Whilst researching material for another blog post I came across a newspaper article about Corporal John Dennis, Royal Army Service Corps. This article tells the story of how he managed to evade detection by the German authorities for the entire five years of the occupation of the Channel Islands.
His reason for appearing in this article was because he had been invited back to Ramsgate, where he had been previously based in 1940, after returning from Dunkirk. Dennis was bringing a message of thanks for the Red Cross parcels that were received by Channel Islanders.1
Dennis was at home in Guernsey, on leave, when the Germans arrived. I have previously written about visitors that found themselves caught up in the occupation of the Channel Islands, but not military personnel. You can find that blog post here.
There were other military personnel home on leave who were caught up in the capture of the islands and they were taken prisoner and held at Castle Cornet before being sent to P.O.W. Camps in Germany.
Dennis had other ideas. When the enemy arrived he burnt his battledress and wore civilian clothes. He appeared on the “other ranks casualty list” in September 1940 as missing.
WO417/18 Casualty Lists (Other Ranks) 304-322 page 20 held at the National Archives.
By 1941 he appeared on a list of the missing circulated around POW Camps to try and locate missing personnel.
I was intrigued by the newspaper article as I had never heard of anyone doing this, and had not heard of John Dennis. Having asked around it seemed that nobody else had heard of this story either, apart from one possible post war lead that turned out to be a dead end.
I checked the many books and publications that I have and still turned up nothing, other than a Private who presented himself at the Royal Hotel to meet with Lieutenant-Colonel Stoneman of Force 135 on 9 May 1945. That was Private Le Goupillot, who had initially been detained by the Germans for eleven weeks in 1940, before being released back into the civilian population due to ill health.2
One of the regular readers of the blog is Alan Dennis so, although a long shot, I asked him if by any chance John Dennis was a relative. It turned out he wasn’t a relative but Alan had been told about Dennis by his Grandmother. His Grandmother had lived near where John Dennis lived during a large part of the occupation.
This spurred me on to find out more, armed only with the newspaper article this wasn’t going to be easy. My next port of call were the ever helpful staff at the Island Archives to see if they knew anything of Corporal Dennis. They didn’t know of a Corporal Dennis but they did have a registration form for a John Dennis.
They pulled out the documents for me and I went along to see what leads they would give me. Having looked at his registration documents I noted that he had a wife Adèle Dennis with whom he seems to have lived for part of the occupation. Having found her registration form in the same folder I was able to ascertain that, whilst she now had British nationality, she was originally from Austria.
John Dennis shown from the picture on his registration form held at the Island Archives.
The documents held at the archives reveal that he moved around a lot during the early part of the Occupation, although remaining in St Peter Port. Living at Truchot House, Le Truchot, then 29 Havelet, 29 Hauteville, 4 Sir William Place and then 3 Vauvert Terrace.
After this he was looked after by a Scotswoman for the remainder of the occupation and lived in Mount Durand. Initially at 1 Mount Durand from July 1943 then at 2 Mount Durand from 28 December 1943. Curiously in the article in the newspaper he says that the he was looked after by a Scottish lady for the whole five years.
For five years I was cared for by a Scotswoman at Mount Durand, Guernsey, and had it not been for her great help I probably could not have fooled the Nazis.
Cpl. John Dennis – Interview with the Thanet Advertiser & Echo, Tuesday 12 June 1945
One thing that nobody picked up on, or if they did they didn’t act on it, was that on his registration form he had entered the date of leaving the British Army as 8 July 1940, some 8 days after the Germans had occupied Guernsey.
Extract from John Dennis’s registration form from 1940. Held at the Island Archives.
At various points throughout the occupation the Germans were convinced that there were British soldiers hiding here, particularly after commando raids. They were successful in rounding up all that didn’t escape after the raids. Dennis and those that helped him were putting themselves at great risk. They risked being deported to camps in mainland Europe or worse shot.
His updated registration form dated 22 December 1942 lists him as judicially separated from his wife and and working as a lorry driver for for a German firm Ruby. You may be wondering why he is working for a German firm. Frankly those that lived in the Channel Islands had little choice as if they refused they would imprisoned, not be able to obtain food or escape the island. Unlike France they couldn’t disappear from the area.
The form had a number of slips attached to it updating details of where he worked and lived. From October 1943 until February 1944 he worked as a labourer for the German Forces. After this he became a docker working for Blum & Co until November 1944 when he returned to being a labourer.
The report in the Thanet Advertiser & Echo records that he told their reporter “a harrowing story of the misery he had seen, and experienced himself, and some of the details of the Germans’ behaviour are so revolting that they are unprintable”.
The remainder of the article tells of the hardships faced by the civilian population. He talks about the difficulties in obtaining food and that the Red Cross ship Vega delivering food saved many from starvation. I wrote about that in a blog post here.
I also found a small article which recorded him talking about the cost of obtaining rabbits and chickens on the black market being £20. That is the equivalent of £1,105 at the time of writing this in May 2023.
As well as shortages of everyday items medicines had all but run out. As a result of this he reports having had twenty two teeth extracted without anaesthetic.
He appears again on the casualty lists from July to August 1945 as reported not missing.
WO417/95 Casualty Lists (Other Ranks) 24 July 1945 to 14 August 1945 page 6 held at the National Archives.
The article finishes by providing the address that he was staying at and inviting those Channel Islanders in England seeking news of relatives to contact him.
So what else do we know about Corporal Dennis? Sadly the answer to that is not a lot. If you are reading this and are by any chance related to him or know something about his time in Guernsey or the Scottish lady that helped him I would love to know more.
Massive thanks to the following people for their assistance with locating information on Corporal Dennis.
Alan Dennis for passing on the story that his grandmother had told him about this gentleman which spurred me on to keep looking.
The team at Island Archives for searching their records to see what they could find on anyone called John Dennis. This enabled me to find more about who he was, where he lived, and what he did.
Pierre Renier for tracking down the service number of Dennis and that he had appeared in a casualty list as missing and then a later list as no longer missing. This helped me to track down some more information.
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.
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.
Lord Portsea was a colourful character and frankly must have been viewed by the British Government as a bit of a nuisance. The octogenarian was a fervent champion of the plight of the Channel Islands population, those that had been evacuated, those that were serving in the armed forces and those that remained behind in the Channel Islands. Despite this I would venture to suggest that many Channel Islanders alive now would be unaware of what he achieved and how he helped the islands.
If you are old enough to remember Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” then you will understand that this is a bit of a “What did Lord Portsea ever do for us apart from….” rather than the Romans. If you don’t remember Monty Python this is the relevant bit!
Some might say that he did more for the Channel Islands than any member of the House of Lords since the end of the war. There were others in the Lords that raised the issue of the Channel Islands from time to time but none were as vociferous and persistent as Portsea.
Some of the suggestions of action that he called on the government to take were quite sensible and others a little more fanciful. His suggestions included using POWs to sail a ship with aid to Guernsey or some women who had volunteered to do so, a force of Channel Islanders to go and recapture the islands and a few more. More of those suggestions later. Some of his suggestions really did help.
He was absolutely furious that the Channel Islands had been surrendered and declared in the House of Lords that he would go to liberate the islands himself if he could despite being 80. He viewed the surrender of the islands as an act of cowardice or ‘poltroonery’ as he put it. He also viewed it as a risk that the axis countries would think that they might surrender other parts of the British Empire just as easily.
I am an old man, but I do not imagine that because the sands of life are running out those sands are less hallowed. They are hoarded with miserly care. But I say to this House with all honesty that if I could go tomorrow to submit to the bombardment with any chance whatever of recovering those islands, I would go, I would go today.
Lord Portsea’s speech in the House of Lords – as reported in Daily News (London) – Friday 02 August 1940.
He made sure that the plight of Channel Islanders was not lost in the media or Government circles. One imagines that if he had been alive in the age of social media, he would have been all over it. If we were to compare his campaign in the media of the 1940s with the current position of social media campaigns on behalf of Ukraine it would probably have been very similar.
Whilst talking about social media thanks to Dan Girard for reminding me on the local Facebook history group “Guernsey Days Gone By” that Lord Portsea was worth writing some more about.
If you are familiar with the constitutional position of the Channel Islands, we aren’t part of the United Kingdom, you will know that we don’t have an official representative in the House of Lords. If you aren’t familiar with the constitutional position and want to know more you can find it here. You are probably wondering why I gave the article the title I did given this situation all will be revealed in this post. Before we get into what he did I will set the scene with a bit about Portsea himself.
Who was he?
Sir Bertram Falle. Bart. chose the title of Lord Portsea of Portsmouth when he was created a peer in the New Year’s Honours list in 1934. His connection with the Channel Islands was that he was born and educated in Jersey.
He then went on to a career as a lawyer, judge and politician before being elevated to the Lords. He had also fought in the First World War and gained the rank of Major in the Royal Field Artillery.
At the outbreak of the war in 1939 he was two months away from his 80th Birthday.
He was known not to be a fan of the motor car and was the last member of either House of Parliament to arrive by carriage and pair. He had several carriages and disposed of the last one in in July 1942.
Lord Portsea being drive out of Old Palace Yard at the Houses of ParliamentPortsmouth Evening News – Saturday 18 July 1942Georgie and Ginger outside the house in Eaton Square, London c 1935
Anger & concern
At the top of the blog I mentioned that he was angry about what he viewed to be a cowardly act of leaving the islands undefended. You will find further down the blog quotes of his very eloquent speeches which illustrate quite how angry he was about the situation.
He was quick out of the blocks to speak on the subject and cause a fuss in the House of Lords just days after the islands were occupied. You can read about that here on my blog post from earlier this year.
This was followed by him expressing concern over the RAF bombing of the airport in Guernsey in August 1940 and lack of information available in respect of this.
Belfast News-Letter – Saturday 17 August 1940Sunday Mirror 11 August 1940 – Reporting on the 9 August Raid.
In January 1941 he again raised his concerns about the Government treatment of the Channel Islands.
Aberdeen Press and Journal – Wednesday 29 January 1941
As time went on he became particularly annoyed at the difficulty in communication between those in the UK and their friends and family who were still in the Channel Islands. I wrote a blog post about these difficulties which you can find here.
Hampshire Telegraph – Friday 14 February 1941
Now the eagle eyed among you will have noticed that his “telegram” would have actually been a short Red Cross message. Miss Falle was of course his younger sister who was still in Jersey.
Portsea continued to campaign for the islands to receive food aid and to reiterate the impact of the lack of information had on the morale of Channel Islands men serving in the armed forces.
Belfast Telegraph – Wednesday 22 April 1942
He even offered to supply a ship and would take it there himself.
Hampshire Telegraph – Friday 24 April 1942
By September 1942 he had written an article for the Weekly Dispatch (London) – which was published on Sunday 6th September 1942. His article again drew attention to the history of the Channel Islands, their connection with the Crown and the information he had about conditions. You can read it below.
His frustration continued in October 1942 at the news of deportations from the Channel Islands to internment camps on mainland Europe, again referring to the abandonment of the islands.
The Scotsman – Friday 09 October 1942
He continued to raise the prospect of food being sent to help the Channel Islands. Accused of being hysterical and that any aid would aid the enemy he was still ignored. He raised the prospect of women sailing ships to the islands.
Daily Mirror – Friday 19 March 1943
He compared the dropping of food parcels to Belgium with the fact they were unwilling to do so for British subjects in the Channel Islands.
The Scotsman – Wednesday 02 June 1943
Following D-Day he became even more concerned about the situation in the islands and when they might be liberated. Proposing a force of Channel Island troops to liberate the Islands. Now what he wouldn’t have been aware of was that there had already been plans to liberate one or all of the Islands that had been discounted for various reasons. You can read about them Operation Attaboy and Operation Blazing. There were also further plans under way which had begun as Operation Rankin and became Operation Nest Egg the ultimate liberation of the Islands.
Liverpool Daily Post – Wednesday 21 June 1944
He later raised the question of whether the Government would give the German garrison an opportunity to surrender. What is interesting is the timing of this question as he raised it just a matter of days after an attempt to get the garrison to surrender had been made. Major Chambers had attempted to negotiate a surrender, at great risk to himself which you can read about here on 22 September 1944.
The Scotsman – Thursday 05 October 1944
In January 1945 he had another falling out with Lord Munster in the House of Lords.
The Scotsman – Wednesday 31 January 1945
Following the liberation of the Channel Islands the King was welcomed to the House of Lords where he replied to the speeches given and acknowledged as noted in the article below.
Northern Whig – Friday 18 May 1945
What did he achieve?
Whilst some of his ideas were somewhat fanciful and not achievable he did manage some significant achievements.
His constant harrying of the government around the food situation in the Channel Islands undoubtedly helped with the eventual U-turn by the British Government in 1944 over the policy of not allowing food to be provided. See my post about “Let’em starve. No fighting. Let them rot at their leisure.”
Earlier on in the war, in May 1942, he managed to save the Channel Islands Monthly Review which was an extremely important publication to those Channel Islanders that were outside of the Islands. Many of them were spread across the UK and also away serving in the forces.
If you can imagine going from small closeknit island communities and then being spread across the United Kingdom, let alone the World, with none of the modern methods of communication for five years then you may begin to understand the importance of the publication.
LORD PORTSEA My Lords, I beg to ask the starred question that stands in my name. [The question was as follows: To ask his Majesty’s Government whether they are aware that the Stockport Channel Island Monthly Review has been ordered to cease publication on the ground of shortage of paper, and if they are aware that this small monthly publication is of great interest to Norman Islanders (of whom many are in His Majesty’s Forces) and whether the order can be rescinded.] LORD TEMPLEMORE My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend the Minister of Works and Buildings, I have been asked to reply. The Stockport Channel Island Monthly Review first appeared in May, 1941. The printing or publication in the United Kingdom of new periodicals has been prohibited since August, 1940, on account of the shortage of paper. It has been necessary to refuse permission to publish many new periodicals, including a number for circulation among persons in the Forces or affected by the war, and I regret that it is not possible to make an exception in the present case.
Hansard 12 May 1942 – Questions in the House of Lords
Now Portsea was not going to be fobbed off so easily and brought the matter back to the House again on 20th May 1942.
The review is the only real link between thousands of islanders who are serving His Majesty, their homes, their wives and their children. I have had a large number of letters from every part of the United Kingdom asking me to bring this matter before your Lordships.
He went on to share his anger at the treatment of Channel Islanders and how they were being treated differently to POWs.
The Government state that the review is not to be allowed to continue because it has not been in being within certain dates, that is to say, within two years; and yet a brand new magazine has had its first issue with Government sanction this very month—the first issue of a “new special monthly journal” to be sent free of charge to all those who are eligible for it. It is called The Prisoner of War. It was inaugurated in a fine speech by a Scot. He says:
“Loss of freedom is hard to bear to those who have lived as free men in a free country.”
Who so free as the Norman islander, a free man, a freeholder; no serf blood in his veins, not a drop! A free man with a thousand years of history, his soil untainted by the foot of a conqueror till now, when the Government have handed him over to the Germans, not for any fault of his own, not because he did not want to fight. As he says:
“It is hard for those who wait at home, aye, and fight, to go cheerfully to their daily tasks, knowing that someone dear to them is a prisoner.”
Now the people of these islands are, from my point of view, truly prisoners, not because they gave themselves up—oh, no!—not because they were unwilling to fight—the thousands now fighting prove that—not because they wished to give in, not because they were hands-uppers—we know how the Boers despised their hands-uppers—but because a Government of their own blood handed them over to the Germans. Surely they have a claim to decent treatment. Abandoned, deserted and betrayed, to cover up that shame some red herring is introduced, and they are spat upon.
His eloquent and staunch stance on the need for the continued publication of the Review undoubtedly saved it. The image gallery below shows an example of the publication.
The Lord Portsea Gift Fund provides financial help for educational training, re-training or specialised equipment to young people who want to further their careers in the United Kingdom armed services or the civil services in Jersey or the United Kingdom.
I hope you have found this an interesting account of a champion of the Channel Islands who often gets overlooked when it comes to the Occupation of the Channel Islands. Lord Portsea passed away on 1 November 1948 at his sister’s home in Jersey.
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.
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.
Having caused a bit of a kerfuffle in various history forums and on social media, particularly locally, with my look at Churchill’s “Let’em Starve” comment, see here if you missed it, I thought I would follow up with a look at the proposed warning to the commander of the Channel Islands in March 1945.
Churchill’s comment was made in September 1944 based on information available at the time to the British Government. Their concern being that any relief effort for the civilian population would lead to the Germans taking additional food supplies from the islands. This would of course result in no improvement of the position of the civilian population of the islands but would improve the position of the occupying forces.
The British Government did of course change their mind later in 1944 and allowed the International Red Cross to send supplies following an appeal from the Bailiffs of Jersey and Guernsey. The International Red Cross ship the SS Vega made five trips to the Islands prior to the liberation in May 1945. The first arriving in Guernsey on 27 December 1944. A further visit was made in June 1945 after the liberation.
The ship delivered food parcels designed to supplement the meagre food supplies of Islanders. The parcels were designed to provide an additional 462 calories a day. To give some context that is the equivalent of eating two Snickers bars or slightly less than one Big Mac.
The Germans managed a few flights after D-Day bringing in limited supplies by air. The first of which arrived on 11 October 1944.
Western Morning Press 12 October 1944
As the war on mainland Europe progressed the supply line became longer and longer. Eventually these limited flights, if they made it through, required a round trip of almost 1.000 miles. I will be blogging about these flights in the future.
If you want to understand how cut off the Channel Islands were after D-Day and haven’t read it yet I wrote about it on the post below.
So having set the scene we fast forward to March 1945 when the War Cabinet were considering the position as it stood then. The Channel Islands remained essentially cut off from supplies from anywhere except from those flights and the International Red Cross.
By this time the commander of the Channel Islands was Vizeadmiral Friedrich Hüffmeier a thoroughly nasty individual who was an ardent Nazi. You can read about the extreme lengths he went to and the trouble he caused in the blog below.
Given the above serious consideration was given to sending a message to him that if he were to neglect his obligations to the civilian population he would be treated as a war criminal. A warning had been given in September 1944 about their obligations under the Geneva Convention as an occupying force.
Having considered the report, which you can read below, the War Cabinet decided on the 28th March 1945 not to issue the warning.
The rationale being that there was no information from the International Red Cross officials that the civilian population had their Red Cross supplies interfered with. The other consideration was that the Germans would point out that the offer to the British Government of evacuation of Channel Islanders not of military age in September 1944 would be thrown back at them. Have a read of the document below for the full detail.
Hopefully the above will shed a bit more light on why they did not pursue this course. It does of course not answer the debate of whether he should have been treated as a war criminal for other actions. That is a blog for another day.
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.
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 27th September 1944 Churchill is reputed to have scrawled a note on the bottom of a report put forward to the War Cabinet “Let’em starve. No fighting. Let them rot at their leisure.” A picture of the report is at the end of this blog post.
The report was produced following a request from the Germans to arrange the evacuation of all of the civilian population of the Channel Islands with the exception of men of military age. Rather than do this or mount any form of operation to liberate the islands the British Government reminded the German authorities of their responsibility under the Geneva Convention to adequately feed the population.
Over the years this has become a very controversial comment with various historians and islanders interpreting it differently. Some felt that he meant just the German garrison, others felt that he meant both the garrison and the islanders.
The aspect that is always focused on is the lack of food and Churchill’s refusal to allow a supply of the islands with food. The rationale for this was that it was felt that the Germans would take the food for themselves. The islands effectively formed a prisoner of war camp which didn’t require guards but meant that a large force of German resources were tied up there rather than being able to be deployed in mainland Europe.
At the time the Islands were caught in a pocket and effectively under siege.
Illustrated London News Feb 1945
There are some factors that don’t seem to have been taken into account by some commentators. Most notably that Churchill’s comment was made days after an attempt to get the Germans to surrender. They had however refused to even entertain the idea. One would imagine that he would have taken this into account in making his assessment.
This first attempt to achieve a surrender by direct negotiation happened on 22 September 1944. Having secured the assistance of a high ranking German officer, who had been captured in 1943, Major Chambers boarded an R.A.F. launch at Carteret and proceeded towards Guernsey under a white flag. I have read a number of differing accounts of this and decided to go back to primary sources to establish exactly what happened.
The intention was that Chambers would meet with von Schmettow and invite him to come and meet the German officer understandably said he was not willing to go ashore or aboard a German vessel. The German officer is only identified in the reports of the raid as Mr Black. Subsequent to earlier accounts being written it is now believed that Mr Black was in fact Gerhard Bassenge. He was captured in North Africa in 1943 and spent time in Trent Park a luxurious camp for high-ranking prisoners. They were kept in luxury because it meant they would talk freely amongst themselves without realising that the British were listening through hidden microphones.
Letters had been dropped to arrange a meeting off the south coast of Guernsey. On arriving at the rendezvous point they found no German vessel waiting to meet them. Chambers decided that they should proceed to St Peter Port and try to make contact. On approaching St Peter Port a German vessel, not under a white flag, approached them. Extracts from the official report about what happened next
This was certainly a brave effort by Major Chambers, who received a DSO for his actions. You can read the full account of it here
If they had decided to surrender they could have saved the islanders and their own personnel from a terrible winter of hunger and deprivation.
Eventually following an appeal from the Bailiffs of Jersey and Guernsey an International Red Cross ship the SS Vega made five trips to the Islands prior to the liberation in May 1945. The first arriving in Guernsey on 27 December 1944. A further visit was made in June 1945.
The ship delivered food parcels designed to supplement the meagre food supplies of Islanders. The parcels were designed to provide an additional 462 calories a day. To give some context that is the equivalent of eating two Snickers bars or slightly less than one Big Mac.
SS VEGA in St Peter Port Harbour Image from BBC.co.ukNewcastle Journal – 31 January 1945
Without these food parcels things could have been much worse. If you want to read more about the food situation from a German soldier’s perspective go to my previous blog here . For a civilian view point I blogged about the doctor’s story here .
The report with Churchill’s comment scrawled on the bottom.
Whatever the true reason or reasons were some islanders held it against Churchill for the rest of their lives.
You may be reading this and wondering why the Channel Islands were not retaken by force. There are a multitude of reasons but first and foremost the loss of life that would have occurred amongst the civilian population would have been immense. It would also have mean’t that a vast amount resources would be taken away from the main front on mainland Europe. That is a blog for another day.
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.
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.
This is the story of Richard Brook Sutcliffe a doctor and surgeon who lived through the occupation of Guernsey in the Channel Islands 1940 to 1945. He was known as Brook to his friends. The interview conducted by Conrad Wood for the Imperial War Museum provides a great insight into many aspects of the occupation of Guernsey 1940-45. If you want to listen to the interview it is here
This post comes with a warning that some of what he describes may be upsetting to some as he details some unpleasant things he witnessed. No individuals are named in the more unpleasant parts for obvious reasons.
He came to visit the Island in 1937 and was so taken with the place that he accepted the offer of becoming a partner in a local doctors practice.
A friend of mine, who was a surgeon, Simpson Smith, who was also a great friend of Dr. Montague, who was also in practice in Guernsey and he was looking for a partner.
He came to ask me whether I would consider coming over as they wanted somebody over here to join him. I came over here to have a look round and I was so much taken with it that I came over here and settled in practice with my wife and then three small children, which being in 1937, was just two years before we were occupied.
He recalls little of the evacuation of the Island other than his wife and three children travelling to England. His other recollection is interesting is the quandary that doctors living in the Islands faced at the time of evacuation.
It was difficult then to decide how many doctors we would need in the island, because that would depend upon entirely upon the number of people we had left in the island.
So we formed a committee, which consisted of Dr. Kerry, who was at that time a very highly respected one of our practitioners in Guernsey, Dr. Montague who was my senior partner and myself, and when anybody wish to leave the island, then they had to appear in front of that committee.
We would decide whether or not they could leave the island. Unfortunately, I’m not going to mention any names here, but unfortunately, despite the wishes of the committee, with regard to certain doctors, three of them left without our permission.
Newspaper announcing evacuation of Children
Unlike the doctors he doesn’t recall any of the nurses leaving the Island. I will be blogging about a nurses experience at a later date.
All the the people in charge of the nursing home and the hospital they all congregated into the country hospital which we then converted into what was known as emergency hospital and remained there of course.
During the height of the war they did a wonderful job of work. The person in charge of it was matron Hall who was the person in charge of the Victoria Hospital and of course we had the sisters who were in charge of the maternity hospital they ran that and I can’t speak too highly of the word they did. Absolutely wonderful.
When recalling the bombing of St Peter Port on 28th June 1940 he doesn’t recall much of the raid itself more the aftermath.
The only thing I remember is the noise that went on and the fact that we were at the hospital to receive the casualties.
We had people with abdominal wounds. We had people with legs, badly injured. We had every type of injury that you would expect. Somewhere between 30 and 35 of them.
Dr. Gibson, who was in the other surgeon in the Island and myself ran a theatre there and we did the majority of the operations during that night. We started the 10 o’clock at night and we finished at 10 o’clock the next morning, but we did have a small break for breakfast.
Two days after the raid he saw the Germans for the first time. They drove down the Grange as he was talking to his neighbour and friend outside of his house.
Jack Martel who was a lawyer over here a great friend of mine lived nearly opposite me. I lived in the Grange then in house which is now Kleinwort Benson and we were standing outside when the Germans drove past.
They’d just landed and they drove past in the police car, an old Wolseley. Jack said to me “Well Brook, they are here at last now” and I said “they are here at last Jack” and later on he said to me, do you know after we were liberated, he said to me “Brook do you remember the occasion when we were standing outside your house and the Germans came down and I said to you “well they are here at last and you said to me something. Do you remember what it was?” I said no. “You said to me well, I suppose Jack there’ll be here for anything up to five years. Which was exactly the time they were here.” I mean they weren’t here for a short time. We knew that I mean to take that length of time to get rid of them.
The house that he lived in and referred to as now being Kleinwort Benson has subsequently become the headquarters for Healthspan. The building has been extended to make office space and is on the Grange which is the main road into St Peter Port.
During the occupation he witnessed some awful things. One of his first interactions with them, other than seeing in the street, was being called to a patient who had been robbed and raped.
Well, the first impression I had of them was went in my meeting with the Major Müller who was then in charge of the the German forces when they arrived and I think I was one of the very few civilians who ever came in contact with him.
That was due to the fact that there was a patient of mine there were two sisters who run ran a sort of preparatory school in the island. They were both around about the age of 70. I had an emergency call to go to see them because one of them had been raped. They’d both been robbed and one of them been raped by a German soldier.
When I arrived, Mr. Sherwill was there, who was I think the Procureur. He later became the Bailiff Sir Ambrose Sherwill, who was sent away during the war to one of the camps in in Germany. Wonderful Bailiff, he was a wonderful man. When they knew that this person had been raped, of course a Major Müller was sent for and when he was told that this woman had been raped, he was absolutely livid. I’ve never seen a man so angry in my life. And he immediately summoned the whole of the forces to parade, he discovered the man with the missing revolver.
The following morning, I was sent for by the Germans, they collected me at my house, under armed escort with Mr. Sherwill, we were driven to the airport, where we were placed in a cottage on the perimeter of the airport to await the court martial.
We were then taken into the court martial and we gave our evidence. We were told that they would then return to tell us the verdict and we were then taken back to the cottage.
We were then taken back to the the court martial and we were told that he had been found guilty and he would be shot and would we like to see him shot. We told them we’d no desire to see anybody shot and to the best of my knowledge, he was then taken out onto the airport and shot.
Photo of from the Axis History Forum of Generalmajor Erich Müller
Müller was feared by his men and eventually shipped off to the eastern front, captured by the Russians and held in a POW camp until 19552.
It would seem that the doctor is correct that his sort of attack wasn’t that common as recalled in a post war report on policing.
It was very unusual to hear a soldier whistle after a woman in the street and during the whole period we only had two cases of rape – one occurred within the first week of the Occupation, and he was sentenced to death, the other some years later. We reported the facts to the German Police. The man was arrested and sentenced to five years imprisonment. He appealed and the sentence was changed to 8 years.
He notes that initially that health was pretty good and explains it as being because of the lack of alcohol and cigarettes. His reference to lack of alcohol and cigarettes is taken to be a reference to a restricted availability rather than none being available at all. Islanders improvised when tobacco became scare and either started growing it themselves or drying other leaves to use a substitute.
Whilst many accounts focus on what some called the ‘Hunger Winter’ of 1944/45 after the Normandy landings in June 1944 it is important to note that the lack of food had a serious impact some two years before this.
The interviewer asks about a picture he has been shown of a patient.
I have in front of me one of your photographs from the occupation of a patient’s lying in hospital and the patient really looks like somebody from the Belsen concentration camp and you’ve put on the back that this person was admitted on the 13th of May 1942.
So the starvation started as early as that, there were starvation cases well before the islands were cut off by the Normandy invasions?
Conrad Wood
He responds that they were very short of food and that it was the elderly that suffered the most. They were dropping like flies. The patient referred to in the photograph weighed just six stone five. In kilos that is just 40.5!
There’s nothing to do nothing at all. We had no food to give them. They were beyond doing anything.
I suppose under modern conditions where you had everything that you could give them that’s a very different kettle of fish. But then don’t forget we were we were isolated with nothing at all. We no antibiotics we had nothing.
We had to improvise, as I said, the present medical profession would think we were prehistoric. We managed it’s surprising what you can do you know what you got to do it.
He goes on to explain that this was an Island wide problem and that the lack of food was enough for a patient to die.
Particularly the old people, those people who couldn’t get anything on the black market or anything like that you see. They’re very independent you know. The Guernseyman is a very independent sort of person.
I have mentioned the fiercely independent nature and stubbornness and hence why to this day we are still known as “Guernsey Donkeys”.
It wasn’t just the Islanders that were suffering malnutrition during the occupation. Especially during the later stages the Germans were also suffering.
If you had a dog or a cat and you let it out at night it never came back in the morning because the Germans got hold of it killed it and ate it.
That’s the stage they were at. People had to put their cattle in at night for the fear of the Germans would go out and kill them and slaughter them. They were in a pretty poor state as well.
It got to the stage where the Germans were having to send out soldiers to guard locals crops and livestock. You can read more about the impact of the ‘Hunger Winter’ on my previous blog post of A German Soldier’s experience here.
Dr Sutcliffe wrote in April 1944 about the need to balance meat production, milk production, the health of the population, and future sales of cattle post war.
To sacrifice the general public in order to maintain a high standard of Island cattle for presumed post-war sale is nothing short of criminal …
Desirable as it may be to maintain a good Island stock, I consider it more desirable to maintain the population, and I am sure that this view would be shared by the many people who have been evacuated. They would rather come back to be greeted by a healthy relative than by a large and healthy herd of Guernsey cows.
Charles Cruickshank notes in his book that Admiral Hüffmeier, who succeeded von Schmettow as Commander-in-Chief of the Islands in February 1945, saw the dairy herds as the saviours of the Wehrmacht. Hüffmeier was determined to hold out for the Führer. He famously said to the Bailiff of Jersey Coutanche that he would hold out until “You and I are eating grass”.
He had no doubt that the garrison could hold out longer if the production of milk, butter, and cheese was kept up; and he was therefore against the slaughter of cattle to provide even the troops with a meat ration.
He proposed in the interests of the garrison that the civilian milk ration in Jersey should be converted from full to skimmed milk; but Coutanche5 successfully resisted this move.
When asked to explain the impact of the International Red Cross ship SS Vega delivering food during the last six months of the occupation he provides a very good explanation of how important it was.
Terrific. Terrific. It saved the island there’s no doubt about it. The Red Cross saved the island and I’ve got it on my film.
You’ve got film at the war museum of the Vega arriving and I remember that that time writing a letter to the to the local press saying how grateful we must be to the to the Vega for coming in at that stage and saving literally saving the island. I suggested at that time that every time that the Vega came in or whatever Red Cross ship it was that came in that the island should give, the Islanders who got a parcel, should give 10 pounds for every parcel.
They gave to the Red Cross and that would have given an enormous amount of money to the Red Cross people for literally coming and saving the lives of the islanders. I don’t know what they collected. I have no idea.
He recalls that he tried to limit his interactions with the Germans but he like many Islanders had Germans billeted in his house. One day they told him to get out of the house as they were taking it over. Now normally they would have official papers for this but these two didn’t. He therefore took matters into his own hands to get one up on them!
I had two officers put into my house and they behaved reasonably well, I suppose. One morning they came to me and said you must get out we are taking your house over. Now. At that time we had a billeting officer I’m trying to think of his name now major.
Anyway, it was usual. If the Germans took over a house, they would present you with official documents. They were very keen on official documents. You probably know the Germans were and when they came to me and said you must get out of the house. They didn’t present me with any official documents and I said well this is being done by themselves. They’re not doing this officially.
So I rang up a great friend of mine who was in removal man, Mr. Gould and I told him what was happening and he said, ‘right I will be around first thing in the morning’ and he turned up with his truck and we took everything out of the house.
I had an Aga cooker. and I rang up Huelins who were then the agents and I told Huelins and they said ‘We’ll be around doctor”. They came and they dismantled my Aga took the whole thing out and they put it in, down in my surgery in New Street, the house which was vacant and had been occupied by Dr. Montague.
So I moved in there and when the Germans got back that night they found nothing in the house. I had a very irate telephone call from them saying ‘you were removed the cooker and the curtains and everything else’. I said well, I understand you have a billeting officer Major Langer. If you get in touch with him, if he gives me orders to return things I will do so. I heard nothing more after that. I concluded they had done it off their own bat and I got away with it.
This type of behaviour by the Germans was not uncommon and there are many references to this behaviour.
We were surrounded by Germans and if they decided they wanted to they would come in and look around the house in case there was anything they wanted, because there were days when if they decided for example they wanted blankets, they would roll up to your house with a van, ring the bell and say right we are confiscating blankets and they’d strip your house of blankets.
Dorothy Hurrel-Langlois
When it comes to the impossibility of armed resistance he sums it up nicely. Although in respect of his thoughts on the Guernsey Underground News Service and Frank Falla I don’t agree with but that is his view point.
There’s no point in it actually and I mean, as I said, in France, you could blow a bridge up and be 50 miles away within an hour or two, but there really was no point.
I think people did silly things in a way we had I think a fellow called Falla who ran an underground newsreader thing, which I think was really quite unnecessary because so many people had crystal sets and sets they’re listened into and he was eventually caught doing this and then he was sent away to Germany to one of the one of the camps.
But news got round and then of course, we had the RAF drop leaflets here. I got the whole lot of them and I think they’re now in possession of the Imperial War Museum. News got round fairly quickly you know.
His views on propaganda produced is in line with all of the other sources that I have read. Very little impact.
When asked about collaboration he at first speaks about it but then says he doesn’t want to bring it up further.
Well, you’re bound to get a certain amount I think, personally, I think the amount of collaboration that went on in Guernsey was minimal. I know a lot of it has been made in this film they’ve had ‘The Swastika over the Channel Islands’, particularly in Jersey. I don’t think it’s done Jersey any good.
I can’t speak for Jersey. I know there were a number of babies, German babies born. It is more than likely I delivered some of them. But you’re bound to get that I mean what would it have been like?
Dammit look at the Americans in England. You’re bound to get that going on in an occupied territory. Look at France look at the whole of the occupied territories in Europe and compare them with the Channel Islands. This is bound to happen and I think to bring it up now is, I’ve no time for it, I’m sorry.
When asked about the experience as a whole he provides an interesting and thought provoking explanation.
I don’t know I suppose. A period of experience I think. In wartime one has to put up with many things that one doesn’t want.
My dear wife who’s now left me (she died before he was interviewed) was over in England with my three young children and I when I look back on it, she was bombed from here to there.
I think that apart from starvation, she’s probably had over a much worse time than I had. In wartime one’s got to put up with the certain things you’ve got to put up with and consider yourself lucky if you get through them. Fortunately, my wife and three children they got through them I got through it but that is war.
His take on the behaviour on the Germans and the occupation as a whole is in my opinion a fair statement given the lack of the more extreme aspects of the occupied European countries.
Could have been a lot worse. They suffered at the end you know, they (the Germans) were starving in the end.
Upon Liberation he used a Ciné-Kodak camera and colour film he had hidden to film the liberation which is above or you can watch the whole film here and the colour footage starts at 5:29.
After the war he continued to serve the Island for many years in a variety of roles. In particular he was instrumental in the development and extensions to the Hospital that still serves the Island today. You can read about this in his Obituary below.
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Many articles and books about the occupation of the Channel Islands focus on local people or those in command of the occupying forces. I thought it might be interesting to share the perspective of a German who was sent to Guernsey in October 1943. Along with my thoughts on his observations and how they compare with experiences of Islanders.
I found an interview, conducted in 1987, whilst looking for something completely different in the Imperial War Museum archive. I must admit I wasn’t planning on writing a German perspective on experiences during the occupation quite this early on. Having listened to the tapes of the interview, researched him some more and considered his comments compared to other accounts I thought it might make for an interesting blog.
As with all interviews conducted many years after the war it is important that we remember that the passage of time may lead to things being forgotten or misremembered. We also have to consider that they may not have been aware of the wider picture. I have therefore added some context from other sources.
Erwin Grubba
Erwin Grubba1 served with the Infantry Regiment 583 minus IId Ben, Grenadier Regt, which had originally been assigned to the Eastern Front. He was immensely relived in late 1943 to be sent west from the Eastern Front. Indeed he described it as “his route to salvation”.
The journey took four weeks to get to France by train travelling in cattle trucks. Eventually arriving in Paris where they were deloused before being allowed to mix with the populace.
Shortly after this he was sent by train to St Malo in Brittany to embark for Guernsey in the Channel Islands. St Malo continues to this day to be the main port for modern ferry links to the Channel Islands from France. The German troops of course did not travel in the comfort that modern day travellers enjoy!
For context the modern route that you would take.
Upon arriving in St Peter Port he first saw a Guernsey policeman looking like a “typical English Bobby” and adverts for Fyffes bananas. This made him feel that he was on to a cushy number compared to his experience of the war so far.
In reality by the time he arrived in October 1943 the bananas wouldn’t have been seen for over three years. He was later to find himself caught in what he described as the hunger winter of 1944/45 following the Normandy Invasion and subsequent fall of Brittany.
He was billeted in the Parish of St Martin on the south coast of the Island but was mostly on duty on the west coast of the Island. The billet was near the headquarters of his unit.
Ordinary routine began which was the usual army routine with stand to in the morning, parades and night duties, most of it being guard duties, shift work.
You went on duty, and manned concrete bunkers at nighttime and you went off again at six o’clock in the morning and took your guard duties as they came. There were drill exercises and a lot of military exercises went on the island to the great annoyance sometimes on the farmers and other locals.
Erwin Grubba
Today that would only be a twelve minute drive but during the occupation, particularly the latter stage, it may have taken much longer because of lack of mechanised transport and fuel.
Some photographs of the Vazon bay area he would have been guarding are in the gallery below. These are all taken by me over the last couple of years and may help to give some context to what follows later.
Erwin found Islanders to be fiercely loyal to the Crown rather than Westminster2. The footnote explains the history behind this. Prayers for the Royal Family continued to be said at church services throughout the occupation. He was frequently reminded that they were Guernsey men and women and not English. They were stubborn in nature and wouldn’t back down from getting their point across. This trait continues and hence the nickname of “Guernsey Donkeys”.
During the interview he recalls that Islanders behaved, on the whole, absolutely correctly and that he wasn’t really aware of any collaboration, although undoubtedly there was some. Islanders had no choice but to sell goods to the occupying forces or have them confiscated or reprisals for failing to comply. This certainly ties in to other accounts that I have seen.
We were surrounded by Germans and if they decided they wanted to they would come in and look around the house in case there was anything they wanted, because there were days when if they decided for example they wanted blankets, they would roll up to your house with a van, ring the bell and say right we are confiscating blankets and they’d strip your house of blankets.
He also notes that the Island authorities and the police force had no choice but to comply in order to limit the impact on the local population.
They had the sense of logic to say well you lads are also here, not because you wanted to come. You were forced to join up and come and occupy the islands. Not because you wanted to and you want to go home as much as we want you to go home.
The farmer that I was friendly with near my billet. always used to say that I love your your singing when you march off in the morning to your exercises but by gum I wish you would go all the same. Because it’d be nice to be free again.
Erwin Grubba
He also mentions that there was no real resistance for fear of reprisals. Whilst it is true that there was no organised armed resistance their were other acts of resistance. Armed resistance would have been pointless on such a small Island as there would have been nowhere to hide and reprisals would have been severe. I will be blogging about resistance but if you want to know more now I highly recommend the Frank Falla archive which can be found here.
Whilst RAF attacks may have caused damage to local properties he still recalls that Islanders openly grinned and gave the thumbs up. They were just pleased to see the RAF. Towards the end locals could often tell if the RAF had been over as there would be leaflets dropped and suddenly some people would have English cigarettes which had been dropped3.
He became friendly with a man who had fought in the Great War and had lost a an arm. He understood that Erwin no more wanted to be here than he wanted him to be here.
I once met a chap who had been wounded he lost his arm and the Battle of Cambrai in the First World War and I stopped him so I could ask the route away to somewhere.
As always I spoke English and then he showed me his hand and he said, Look, I lost that in the first world war against your chaps. My father was there as well. So one we became friends. After that, he said, I know what it’s like, at the second.
Erwin Grubba
His first cup of tea ever that he was given by another acquaintance was unlikely to have been real tea as this was a very precious commodity and nigh on impossible to obtain by the time he arrived in the Island. It was more likely to have been a substitute tea made of leaves of the common bramble that had been dried. I guess if you hadn’t had tea before you wouldn’t know the difference!
I got along very well with them. And of course, very soon when they knew your attitude in any case, as in my case, they became quite friendly.
I mean, I had my first cup of tea with a lady. Her husband was an accountant and they lived on Vazon Bay in a bungalow. They had a little boy who was just about four years old, and she asked me into the house, you know, come in and have a cup of tea, and I sat down had my first cup of tea by a fire side, real fire, you know, the first open fire I had ever seen, being used to living in a Berlin flat and and then we talked about literature and Dickens.
Erwin Grubba
His farmer friend like many others suffered losses of livestock. These losses occurred due to theft, by triggering mines if they wandered into the many mine fields that were laid or explosives rigged on poles in fields to prevent glider landings. Estimates are that there were approximately 71,000 mines laid in Guernsey in around 115 minefields.
Considering that the Island is only twenty five square miles this is a large amount of mines. This doesn’t include the other munitions that were deployed around the Island such as the estimated 1,000 roll bombs on the cliffs of the south coast.
Erwin was responsible for laying some of the mines and for recording their location. The German forces kept meticulous records of their minefields which at least meant that come the end of the war it at least made them easier to clear.
Minefield at L’Eree
He remembers seeing Russians forced to work on fortifications in 1943 and early 1944 but doesn’t recall seeing them after that. That is because many were moved to Alderney or back to France. He also doesn’t recall how they were treated or what their accommodation was like. Suffice it to say after the liberation of the Islands their barracks were burnt down rather than trying to clean them up.
Some of the occupying forces were Georgians. It was very difficult to communicate with them and as time progressed they had their weapons taken away and were assigned low level tasks. This was because of a fear of them turning on the the Germans when they realised they were on the losing side.
Erwin remembers when they heard the attempt to kill Hitler and that he had survived a friend of his expressed his disappointment. A sentiment that seemed quite common amongst the lower ranks as they just wanted the war to end and to go home.
He had to be wary, yet there was a definite anti-war feeling amongst his comrades.
In 1944 I remember when the fellow who read the news said “An attempt has been made on the Fuhrer’s life, but fortunately his life was saved”, whereupon a voice from the ranks said “Oh shit they messed it up
Erwin Grubba
Erwin was lucky as his ability to speak English soon led to him to easier duties than the usual boring guard duties. Radios were confiscated from the civilian population in June 1942 and as Erwin spoke some English he was sent to seek out illicit radios.
His efforts were a lot less diligent than others. He would merely enquire if the householder had a radio and when they replied that they didn’t have a radio he would leave it at that. It is hardly surprising that nobody admitted that they had a radio as the penalty ranged from a fine of up to 30,000 Reichsmarks, six months in prison or deportation to a camp in Europe.
Islanders took great care to hide radios. They were mostly crystal radios that had been constructed following the confiscation of the traditional radios. As these crystal radios were smaller it made them easier to hide. Examples of where they were hidden include in light fittings, books and clocks.
During searches by other German soldiers one woman threw her crystal set into a pan of boiling water to prevent detection and another hid it where no gentleman would look!
The occupying forces were allowed to have radios and had their pick of them from the radios that had been confiscated from Islanders. My great grandparents had a German billeted in their home. He had a radio and would sometimes leave it turned on and tuned to the BBC. He would then announce that he was going for a walk and a smoke so that they could listen to the news.
During the last few months of the war he became reliant on news from the BBC to know what was happening. The local newspapers being controlled by the Germans of course didn’t tell the actual news.
I was privileged knowing that this farmer friend looked after me too. He had a radio in a in a drawer, chest of drawers under some cushions in his bedroom. When I used to come in in the evening after duty, he came down rather sheepishly, and I said, What’s the news today? He said, on the radio or whatever, you know but by that time, we knew we could trust each other. He knew I wouldn’t shop them as I regarded to the whole thing as a joke anyway, looking around houses and just asking for, for radio sets. I mean, nobody will openly admit it anyway, it was a stupid thing to do
Erwin Grubba
Once the news that Brittany had fallen reached the Island he, like many others in the occupying forces, knew the end was nigh. Unfortunately for him and for the Islanders there was no chance of the German authorities in the Channel Islands surrendering until the end of the war. Essentially forcing a siege of the Islands.
Following on from his search for illicit radios he had to undertake other duties during the last winter of occupation or has he described it the “hunger winter” of 1944/45. This winter of food shortages took its toll on both the civilian population and the occupiers. It led to deaths as noted by Erwin and indeed the lasting effects of the suffering during this period led to long term illness and premature deaths of those that lived through it. The extreme food shortages during this winter meant that there was a need to guard the crops in greenhouses and fields.
He spent many evenings sleeping in greenhouses to guard the crops to ensure that they were not stolen by the occupying forces or by locals. He used to sleep in the greenhouses with his MP40 at his feet. Theft was punishable by death if caught and they had orders to shoot anyone attempting to steal if necessary.
In the winter of 1944/45 things were so desperate that even the risk of being shot did not deter thieves and he recalls a German soldier being shot. The lack of food was so great that they had to change their duties to allow them to sleep. Instead of six hours on duty this was reduced to two hours. A staple of their diet by this stage was nettle soup.
My ribs were showing like a key on an accordion. In fact, one day I was on duty with my steel helmet on and probably with the pressure of the helmet I keeled over.
We organised concerts, we had literary readings, even a cabaret to take our minds off things and the hours of duty were cut. For instance there was a compulsory forty winks period in the afternoon after our so-called lunch, which was nettles boiled in seawater. I mean these are all signs of decay aren’t they, when an Army has to do that?
Erwin Grubba
During this time the civilian population suffered severe food shortages and but for the five visits of the International Red Cross ship SS Vega during the last six months of the occupation they would have suffered more. The ship delivered food parcels designed to supplement the meagre food supplies of Islanders. The parcels were designed to provide an additional 462 calories a day. To give some context that is the equivalent of eating two Snickers bars or slightly less than one Big Mac.
During the time following the D-Day invasion and into the last months of the war he knew of three German soldiers that lost all hope and committed suicide.
The more fanatical of his comrades naievly thought that when the Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge) began “this is it they are coming to get us” which of course was never going to happen. The Islands would remain under siege until May 1945.
In the last days of April when Hitler committed suicide, my Farmer friend and his wife had two boys David and Leslie. Little David was the younger one, I had just come off duty and it was about six o’clock in the morning dawn was just arriving and I’d gone to bed.
I hadn’t been in bed five minutes when I was a knock at the window, it was a bungalow. I always had the window open for like to hear the ebb and flow of the sea. His little head poked through the window and he said “Hitler’s dead”. All I did was say “Hooray”, turned over and I slept like a log until midday.
Now I probably was the first one who knew because he had heard it on the BBC and later on of course the army headquarters over the wireless must have got through to us. Then came the official announcement from our captain “we’ve been told that Hitler had died a hero’s death in the Battle of Berlin you know, the usual version, but I knew that at least six or seven hours ahead thanks to little David, from my farmer friend next door.
Erwin Grubba
Islanders started flying flags days before the official surrender to the liberating forces was announced and he knew it was over. This came as a relief to him. He realised that the only way to get rid of the Nazi regime was for Germany to lose the war. He didn’t think of it as a defeat of Germany but the defeat of a regime.
He, like his father, believed a better Germany could come out of the ashes of the war, although, he was later shocked when images of quite how bad the devastation of German cities was. He had of course not received any news from home since shortly after the Normandy landings.
There was bitterness from a few of the unconditional surrender as it had echoes of the end of the Great War.
There had to be total and utter elimination of any traces of the Nazi regime in all shapes and sizes. Having said that, nobody I think at that time, if they had been told that within a very short span of time, there would be a German army again, within the NATO context. You know, nobody would have believed that, they really thought well we all really thought this was a total end of any military form of government or military inside Germany, we would become a totally demilitarised country.
The professionals of course, were glum about it. Obviously, any professional soldier knew it was the end of his career, and they should try to readjust themselves to try and you know, get other jobs. That’s what they did in captivity, studying things even ordinary things like arts and crafts like joinery and pottery and whatnot.
Erwin Grubba
Amongst his comrades there was only small clique of Nazis most were ordinary and just wanted to go home as they were sick of it.
At the end of the war, of course, they knew it was lost, and I talked to one who had been a Hitler youth and of course, he was very glum. He wasn’t a bad lad and he was quite a nice chap. He said to me, so what will happen now is they will grind, grind us to dust, and we will be like slaves.
I said, well, this is you forget, you see, you are thinking of the mentality that you’re brought up to have but you are now facing somebody who does not have that same philosophy. You can’t expect that they will put laurels on your head but at the same time, they will not treat you as you or your Führer would have treated the conquered nations if the war had gone the other way. They were depressed, naturally, I mean their ideas are shattered.
They had really believed in it, you know, to them that must have been a severe blow. But again, that was only a small clique that thought that way. Because the ordinary soldier the ordinary person there was totally sick of it. They wanted to go home that’s all they wanted that so only thought was at the capitulation was well, when can we get home?
Erwin Grubba
Nobody new it would take three years before they get home.
After the initial landing by the allies on May the 9th 1945 it took time to organise what to do with the German forces.
They took their time. It gave us an opportunity with almost a week to 10 days of being on our own. We never saw a Tommy until them and that gave us time to celebrate often in conjunction with the civilians. Really, really well. I had my first magnificent meal me a pig was slaughtered we had cauliflower and cutlets and opened a bottle of wine.
There were stores on the Channel Islands for emergency situations, you know, to the year 2000 to hold out for the Führer. There were concrete bunkers and concrete shafts underground not only for hospitalisation, but also food. When the war was over, all of a sudden now having starved us through the winter they suddenly released tins of fat, tins of liver sausage and bottles of wine, everything they had been hoarding them all through the winter, which would have helped quite a lot of people. So now of course there was the second warning given out instantly be careful and don’t eat too much of it because, I remember in fact, their was a Russian boy, Georgian. He died because of overeating kind of stuffing himself like that.
Erwin Grubba
They certainly took the opportunity to party and celebrate the end of the war in Europe.
I had to be supported by the Sergeant Major on one side and another Corporal on the other to get back to my billet and to my bed, because I had knocked back the wine a bit too much, but we had a great celebration.
Erwin Grubba
His quartermaster wanted to make a list of all their weapons and ammunition but Erwin said just make a pile you are not a soldier now. Some weapons were just thrown down drains or into ditches which explains why in subsequent years many turned up. Whilst waiting for orders they just sat around, there was no drill, and waited to hear from the British.
The delay gave him time to go and say goodbye to his Guernsey friends. His first encounter with the British forces was some eight to ten days later.
Six cyclists from the Royal Artillery in Portsmouth came near our barracks and stopped as they didn’t quite trust us, so I stepped forward, cheeky me as usual and said “How do you do, have you come to collect our weapons?”
“Oh no, we were just told to patrol and see you are behaving yourselves”. I asked one what he did in civvy street and he told me he was a taxi driver, and that was my first encounter with the British forces face to face.
Erwin Grubba
After a few more days they were called to a collection point, The officers were separated from the other ranks and they were marched to the harbour. There they were loaded on to landing craft. They were then taken to England and on to captivity.
One aspect of the interview with Erwin that I find interesting is that he states that the Islanders were lucky that the German administration were not Nazis. Indeed he states that Count Von Schmettow and others were more of the old Junker class of officer. He recalls that many of the officers were well educated including Cambridge and Rhodes scholars. Indeed one who translated the works of former Island resident Victor Hugo into German.
Whilst this is up for debate and may be argued to be the case for Von Schmettow it would seem that Erwin was either unaware of or forgotten that Vice Admiral Friedrich Hüffmeier, former commander of the battleship Scharnhorst, who took over from Von Schmettow was indeed a nasty piece of work. That however is for a future blog!
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