Last year I wrote a blog about this air raid. I recently came across this article, written at the time for the Star newspaper, and I thought it was worth sharing it.
It is important to remember that the content of the newspaper was controlled by the German forces, so presents their viewpoint.
My original blog post with tmore detail on the raid is here.
Report in the Jersey Evening Post reproducing the article from the Guernsey newspaper the Star. From a scrapbook kept by Helene Marie Sinnatt, née Jackson, during the Occupation. Book 3, Page 57. It is in the Jersey Heritage Archive ref L/C/306/A/3/57.
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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 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.
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.
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.
After a recent visit to the Tank Museum in Bovington, plus a few questions people have asked me, prompted me to think about the use of tanks in the Channel Islands. If you are familiar with the island roads you will perhaps be surprised that there were any tanks at all.
Initially there were no tanks deployed in the islands. Then in June 1941, after Hitler had personally studied the plans for the defence of the Channel Islands, he ordered that captured French Tanks should be sent. His concern was that once he launched Operation Barbarossa, the attack on Russia later that month, the British would then attack Norway or the Channel Islands.
This was as a result of small scale raids on Norway and the Channel Islands. He thought that they would want to appease the Russians by opening a second front or at the very least tie up the German forces in the West.
His belief that this was going to happen wasn’t entirely misguided as the British did indeed consider doing just that. Operation Attaboy, Operation Blazing, Operation Constellation and Operation Condor were some of these operations that were planned and cancelled.
Von Runstedt was less than enthusiastic on sending tanks to the Channel Islands as he could not see the need for them. He did however send two tanks to Guernsey to defend the harbour. More tanks were to follow later.
All of the tanks that were used in the Channel Islands by the Germans were captured French tanks.
Renault FT-17s.
The first to arrive were Renault FT-17s. These were well beyond their sell by date as they dated back to 1918. State of the art at the time they were produced with the first to have its armament in a turret that could fully rotate.
The Germans had captured so many French tanks and other vehicles that they had converted Panzerabteilung 213 to entirely to French equipment.
As they were of little use in other theatres a total of twenty FT-17s were deployed to the Channel Islands. Eight in Jersey, Eight in Guernsey, and four in Alderney.1
The FT-17s became of little use as the war progressed and very few were actually still running by December 1944. If you think you recognise the turrets of these tanks you have probably seen them around the islands as a few of the turrets remain today. They were taken off of the tanks and fitted onto Tobruk pits on bunkers around the islands. In Guernsey you can still see examples, one in situ at Batterie Dollmann at Pleinmont and there is also an example at the German Occupation Museum.
The fitting of tank turrets to fixed fortifications is reported in a number of the M.I. 19 interviews with successful escapees. One example is an interview with Hubert who escaped in August 1943. Interview is in the National Archives as M.I.19 (R.P.S) 1742
This refers to a turret at the bunker near the current site of the Guernsey Yacht ClubSited at the St Sampson Harbour entrance
The Tank museum has a great short video about the tanks that you can watch below.
Char B1
The next tanks arrived in 1942 were Char B1 Bis of Panzerabteilung 213. These were a much better tank being of much more modern construction and armament. For Panzerabteilung 213 this was to be somewhat academic as they were the only German panzer group to never see action during the war!2
In 1940 during the battle for France these were seen as a well respected, well armoured and armed tank. They were however dogged by high fuel consumption and low speed. They had a top speed of only 16 mph. Limited range and slow speed were not of course a hindrance in the relatively small Channel Islands.
A total of thirty six Char B1 bis of various different versions were sent to Guernsey and Jersey. Four command tanks, twenty four normal tanks, and ten of the flamethrower equipped tanks. These were split evenly between the two islands.2
The flamethrower version replaced the lower 75mm gun in the hull with a flamethrower.
A short history of this Char B1 is in the video below.
Not a Tank!
Now those of you that follow me on Twitter may have seen some banter about #NotATank. Whilst this article is dealing with tanks I thought it would be remiss of me not to include the Panzerjäger 35R Panzerkampfwagen 35R 731(f).
For the avoidance of doubt this was not a tank, it was a self propelled gun, although it was based on the chassis of a Renault R35 tank. The turret was replaced with a fixed superstructure with a Czechoslovak 47mm anti-tank gun. Strangely the superstructure was open topped, you can see the canvas cover in the photograph below, which must have been rather unpleasant for the crew of those that were sent to the freezing conditions of the eastern front!
They did however see service in the Channel Islands so are worthy of a mention here.
From the Jerripedia page. German Renault Panzerjäger 35R Panzerkampfwagen 35R 731(f) Tank Destroyer at Millbrook in Jersey.From the Jerripedia page. German Renault Panzerjäger 35R Panzerkampfwagen 35R 731(f) Tank Destroyer at Millbrook in Jersey.
I will be researching the use of tanks in the Channel Islands some more so will revisit the topic at some future point.
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.
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.
Those of you that live in Guernsey, or have visited will be familiar with the headland at Rousse and will know that there is a Napoleonic era loophole tower and a pier that is used by fisherman and swimmers. The area is also popular with walkers. I suspect that many of the walkers, like the lady that stopped to talk to us a few weeks back, are unaware that they are walking over a former minefield!
There isn’t anything for these walkers to be worried about as the mines were cleared in the immediate months after the war. There are some innocuous reminders of the minefield that you can still see today and most people walking the area are unaware of.
You may be wondering why I picked this particular minefield to write about. When I was at the German war grave cemetery at Fort George in the summer I happened to photograph the grave of Major Friedrich Blaschek. The reason I photographed it was that I wondered what had happened to him.
Following on from this I did some research and I discovered how he had become fatally injured and the bravery of a soldier that tried to save him.
THE ROUSSE MINEFIELD
The Germans had already laid many minefields around the islands but not on the scale that followed the order from Hitler to fortify the islands in October 1941. You can read about the fortification order on the blog post here.
Some eight months prior to the order this notice appeared in the Evening Press.
I was provided with an original map of the minefield by Jersey War Tours and I thought I would go and take a few photographs to illustrate the blog post.
As with many of the existing fortifications on the Channel Islands the Germans strengthened the defences around the existing loophole tower at Rousse.
The minefield chart or “Minenplan” is very detailed and I will use some extracts from it later on so don’t worry if you can’t read all of the detail on the full scale picture below.
The Tellermine whilst primarily being an anti tank mine could also be triggered by someone running. The S mine shown below was particularly nasty, as if you touched one of the horns it would tigger the mine with a delay of a few seconds then it would spring up to waist height before exploding. It would fire 360 steel balls, short steel rods, or scrap metal pieces in all directions. The Americans nicknamed them ‘Bouncing Betty’ because of this.
Below is a picture from March 1942 of the headland taken from a photo reconnaissance Spitfire of the RAF 140 Squadron. One thing you will notice from the 1942 photo is the lack of boats in the bay. If you are familiar with this area you would know that this bay would normally have been full of boats. The reason there are none are because of the escapes that had happened earlier in the occupation which had led all boats having to be moved to St Sampson and St Peter Port harbours.
Major Blaschek was commander of No.1 Pioneer Battalion 319 Infantry Division. His men were responsible for laying the minefield at Rousse and many others around Guernsey.
In his book ‘Achtung’ Minen! Guernsey The History of the German Minefields 1940-45’ – Henry Beckingham includes an extract from two letters to Blaschek’s widow. These letters were written using the accounts of those present at the time of the accident. A précis of what happened is below.
On the 7th November 1941 Blaschek went to inspect the minefield that his men were working on. He noted that his men were not working on the minefield and inspected the fencing surrounding the minefield. He then stepped into the minefield to go and inspect it. This was a fatal mistake as, unbeknownst to him, the minefield had been made live the previous day.
You may have spotted in the mine chart images above that the minefield had been signed off as ‘unlocked’ or ‘armed’ by Lieutenant Kias on 6.11.41.
Snip from the mine chart showing that it had been signed off In the other corner of the mine chart (translated with Google Translate) it notes that the safety pins have been handed over to Guernsey command.
Having stepped into the minefield he soon set off an ‘S mine’. He was rescued from the minefield by Hauptfeldwebel (Company Sergeant Major) Schulz. Despite the badly wounded Blaschek repeatedly telling him not to enter the minefield he did so and succeeded in rescuing Blaschek who had been unable to move more than a few steps after stepping on the mine. Schulz received a commendation for this.
Blaschek was taken to hospital and initially it was thought that he would survive. Indeed he was visited by a number of men from his battalion before he was operated on. As the operation proceeded it became apparent that his wounds were much more severe than first thought. He died at eight pm, aged thirty six, during the operation without regaining consciousness.
He was buried at Fort George with full military honours. Blaschek was far from the first or last minefield casualty in the Channel Islands.
I hope you have enjoyed the blog. As part of the fortification order a large number of further minefields were to be laid. I am going to be writing a blog covering minefields across the Channel Islands in general in the future.
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.
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 night of 8/9th of March 1945 the German occupying forces in the Channel Islands launched a raid on the French port at Granville. The port was in the hands of the Allies and is situated in the Manche department of Normandy.
There is an excellent article with maps and photographs which is linked further down this blog post which I recommend reading for a detailed understanding of the raid. Before you do I thought I would share a few bits of information that may be of interest.
Whilst the raid was initially planned by Rudolf Graf von Schmettow it was his successor as the islands Kommandant, Vice-Admiral Huffmeier who took the credit. Huffmeier is notable for having previously commanded the battle cruiser Scharnhorst.
The raid took place just two months before the end of the war. There are many reasons suggested for why they mounted the raid. A morale boost for the garrison in the Channel Islands and an attempt to steal much needed supplies are just two of the suggestions. They also succeeded in taking a large number of prisoners back to Jersey.
They liberated some German POWs although some decided that they would rather stay put and promptly did a runner to surrender again rather than end up on the Channel Islands.
Below is the report on the raid that the German forces made the Guernsey Evening Press publish.
Report on the raid – Guernsey Evening Press 12 March 1945 – Important to remember that the German forces controlled the output of the paper and used it for propaganda
In his report to the Historical Division, Group West, written in May 1948 Rudolf Graf von Schmettow outlined what happened. Extracts below.
The detailed article about the raid produced by Jersey War Tours is here and is well worth a read. It includes period photographs as well as modern photographs, maps, documents and in depth analysis.
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