were driving along cool as you please in the sunshine towards Fort Doyle. Everyone stared at them, and they smiled and saluted and drove on. Frederick muttered something about there go the square-headed pigs. That encounter answered all of their questions. The Germans were here all right, so the meeting on the sea wall broke up, and he went home for breakfast. While he was sitting at breakfast in his kitchen two more Germans went by on motorbikes that they had brought with them in the aircraft.
By noon, the place suddenly seemed to be full of Germans. By nightfall, they were all in their positions, and the German patrols were out on the roads, and that’s how the Germans occupied Guernsey. It made people laugh a day or two later to read the German communique about it, which was printed in our newspapers. It said the British island of Guernsey was captured in a daring coup de main by detachments of the German Air Force. It also reported that in an air fight, the Germans reconnaissance aeroplanes shot down two RAF Bristol Blenheim bombers. There appears to be no record of these aircraft being shot down!
You can read in more detail about the arrival of the Germans in my article below.
The next instalment appeared on 18th October, where he detailed the initial days of the occupation and the impact that it had.7 The first thing he knew on Monday morning, after the encounter with the two Germans, was that the island’s two newspapers were being distributed free. They kept that up for three days, and their front pages were covered with the new German regulations for Guernsey. These new regulations were one of the things that were to spur him on to escape.
The regulations were extensive. All weapons, guns, ammunition, daggers and bayonets had to be handed in immediately to the Royal Hotel. It was forbidden to sing God Save The King; the penalty for doing that was 15 years of penal servitude. Nobody was to be outside their home at night between the hours of 22:00 and 06:00.
No fishermen were allowed to leave the port initially, three weeks later this was altered and they were allowed to go out to a limit of two miles from the shore. One or two fishermen broke this rule and they got a shot across the bows as a warning and then a launch went out to bring them back. Afterwards, their boats were hauled up on the beach for the duration of the war. What is more, if three or more fishermen went out in one boat they had to take a German sentry with them, and he sat with the machine gun across his knees.
Other regulations published on that first day said all motor transport was stopped except for absolute necessities. The chief tradesmen, for instance, were allowed to use their vans for deliveries. All petrol had to be handed into the Germans at once. This was, of course, a problem when they later needed to obtain petrol to escape.
There was to be no talking in groups, and severe penalties would be imposed for that. Nobody was allowed to buy another man a drink in a pub every man had to pay for his own. All sales of spirits were banned, and the spirits were to be handed over to the Germans. Larders had to be cleared of stores of sugar, tea, bacon and any tinned food. It had to be handed over to the Germans at the Channel Islands Hotel. He decided to risk not handing in his food and was lucky that his house wasn’t searched, unlike others.
These were just the first restrictions that impeded normal life. In the next article8 he explains how difficult it made life.
It was surprising, really, how things settled down on Guernsey on the surface, at any rate, after the Germans had been there a few days. After the shock of finding them there at all the islanders were pleasantly surprised at first to discover that the occupation did not seem to mean any particular hardships. It was not long before things began to get sufficiently intolerable for these eight men at least to risk their lives in escaping to England.
Initially, the most difficult thing was getting used to observing all of the regulations. Early on, some people were caught out just two minutes after the curfew. They were taken to a hotel for the night before appearing before the German court in the morning. They were fined and made to pay for their hotel accommodation.
The Germans imposed much stricter blackout restrictions than had previously been in place and Frederick tells some interesting stories. Before the occupation, you might get a ticking off from the local police officer; under the Germans, things were much stricter and slightly bizarrely different!
Old Bob, the police constable, got a shot through his window that nearly hit him because his wife had left a tiny crack in the curtains. Another man was shaving, and there happened to be a faint glow through a window. A German officer walked into the room, smashed the electric bulb with a revolver shot and then walked out again without saying a single word!
He said that the most difficult thing of all to get used to was ‘the attitude of the square-headed pigs themselves’. That is what Frederick said most people usually called the German soldiers.
They offered cigarettes, drinks and even packets of coffee to him. They were always mixing with locals in the pubs. Frederick said he would say ‘Look out here are the square-headed pigs,’ but they took no notice of that. Men would turn their backs, but the Germans would force their way up and offer drinks. Frederick and his friends would say that they had enough or make any sort of excuse but it was no good. They would buy the drinks put them down in front of them, and we had to drink them. Then, they would bring out cigarettes and cigars and compel them to accept them. If you refused the drinks that were offered, there was trouble. They were just so damn polite. This attempt to ingratiate themselves with islanders really got to him.
Sometimes, we just couldn’t stick it any longer and had to revolt. Frederick remembered one night he and some friends had got a bit merry in the London House and then they went home and stood outside his house and sang God Save The King as loudly as they could. Then his friends cycled home after midnight, more than two hours past the curfew. There were plenty of sentries about, but he thought that they must have looked as though we were spoiling for a bit of trouble that night, and none of them spoke to them.
The next instalment in the Daily Herald appeared on 21st October. This article dealt with the difficulties following the first few weeks of occupation.
A couple of weeks after the occupation, the Germans decided to prove that things would be better and happier under occupation. The idea was we should have no rich or poor, and all men would be equal except, of course, the Germans.
It was duly announced in the Guernsey newspapers that, henceforward, all businesses would belong to the States of Guernsey9, which in turn, of course, though this was not emphasised, temporarily belonged to Germany.
It was not exactly compulsory to hand your business over to the States, but if you did not there was nobody in Guernsey that could afford any longer to buy your produce. You could not export it, and you could not draw enough money to pay your employees even if you had it in the bank. This meant there was not much choice about it. A week later, all wages on the island were regulated as well. It was announced that every single man who was employed, and the Germans saw to it that they were employed if only for forced labour at the airport, would draw thirty shillings a week from the States.
Married men would get an extra 30 shillings a week with one shilling extra for each child up to the number of five and sixpence extra for each child over that number. Foremen and people who previously owned their business received two shillings a week extra and people with dependent relatives also got a little bit more. It was surprising how quickly you can put this sort of organisation into force, providing nobody is allowed to express any opinion about it and nobody is allowed to argue against it for they had it running in Guernsey within a few days.
They appointed overseers in each district to go around and make sure that everybody was working properly. Then, they set up local court officials in the school rooms in each parish to pay out the government wages collected each week by the foremen and the owners of businesses.
People of independent means were no better off because no matter how much they had in the bank, they were not allowed to draw out more than their 30 shillings each week, although they did not have to do any work. That was why no man could carry on his private business, as he could not get the money to pay his expenses. The Germans of course, wanted all businesses to be handed over to the States so they themselves could control them. Most of the Guernsey businesses were glass houses for growing tomatoes or grapes. The Germans made the growers turn many of them over to other crops, particularly maize and beans. It was thought that they wanted the seed to be sent to Germany for next year’s sowing.
Now, this idea of everybody having an equal income, even if it was a rather small income, sounded alright in theory, and some people got taken in by it at first. Frederick heard several of them say so in pubs and sitting on the sea wall of an evening. Even these people soon began to realise that things did not work out quite the way they thought they would. Everybody is working, everybody is equal, everybody is happy and so on. What happened was the Guernsey people were paid in Guernsey money that was the same as English money. At the same time, the Germans flooded the island with German money; at first, it was Marks they brought from Germany, but a week or two later they started printing them in Guernsey itself.
The Germans were paid in Marks, and the Germans decided how many Marks went to their Guernsey pound. The way it worked out was that the German private soldiers were getting three pounds a week in Guernsey money, and their NCOs and officers were rich men. Then, locals began to find out that it didn’t matter so much what their incomes were, but it did matter if there was nothing to buy with them. Nothing was imported into the island for the use of islanders, whilst the Germans got everything they wanted.
One of the first results was one by one the shops were closing down, despite the German order that business should carry on as usual. They were closing because they had exhausted their stocks. They could not get any more, and they had nothing left to sell. Then, the shopkeepers went out to work on the land or at the airport for thirty shillings a week. That was what his father-in-law had to do for one.
The Germans tried to cover all of this up by starting a little gaiety. They reopened the cinemas twice a week and at first, they showed one German and one English film. But when they had used up all the English films that were in the Channel Islands, they had to be all German films for which they put English subtitles. They also started showing propaganda films.
The article on the 22nd of October continued to tell the story of the difficulties faced by the local population.
Soon there was no bacon, no coal, and they were having to make potato bread. Frederick said that he feared that this winter, people in Guernsey would be existing on little else except potatoes and bread. The bread itself was at least half potato flour already. The Germans even got at people who had vegetable gardens and people who owned a field of potatoes to make a little pocket money. They published an order that these people could only keep for themselves five perches10 of potatoes each, and that had to last the winter.
The other great trouble was clothes; they were rationed too, and nobody was allowed to buy any clothes at all, not even a pair of bootlaces, without the consent of the Kommandant. If you wanted to buy something, you had to take the old worn-out article along with you when you applied for permission to prove that it was really unwearable. Nearly always, they would hand it back to you saying you can wear it for a few weeks longer. You even had to get a permit to have your shoes repaired and you had to take the shoes to prove they needed it. As for buying a new packet of razor blades, it simply couldn’t be done.
There was of course a strong regulation that nobody could say anything against the Germans or Germany. One day a girl walked into a shop to buy something or other, and they could not sell it to her. She got a bit annoyed and said something about the Germans having everything and the Guernsey people having nothing. She went on that like that for a few minutes just an ordinary bit of grumbling.
As she stepped out of the shop door, she was arrested by one of those men in plain clothes who had been standing outside listening. They took the girl to prison, and though he didn’t think a charge was ever brought against her she was still in prison when he left the island. That taught people to be much more careful about what they said in public, and they started looking over their shoulders to see who was about before they said anything at all.
Early one morning, about fifty German soldiers, all dressed up for battle and carrying their guns, went off with a few boats and a film camera crew to the little island of Herm, which lies off the east coast of Guernsey. They put the camera person ashore on the deserted beach, and then the German soldiers made a gallant landing from their boats. Then they got back into the boats again and made the landing again and again. They landed on that beach hundreds of times that day. They then had a film which looked like thousands and thousands of German soldiers fully armed landed on a beach. He supposed they had already taken a film of German troop ships leaving Germany.
Not all their activities were just propaganda, though; one reason why islanders were not allowed to be out of doors at night was that they were practising all sorts of things, landings on the coast amongst them. There didn’t seem to be much doubt in his mind that if the Germans ever did really try to invade England, they planned part of the invasion to come from the Channel Islands.
They certainly had a lot of guns and ammunition there, and he saw the boats bringing them in and was held to secrecy about it under the threat of the most severe penalties, which may have included death. Frederick said the German propaganda was on the wrong tack when they tried to prove the British were bombing us. The reason was the Guernsey folk would have welcomed it.
Most had grown to hate the Germans, in spite of their soft soap methods, that they would willingly have taken a chance if the British started bombing the Germans out of the island. He had heard scores of Guernsey folks say that. Indeed they were delighted when the British bombed the airport. His father-in-law was up there at the time and he was delighted as the rest of us when we heard the news. Incidentally, as it happens, the RAF killed Germans in that raid and not a single Guernsey-man.
The reaction of the Guernsey people towards the Germans after three months of this polite invasion was that they loathed them like poison. A few people may have been partly won over by the propaganda but most of the islanders would give their lives to see the Germans driven out. For now they were powerless to do anything but to submit to German orders, but that is how they feel about it.
The final article dealt with the escape which I dealt with earlier in this blog post. The poignant thing at the end of the article is where Frederick says ‘One day we will go back to Guernsey, with luck, in the British expedition to recapture it’.
Leaflet drops & bombing raids
Following the escape, and the early reports of it in the the Daily Mirror and Daily Sketch, there were a number of bombing raids which were also leaflet drops.
The raids didn’t kill any locals but left Guernsey covered in leaflets blowing around with the Germans desperately scrabbling to collect them. The locals were reminded that being caught with these leaflets was an offence. You can see an example of the leaflets below.
The escape had serious consequences for islanders. The Germans published a notice that all boats whether moored around the coast or on dry land must be brought to to St Peter Port harbour. This severely impacted the ability of islanders to fish and therefore provide vital food for the island.
At the time it looked like they were there for the duration, however, later in the war the Germans relented and fishing was permitted from St Peter Port, St Sampson and Portelet. Those fishing trips were policed by the Germans under strict rules.
The first official notification of the escape came in a notice published in the Guernsey newspapers.
It must now be known to a good many local inhabitants that some eight persons recently left this Island in a boat with a view to reaching England. As a direct result, drastic control of boats has been instituted by the German Authorities, resulting in fishermen in the northern and western parts of our Island being unable to follow their vocation, and depriving the population of a very large proportion of the fish obtainable.
Any further such departures or attempts thereat can only result in further restrictions. In other words, any persons who manage to get away do so at the expense of those left behind. In the event of a repetition of any such incident there is a grave possibility that, by way of reprisal, the male population of the Island will be evacuated to France.
To any who may be contemplating running away (for that is what it is), we urgently address the order to put it out of their heads as an action unworthy of Guernsey men. I am officially informed that, before the incident, the local German command had been at pains to communicate to their headquarters the cooperation of the Island authorities and the exemplary behaviour of the whole of the civilian population, and, for their part, they hope no further incident will compel them to take the drastic action which would follow the departure of any other boat. (Signed) A.J. Sherwill
Notice published in the Guernsey News papers 28th September 1940 by A. J. Sherwill who was President of the Controlling Committee which represented the Government of Guernsey.
The Reverend Douglas Ord noted in his diary11 on the 28th September that he had been to town and groups of people were discussing the notice. Durand notes in his book that some people were critical of the use of ‘running away’ and an ‘action unworthy’ of Guernseymen. The more level headed realised that Sherwill was having to walk a difficult line to do the best for the population without provoking the Germans.
I hope you have found this an interesting story. I will be dealing with other escapes in the future.
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.
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 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 categorised 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 find articles, podcasts, TV appearances and other social media etc here.
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.
Today, 5 June 2023, I attended the memorial service for Flight Lieutenant John Saville who was killed during a Typhoon raid on Guernsey in the Channel Islands. This blog tells the story of the two raids that happened and also shares some footage of the memorial service.
Flight Lieutenant John Saville was a Canadian who flew two raids against St Peter Port in Guernsey, in the days preceding D-Day on 6th June 1944. He was a pilot in 439 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force, ‘Tiger Squadron’, flying Typhoon 1b aircraft. Often when these raids, and Saville himself, are written about there is only a passing mention of the first raid.
I thought it would be useful to provide some detail on both raids, as well as some photographs to provide the reader with an insight into what they were attacking. Hopefully this will bring to life the events recounted in this blog.
There was concern that the radar, with a range of 100 miles, would pick up aircraft and ships approaching Normandy for D-Day on 6 June 1944. The map below shows the proximity of the Channel Islands to the Normandy beaches used for D-Day.
Google maps showing the proximity of the Channel Islands to Normandy.
Below shows the target area, Fort George in the centre of the picture. Top centre is Castle Cornet along with the emplacement that forms the south side of the harbour.
Squadron 439 RCAF Operations Record Book entry for the first raid on 3rd June 1944. Listing the aircraft and pilots involved. National Archives AIR 27/1879/8.
Eight aircraft carrying 500 lb MC bombs with instantaneous nose fusing attacked the radar installation at Saint Peter Port on the eastern coast of the heavily defended Channel Island of Guernsey. The attack was made without a hitch from a south westerly direction at an altitude of 12,500 feet led by Flight Lieutenant Dadson. The squadron half rolled into a dive on the target and succeeded In scoring a large number of hits in the target area.
No bombs were seen to burst outside of the target area. As the aircraft individually half rolled into position, then heavy flak opened up and lateral errors only were all that kept a number of our aircraft from severe damage. The dive was carried out from 12,000 feet to 3000 feet, with the aircraft being followed all the way by both light and heavy flak and finally crossing out at over 500 mph amid a barraged of incendiary bullets.
Miraculously only two of our aircraft suffered minor damage, one flown by Flying Officer Burgess was struck in the radiator and the other flown by Flying Officer Porritt was nicked in the tailplane. All aircraft returned safely operations successful.
Squadron 439 RCAF Operations Record Book entry for the first raid on 3rd June 1944. National Archives AIR 27/1879/8.
The second raid 5th June 1944
Although the record book recorded the raid on 3rd June as a success photo reconnaissance photographs revealed that the Germans were making repairs to the radar installation. It was decided that a further raid was required to ensure that it was disabled permanently.
This time Saville was leading a flight of eight Typhoons from 439 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force, “Tiger Squadron”.
Squadron 439 RCAF Operations Record Book entry for the first raid on 5th June 1944. Listing the aircraft and pilots involved. National Archives AIR 27/1879/8.
Having received confirmation of the fact that the last raid on the radar installation at saint peter port was 75% complete this squadron set out to finish the job by knocking over the one remaining Freya radar installation in the northeast corner of the target area.
Carrying two nose fused instantaneous 500lb M.C. bombs each the squadron led by Flight Lieutenant Saville attacked the highly defended target in a long dive from 12,000 feet to 4000 feet in an easterly direction. All the bombs appeared to burst on or very near the target itself.
A large disturbance was created in the sea about a mile offshore and at first it was believed to have been bombs. Flight Lieutenant Saville was not seen after the dive and it was later presumed that his aircraft had been hit by intense flag and failed to recover from the dive. The remaining seven aircraft and pilots returned unharmed.
Squadron 439 RCAF Operations Record Book entry for the first raid on 5th June 1944. National Archives AIR 27/1879/8.
A further report gives more insight into what was observed by another pilot.
On 5.6.44 at 08.20 hours, eight of the 439 Squadron aircraft took off to dive-bomb a Radar installation at Fort George on the Island of Guernsey.
The formation which was led by F/L Saville encountered very heavy flak over and near the target. As F/L Saville went into the target, six bursts of heavy flak were observed in front of him. This officer was seen making an aileron turn to port, which, on pull out, would have brought him out over the Island instead of the sea.
His No. 2 pulled out towards the sea and did not see him again. Shortly after F/L Saville’s No. 2 called him on the R/T twice, but received no reply.
The rest of the Squadron returned to base at 09.20 hours. Subsequently, an A.S.R. search was made in the face of very heavy flak which failed to find any trace of F/L Saville.
Circumstantial Report: Can J. 8146, F/L J. W. Saville, 439 Squadron, RCAF missing on Operations. w.e.f. 5.6.44. Typhoon MN210. – The Typhoon Project .Org
At the memorial service on 5th June 2023 an eyewitness account was read out, which had come to light in 1987. The eyewitness had seen the level of anti aircraft fire and was certain that the aircraft had been hit by fire from a flak ship in the harbour.
Swastika Over Guernsey – Victor Coysh – 1955
You will probably have noticed in the operations book extract above that twelve aircraft are noted as having flown that day. This is because four aircraft took off to search for Saville in the hope that he had been able to bail out of his aircraft and was in a dinghy at sea. If that had happened it would have been likely that he would have been captured by the Germans in any case. The aircraft searched in the face of heavy anti aircraft fire but to no avail.
The chance of being able to call in a seaplane or ship to rescue him would have been slim in any case due to the heavy fortifications on the island.
On the 16th June 1944 John Saville’s commanding officer wrote to his mother to report that he was missing in action.
Five weeks after the aircraft crashed the body of a Canadian airman was washed ashore, although it wasn’t able to be positively confirmed that it was the body of John Saville.
As can be seen from the letter below he was officially declared dead in 1952.
Unfortunately, despite the valiant efforts of those involved in both of the raids, all of the radar equipment remained in working order. As had been feared they detected the incoming invasions ships and aircraft on the evening of 5th/6th June and a message was radioed from the German Naval Signals Headquarters in St Peter Port to Berlin warning of the attack. You can read and see pictures of the Naval Signals Headquarters here.
Fort George. Original image here taken on 7 February 1945 by an aircraft of 541 Squadron RAFThe above is a zoomed in part of the previous photo which shows what appear to be bomb craters around the area where the radar was based. These are most likely from the June 1944 raids and just haven’t been filled in.
Discovery of the wreck of Typhoon MN210
In the 1960s what was believed to be aircraft wreckage was found in Havelet Bay. It wasn’t until 1982 that the site was investigated further by local diver Mick Peters and it was established that this was the wreck of Saville’s aircraft. It was subsequently designated as a war grave following identification of personal items which confirmed that Saville had gone down with his aircraft.
He is also commemorated on the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede in Surrey, England.
Annual memorial service
Each year there is a memorial service held in Guernsey at the site of the memorial plaque on the Castle Emplacement in St Peter Port. Provided I am in Guernsey at the time I attend the service. Fortunately I was able to attend today, 5th June 2023.
Below you will find a couple of video clips from the service which I attended today. It was pleasing to see a good turn out for the memorial service despite the chilly easterly wind. Apologies for the wind noise but it was blowing a force 4!
Thanks to all involved in organising the memorial service and all that attended.
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.
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 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 categorised 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 find articles, podcasts, TV appearances and other social media etc here.
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.
If you have read my previous posts about proposed raids on Alderney then you will understand why this blog post could have had a multitude of titles! As with the other proposed operations this one was very much the brainchild of and driven by Lord Louis Mountbatten.
This operation was a sub operation of Operation Constellation the others were Operation Coverlet against Guernsey and Operation Condor against Jersey. In this blog post I will be dealing with Concertina. I will deal with the other operations in future posts.
The previous blog posts are Operation Attaboy (1941) which you can find here and Operation Blazing which (1942) which is here . If you haven’t already read these I would read them first starting with Attaboy then Blazing. This will give you a good background to how Constellation and then Concertina came about.
I considered “Operation Concertina – third time’s a charm”, “Alderney here we go again or not as the case maybe!” or just a graphic of Alan Brooke shouting “Oi Mountbatten no!”. Anyway enough of being flippant and on with the story.
Having read those you may well be wondering why on earth they were considering what looked like a very similar operation to what had been proposed in February & March 1941 and 1942. This is especially pertinent as they had evaluated the Islands as being “of no strategic importance to either us or the enemy.” as early as mid 1940 and an assessment that was repeated almost every year thereafter.
At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 the possibility of a large-scale raid on the Channel Islands was again discussed. This was to be given the name Operation Constellation, the sub operations were Operation Coverlet against Guernsey, Operation Condor against Jersey, and Operation Concertina against Alderney.
On 17 January 1943 Mountbatten, at the Joint Chiefs of Staff 53rd meeting, made the very bold statement that “He would capture the Channel Islands without help from the United States.”1
On 22nd January 1943 a note by the Combined Chiefs of Staff was presented for cross Channel Operations. Part of this was to undertake “Small scale amphibious operations, such as the progressive reoccupation of the Channel Islands. (Note: Raids are already adequately taken care of by the existing organisation.)”2 The note suggest that such a raid should be along the lines of Dieppe. We all know how Dieppe ended!
At the meeting on 23rd January 1943 the American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, asked about the dates proposed for the operations. In his reply Mountbatten said that the date for the Channel Island operations had been chosen so as to fit in with Operation ‘Husky.’3 The difficulty being the number of landing craft that the Americans required for ‘Husky’ some of which would need to come from the British Channel Assault Force.4
Mountbatten later goes on to explain that the landing craft resources would only permit an initial assault by 2 brigade groups with an immediate follow up of one brigade group with some armour. This could only be increased with American assistance. This the Americans declined to help with this as they required all their landing craft for ‘Husky.’
Despite the lack of support from the Americans the feasibility of a large-scale operation to retake one or more of the Channel Islands continued. On 17th February 1943 a memorandum was produced by the Chief of Combined Operations, Mountbatten, for the War Cabinet Chiefs of Staff Committee and the name Operation ‘Constellation’ appears.5 It refers to an outline plan for an operation against Alderney. Regarding the other islands, he states that “examination has not yet reached a stage when it is possible to say that attacks on Guernsey and Jersey are practicable.” The attached outline plan refers to ‘Constellation’ as a whole but the operation against Alderney as a sub operation ‘Concertina.’ The sub operation against Guernsey was named ‘Coverlet’ and Jersey was called ‘Condor’ although these names are not mentioned in this plan.
Interestingly for the first time, having previously been discounted, the plan to retake one of the Channel Islands, specifically Alderney, is referred to as “strategically desirable.” The plan records that the reason for this is that it would assist with ‘Husky’ because the Germans would become nervous of a landing on the Cherbourg peninsula. This would also prevent them from moving men and equipment away from France.
It also notes that ‘Concertina’ would have an impact on the proposed, but never enacted, Operation ‘Lethal’ the capture of the U-boat bases in the Brittany peninsula of German-occupied France and Operation ‘Hadrian’ combined operations attack to seize Cherbourg.
The plan notes that if ‘Concertina’ went ahead it would mean that ‘Lethal’ would not be impacted but that ‘Hadrian’ would probably become more difficult because the Germans would strengthen their defences.
The memorandum of 17th February notes that the preliminary air bombardment of Alderney would involve the following:-
Night of D-2/D-1 the island is attacked by a force of 500 to 600 heavy and medium bombers.
D-1 daytime daylight attacks to be carried out by American heavy bombers.
On the night of D-1/Day the island is again attacked by a force of 500 to 600 heavy and medium bombers.
This would be an incredible amount of bombs to be dropped on such a small target. At the lower end this would be somewhere around 2,300 tons to 4,500 at the higher end depending on the mix of heavy and medium bombers.
The Naval force was to be:-
One Monitor
1 AA Cruiser
A/S Destroyer escort
8 Hunt Class destroyers
12 M.T.B.
12 M.L.
6 L.S.I. (H)
Landing Craft as required for the force
6 M.S. Trawlers
6 A.S. Trawlers
One Boom Defence Vessel
The memorandum considered that the military force required would be:-
One Brigade Group
Two Commando Units
One Field Company R.E.
Two Heavy and two light A.A. Batteries
One Battery of 4.5” Gun Howitzers for coast defence
One Squadron tanks
Ancillary units
Apart from the bombers they would require:-
One Squadron A.S.V. Aircraft
One Squadron striker aircraft – torpedo and bomb
Forty to fifty squadrons of S.E. fighters
At least two aircraft of P.R.U.
This memorandum was discussed at the War Cabinet Chiefs of Staff Committee meeting on 19th February 1943.6 Mountbatten said that he had come to the conclusion that the only option was Alderney given the discussions in Casablanca, referred to above, because of the requirements for landing craft for ‘Husky’ and the Americans requirements.
As with its forerunner “Blazing” Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, thought the plan unsound feeling that the peculiar granite construction of the island that the bombardment would be unsuccessful. Sir Charles Portal, Chief of Air Staff, on behalf of the RAF doubted that it would bring about the air battle predicted by Mountbatten.
The meeting went on to approve the operation being further investigated but that a raid on the submarine pens in L’Orient was also to be investigated.
On the 19th February 1943 Brooke notes in his diary a long COS meeting.
A long COS meeting at which Dickie Mountbatten gave me a heap of trouble with a proposed attack on the Channel Islands which was not in its proper strategical setting and tactically quite adrift .
Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff
At a subsequent meeting on 1st March 1943 the meeting noted “the Committee took note of a report from the Chief of Combined Operations, Mountbatten, on the result of a reconnaissance of an island in the “Constellation” group.7
After this mention of “Concertina” dries up and it is likely to have been killed off by that final meeting and the lack of available landing craft or crews for them as well as the unwillingness of the Chiefs of Staff.
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.
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 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 categorised 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 find articles, podcasts, TV appearances and other social media etc here.
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.
On the 3rd October 2022 I was lucky enough to attend the unveiling of the new plaques on the monument and walk some of the route that they took as well as listen to various speeches at a lunch held afterwards. The purpose of this blog post is to share some videos of events at the commemoration, some photos and discussion around some aspects of the raid that came up during the day. Also included are some other things that I have found over the years in respect of the raid.
The order of the day – just to give you some idea of what to expect in this blog.
I had the great pleasure of talking at some length to Eric Lee, who wrote the definitive book on the operation Operation Basalt: The British Raid on Sark and Hitler’s Commando Order. It also proved a good chance to catch up with an old school friend Simon Elmont who lives in Sark and spoke at the point where we reached the “Cassino Tree” and explained the significance to us of the tree. There is a video later down the blog post of the story of the tree and it’s importance. Russ Guille whom I have been in contact with on twitter also provided insight into the raid and it was great to meet him and his dad Reg.
THE STORY OF THE RAID
Operation Basalt was a commando raid on the Channel Island of Sark originally planned for 18/19th of September 1942 that attempt had to be abandoned. The raid then took place on 3rd/4th October 1942. The raid would have a much wider impact on operations in the European theatre of operations as it led to Hitler issuing the “Kommandobefehl (Commando Order)”. You can view a translation of the Commando Order here.
Operation Basalt (Op Basalt) was a raid by Commandos of the Small-Scale Raiding Force (SSRF) on the Island of Sark.
The object of the raid was to gather information on conditions in Sark and to capture one or more German soldiers to take back to England for interrogation. The objectives were achieved.
The raid was led by Major John Geoffrey Appleyard and he, with his Commandos, including the Danish Second Lieutenant Anders Lassen, made their way across the English Channel, to make landfall on the end of this headland known as the Hog’s Back which they scaled.
The raiders were transported on MTB 344 (Nicknamed “The Little Pisser”), which had the ability to run very fast (33 Knots / 40MPH / 64KPH) but with quiet auxiliary engines for close to shore work. The MTB Skipper was directed to wait until 3 am, then leave. This gave the shore party some two hours to conduct the mission.
Having scaled the cliff of the Hog’s Back, the party made their way inland, coming across the house Le Petit Dixcart which was unoccupied. The next building they came to also seemed deserted, but on breaking into La Jaspellerie, they discovered a Mrs. Pittard, who was most helpful in providing them with information on where some German soldiers could be found, a few hundred yards away in Dixcart Hotel. She also provided information on the deportations that had happened in September.
The Commandos made their way silently to Dixcart Hotel; discovering a sentry, Lassen was sent to deal with him, which he did quietly by knife. Entering the Annex of the Hotel, the Commandos captured five German soldiers and restrained them, by tying up their hands and then moving them outside to take back to the MTB. However, the German soldiers realising how few men had them captured, started to resist and cry out. In the ensuing melee two of the prisoners were shot dead, two escaped and the Commandos beat a hasty retreat with their one remaining prisoner to the Hog’s Back.
Fortunately for the Commandos, the MTB skipper had waited beyond his ordered time to leave and was still waiting for them when they arrived alongside, in their canoes at about 3.30am. Mission accomplished, the MTB went to full speed and headed north to arrive in Portland at about 6.30am.
Text from the memorial.
An initial German report notes that Oblt Herdt, the former Company Commander of the 6./IR 583 was relieved of his command and was to face a court martial. Senior Gefreiter (Orderly Corporal) Schubert was also to be court-martialled.
The Germans put their own spin on the raid on 9 October 1942 in an article on the front page of the Guernsey Evening Press.
The English & Irish newspapers also contained articles very shortly after the raid. A selection of them are below.
The Sphere 24 October 1942The Sphere 24 October 1942Irish Independent 8 October 1943 Irish Independent 8 October 1943 Yorkshire Post 8 October 1942
Interestingly the newspapers also reported some months later that copies of both of the local newspapers were being received in England. Some of these would have come from the raid. Others from those that escaped.
For a quick overview of the raid there is a copy of Eric Lee’s speech from the 75th Anniversary here.
If you want a comprehensive read on the raid I recommend the book by Eric Lee. You can also watch Eric speak from Sark on WW2 TV at the link below.
THE COMMEMORATION
The commemoration took place on the 3rd October 2022, the 80th Anniversary.
The photograph below gives you an idea of the scale of the cliffs on the coastline of Sark. This one is taken looking out from the path on the Hog’s Back where they landed across Derrible Bay.
Whilst waiting for the proceedings to start two members of the British Legion from Sark stood ceremonial guard at the monument. As you can see it is on an exposed point near the top of the cliff.
Lt Col Reg Guille MBE briefed the crowd at what was about to happen. Proceedings were to commence with a recreation of the cliff climb by The Guernsey Military History Company. They were wearing the correct period kit, which it had taken a long period of time to assemble, and were all former or serving members of the forces. Russell Doherty who heads up the Guernsey Military History Company told me that it had taken eighteen months to assemble the kit and out of all of the re-enactments he had been involved in this one had made him the most nervous. The commandos were instructed to ignore those assembled and move as they would have at the time.
Lt Col Reg Guille said: “We have added two new names to the 10 that we listed five years ago, a corporal Jimmy Flint and Bombardier Eric Forster.”
“Additionally we have corrected a spelling error in the rank of one of the German soldiers on their plaque.” The reasons for the new names are explained later on in the blog.
The plaques were unveiled by Simon Wood – a nephew of the commando leader Major Geoffrey Appleyard – and Captain Karsten Adrian of the Bundeswehr, a German Officer serving in the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC).
As we moved off to follow the route they took we passed the memorial further along the Hog’s Back to Hardtack 7. Operation Basalt meant that the Germans laid 13,000 mines in Sark some on this route which proved disastrous for this later mission. I wrote about Operation Hardtack 7 here.
We then reached the point where they turned down the track to the Petit Dixcart house. They heard a German patrol so had to take cover and wait for them to pass before moving off down the track.
Once we reached the Petit Dixcart the current resident explained what had happened there. He was standing roughly where the commandos left the Bren gunner to cover them in case the patrol they saw earlier returned. The Bren gunner was facing back up the track in the above photo.
They broke into the house by breaking the glass on the door to turn the handle only to find that the door was unlocked. Finding the house empty they found some newspapers which gave details of deportations which they took with them. Although the Germans did not refer to these as deportations instead they used the term “evacuation”. This was obviously an attempt to justify the deportations.
It didn’t take long for news of the deportations from these papers and the additional papers they were given later in the raid to make it into the the Channel Islands Monthly Review just one month later. The Channel Islands Monthly Review was produced monthly in England to keep all of those that had been evacuated before the occupation up to date with news of their friends and relatives and conditions in the Channel Islands.
Extract from the Channel Islands Monthly Review November 1942 which was published in Stockport. Picture is of one of the original reviews in my collection.Extract from the Channel Islands Monthly Review November 1942 which was published in Stockport. Picture is of one of the original reviews in my collection.
Next we moved on to the site of “The Cassino Oak” which was planted on their route to the next property that they went to.
At this site we paused again where my friend, and Sark resident, Simon Elmont gave an explanation of the significance of the Oak and how it came about.
Due to time constraints on the day we didn’t go all the way to La Jaspellerie. On the night of the raid they did where they encountered Mrs Pittard who is described as an elderly lady when in fact she was only in her early 40s. I guess if you were as young as the Commandos then you would have thought that she was elderly in comparison!
Mrs Pittard was rightly recalled at Eric Lee’s lunchtime talk as being the heroine of the raid. Once she realised that they were British Commandos she invited them in to her house and gave them information about the troops on the island and more copies of the local papers.
She offered to accompany them to show them to where the Germans were nearby. They declined this offer and instead offered her a trip on their MTB to return to England because of the danger she would be in from assisting them. She declined this offer and was to pay the price later when the Germans discovered her broken window and then shipped her to prison in Guernsey for three months. Fortunately she was not deported.
They left the house with the newspapers and proceeded towards Dixcart Hotel where Mrs Pittard had indicated the nearest Germans were to be found.
Lt Col Reg Guille MBE said a few words of introduction and Captain Karsten Adrian of the Bundeswehr, a German Officer serving in the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) said a few words.
Eric Lee explained at his lunchtime talk why it had been difficult to identify exactly who had taken part in the raids. Whilst it was easy to identify the officers through official records it was often difficult to find the lists of other ranks. This was doubly difficult because of the raiding party not knowing each other and being made up of different nationalities.
Lt Col Reg Guille MBE then showed everyone a Fairbairn Sykes fighting knife often called a “Commando Knife” and invited Patricia Falle to tell the story of this particular knife.
Mrs Falle then explained that she had lived at Petit Dixcart in the 1960s when the house was in disrepair and had renovated it with her husband. During the course of this they found this knife. It is possible that it could have been dropped by one of the commandos on the raid.
The knife had been used as a poker for a fire by Pat Falle until someone told her what it was.
You can watch the news report from ITV Channel Islands and some drone footage here.
It was a pleasure to take part in the day and the opportunities to talk to so many different people during the course of the day as well as pay my respects.
If you enjoyed reading about this raid you can read about other raids on the Channel Islands here. Other planned Allied Operations can also be found here.
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.
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.
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Also happy to be contacted with questions about the war in the Channel Islands, media appearances, podcasts etc.
