I was pleased to see that the locally produced film “Occupied” can now be watched online for free. This follows it finishing its run of screenings on the film festival circuit It is refreshing to see a film on the subject actually filmed locally and with Guernsey actors!
The short film made by White Rock Productions explores various aspects of the occupation of Guernsey starting with the bombing of the St Peter Port harbour and following the impact on some of the characters. It also uses Guernésiais, our local language, in a short segment. Don’t worry there are subtitles for that bit!
Those of you who are Guernsey based may even have seen some of it being filmed at various places around the Island.
It is well worth twenty one minutes of your time to watch it. The titles at the end are accompanied by Guernsey’s unofficial anthem “Sarnia Cherie”.
If you enjoy this film go give them a follow on Twitter or Facebook as they have other projects.
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This blog post will look at why people were still coming on holiday right up until the days immediately before invasion and what happened to a couple on their honeymoon and a family who chose Guernsey instead of Cornwall.
It may surprise you that even up until mid June 1940 adverts for holidays to the Channel Islands were still being published in British newspapers. What could possibly go wrong?
“Lovely Guernsey for a Restful Holiday” proclaimed the advert in the 13th June 1940 edition of the London paper the Daily News. Just nine days short of the French capitulation the adverts were extolling the benefits of “Golf, Tennis, Bathing, Boating and Fishing.”
The adverts advised that sea services were available from Southampton and air services were “available three times daily from Shoreham. Apply Guernsey Airways, Hudson Place, Victoria Station, S.W.1.”
Adverts like the one below featured in Newspapers across the whole of Britain.
Daily Mirror 1 June 1940
They were of course placed well in advance so it is no surprise that they were still appearing at this point in the war. They had come about because of lobbying by hoteliers across the Channel Islands who in the spring of 1940 were keen not to miss out on their usual stream of visitors. After all in early 1940 it looked like the war would be fought far away from these islands.
Fast forward to June 1940 and you may be wondering did people still travel for holidays given that the Germans were advancing across France at a rapid pace? Especially with the Channel Islands being so close to the French coast.
Given that the British Government kept changing their assessment of whether the Islands would be invaded, sometimes twice in a day, you can’t really blame people for taking a holiday. The deliberations by the Government would not have been public knowledge in any case. Well not until the announcement that they were demilitarised and declared an open town on 15 June 1940.
In a few cases these holiday makers were to have an unexpected longer “holiday” than planned. Mr & Mrs Dunkley of Ramsgate had considered going to Cornwall but had previously enjoyed a holiday in Guernsey so decided to visit again with their son Leonard.
Thanet Advertiser & Echo 12th April 1945
Unfortunately for them not long after they arrived the Germans bombed St Peter Port harbour on 28 June 1940. They were down at the harbour at the time of the raid and Mrs Dunkley described it as a terrifying experience. Two days later the occupying forces arrived and they were trapped for almost the next five years.
The problem that they will have faced is that once evacuation started it was clear that not everyone would be able to be evacuated.
Mr Dunkley and his son found work and they were able to find somewhere to live. In September 1942 they were deported to France and then onward to an internment camp in Biberach in Southern Germany. This was part of the deportation of all English born residents between the ages of 16-70, together with their families. Also deported were those who had at any time in their lives been enrolled in the armed forces of the Crown. The notice published by the Germans used the term “evacuated” rather than deported.
They were liberated in April 1945 and returned to Ramsgate where they were delighted to find their home intact. The whole article from the newspaper is at the end of this blog post.
Another couple who came to the island on Honeymoon were to suffer a similar fate. Ronald Harris married Eileen Brewer in London on 14 June 1940 and travelled to Guernsey for their honeymoon.
Ronald & Eileen from the Daily Herald June 1945
They had intended to return to England on the day that the Germans bombed St Peter Port.
Finding themselves stuck in Guernsey with only £3 Ronald volunteered to be an an ARP warden as he had experience. After the invasion on the 30th June he found himself as second officer in the Guernsey Fire Brigade. Whenever they were called out after an RAF raid they had to get permission to attend the fire and the telephonist at the German HQ didn’t speak English. They worked as slowly as possible when the Germans wanted them to put out a fire.
In early 1942 the Germans stood down the Guernsey Fire Brigade and insisted that they train Germans. So Ronald found himself in charge of 25 Germans for some weeks with them obeying his orders and his whistle. He clearly enjoyed ordering them about and training them to his whistle!
As with the Dunkley family they were also deported in September 1942. Eventually they were repatriated to England in April 1945.
The article from the Below is an article published in the Thanet Advertiser & Echo on 17 April 1945.
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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.
It is that time of the year when we remember the liberation of the Channel Islands. Those not familiar with the topic may wonder why the title is “Liberation Days” rather than “Liberation Day.” This is because whilst Guernsey and Jersey were both liberated on on 9th May the other Islands had to wait.
Sark was liberated a day later and Alderney not until the 16th of May. There is a story that Sark was only liberated on the 10th because smoke was spotted by the forces in Guernsey and they sent some men to investigate as they were worried that the German forces had set fire to buildings. I cannot find anything to substantiate this often repeated story.
The anniversary has always been a day for remembering the impact of those years, those that didn’t live through it, as well as celebrating the liberation. In the morning remembrance services are held in the Islands along with the traditional parades. In the afternoon islanders celebrate in a multitude of ways and there is a cavalcade of military and civilian vehicles of the time.
When contemplating what to write about for the 77th Anniversary I thought about writing about the celebrations and Islanders thoughts but these are covered every year in the media and by various commentators since the very first liberation.
I decided to run a poll on Twitter and a couple of history groups to see if readers wanted me to blog about the celebrations or blog about the process of the surrender and how the senior Germans behaved in the run up to liberation.
It wasn’t really a surprise that the poll massively went in favour of a blog about the latter and the impact on both the civilian population and their own personnel.
Many of the Germans were just as keen for their war to end as everyone else. It was just some of the senior officers that were committed to holding out even after it was clear the war was over for Germany.
I wrote a blog about an ordinary German soldier called Erwin Grubba who makes it quite clear how many of them felt during the winter of 1944 and through to the eventual liberation of the islands.
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
You can read his whole story and his further experiences on the occupation and Liberation experience here.
The key player from the German side in the run up to the liberation was Vizeadmiral Friedrich Hüffmeier. He had previously commanded the German battleship Scharnhorst (from 31 March 1942 to 13 October 1943). From 25 July 1944 to 26 February 1945, he was Island commander of Guernsey before eventually forcing out his superior Lieutenant General Rudolf Graf von Schmettow as fortress commander for all of the Channel Islands. Von Schmettow was the nephew of Gerd von Rundstedt commander of OB West (Commander-in-Chief West).
Generalleutnant Von Schmettow with Vizeadmiral Friedrich HüffmeierRudolf Graf von SchmettowHüffmeier
Hüffmeier was an ardent Nazi. Which can be the only explanation for why he achieved such a high rank given that by all accounts he was pretty rubbish at commanding ships. He was also hated by the crews of the ships that he commanded.
John Winton notes in his book Death of the Scharnhorst that the crew had a very low opinion of their commander.
But it took only a short time for Scharnhorst’s ship company to decide, to a man that ‘Poldi’ Hüffmeier was a walking disaster area. They believed he owed his appointment more to social influence than to ability, and he quickly showed himself a poor seaman, with almost no talent at all for ship handling.
Their view that he was a walking disaster area is supported by some of the events that happened whilst he was commander. Winton records that he ran the Scharnhorst aground off Hela in Poland, wrapped a buoy wire around the starboard screw whilst leaving harbour and collided with the submarine U 523 whilst on manoeuvres in the Baltic. All of these incidents required dockyard repairs.
After leaving Scharnhorst and before arriving in Guernsey he held the post of Chief officer in the Wehrgeistiger Führungsstab. This post literally translates as “Military Spiritual Leadership Staff” which was the naval branch of the Armed Forces National Socialist Leadership Staff. Essentially this meant that he oversaw the posting of officers to naval units, ships and submarines. These officers were responsible for maintaining morale and keeping the forces motivated by spreading the propaganda of the National Socialist Party and gave political and ideological instruction.
This was an example of how the party infiltrated the German Armed Forces and operated in a similar way to the Soviet political commissars. It is therefore unsurprising that he was constantly complaining in radio messages to Berlin that von Schmettow was “too soft”. This was all part of his ultimately successful prolonged campaign to oust his superior.
At this point you might be surprised to find that we rewind to 1944, because 9 May 1945 was not the first time that the Germans had been in negotiation, of a sort, to surrender.
Whilst von Schmettow was still in command an attempt to secure the surrender of the Channel Islands was made during September 1944. If they had accepted this opportunity it could have spared the islanders and the German personnel going through the hunger winter of 1944/45.
At the time the Islands were caught in a pocket and effectively under siege.
Illustrated London News Feb 1945
The allies took the opportunity following the June 1944 landings in France to try and encourage the occupying forces to surrender. In an attempt to get them to do that they mounted a psychological warfare operation dubbed “Rankin C” during which they dropped leaflets to encourage them to surrender.
The 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. Dr Helen Fry refers to Bassenge being the General in her book “The Walls Have Ears: The Greatest Intelligence Operation of World War II”. 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. The full account and his medal citation are here if you would like to read it.
Now you have to ask yourself why did von Schmettow not entertain the meeting. Particularly as by all accounts he was a professional soldier of the officer class rather than a Nazi. Indeed it is now fairly widely accepted that he often did his best to mitigate the demands of Berlin and to water down their demands. That is not to discount of course the terrible things that went on which he had little ability to prevent such as the treatment of the slave workers, deportations etc.
Von Schmettow was recalled at the end of February 1945, on the grounds of ill-health, although he had not seen a doctor for 15 months. On his return to Germany he had to face disciplinary action for being too kind and then he disappeared in the general confusion as Germany neared defeat.
If he had decided to surrender he could have saved the islanders and his own personnel from a terrible winter of hunger and deprivation.
I can’t help but feel that he may also been influenced by the real villain of the piece Hüffmeier but that is just supposition on my part.
You are asking a soldier of many years why he did not turn traitor and commit treason on his country. That is very difficult for a professional soldier to do. It was impossible for me to do.
Interview with von Schmettow in Jersey Topic magazine
If you want to read the whole interview it is in the link here.
There is also a short film of him being interviewed by Channel TV in the 1960s which you can find here and covers a range of topics including deportations, treatment of the forced workers and why he didn’t surrender.
Back to Hüffmeier who as you will have gathered from the above was not a pleasant character. Having forced von Schmettow out, the islands now had a barely competent fervent Nazi at the helm. What could possibly go wrong?
He was so determined to hold out that he once told Jersey’s Bailiff Alexander Coutanche. “We shall never surrender, in the end you and I will be eating grass.”
His personnel were starving and were reduced to eating limpets, stealing islanders pets and eating them. The islanders had a very tough time and only survived because of the deliveries eventually made by the Red Cross ship Vega.
When liberation finally came it became apparent that, on the orders of Hüffmeier, vast stocks of supplies had been held back over that winter because he wanted to have provisions to hold out. My blog post about about Erwin Grubba explains this in more detail. Click the link to learn more.
Fast forward to April 1945 and Hüffmeier addressed senior officers in the Forum Cinema in Jersey and told them that it was important to defend the Channel Islands against any attack by the allies. He was also labouring under the impression that it was still possible that they could hold the Islands and that Germany would not lose the war. Deluded, bonkers, incompetent I will leave you to draw your own conclusion.
The German unconditional surrender of the German High Command had been agreed on 7 May 1945 to take effect from 00:01 on 8th May.
It was feared that the Channel Islands may not have heard the news or that Hüffmeier might decide to fight on alone rather than surrender. Force 135 was dispatched towards the Islands. Signals were sent and eventually a reply was received by the British advising that he was willing to send a representative to meet the British ships off of the Les Hanois at noon on 8 May.
In the book The German Occupation of the Channel Islands by Charles Cruickshank he records that “They rendezvoused with a German mine-sweeping trawler at noon to find that Hüffmeier had sent a junior naval officer, Kapitänleutänant Armin Zimmerman, 19 who was authorised to do no more than discuss armistice terms. He was given a copy of the surrender document and a letter from Snow to the Commander-in-Chief stating that either he or his properly accredited representative must come prepared to accept unconditional surrender. There was no question of an armistice.
Before he left the Bulldog Zimmerman warned that his commander had guaranteed safe-conduct to HM ships as far as the rendezvous only. If they stayed where they were they would be fired on by the shore batteries. He pointed out that the general cease-fire was not due until 00.01 hours on 9 May and that as it was still 8 May the coastal guns would open fire.”
Brigadier Snow responded that he was to tell Hüffmeier that if they were fired on he would hang in the morning. Discretion being the better part of valour the British ships moved back a few miles.
Some commentators assert that Zimmerman was sent in order to delay or frustrate matters. Another reason may have been that Hüffmeier was worried about his own security as he had uncovered a plot by some of his officers to poison him. He used to walk to Castle Carey to drink hot milk each day and some officers loyal to von Schmettow had plotted to poison him there. They were unsuccessful and were transferred to the Island of Herm to fend for themselves.
The Rev. Ord records in his diary in late April 1945 that he was told by a German that ”The “Admiral” (Hüffmeier?) says he can hold out till 1946, but this is just bluff. It is believed he will be assassinated, probably by a group of conspirators. It is said already that there have been attempts on his life, and sinister-looking guards parade the road outside his residence.” So this may be why he sent Zimmerman.
Illustrated London News 19 May 1945CHANNEL ISLANDS LIBERATED: THE END OF GERMAN OCCUPATION, CHANNEL ISLANDS, UK, 1945 (D 24595) A scene on board HMS BULLDOG during the first conference with Captain Lieutenant Zimmerman prior to the signing of the surrender document which liberated the Channel Islands. Left to right around the table are: Admiral Stuart (Royal Navy), Brigadier General A E Snow (Chief British Emissary), Captain Harold Herzmark (Intelligence Corps), Wing Commander Archie Steward (Royal Air Force), Lieutenant Colonel E A Stoneman, Major John Margeson, Colonel H R Power (all of the British Army) and Captain Lieutenant Zimmermanhttp://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205201892
Zimmermann was sent back and only after Hüffmeier had received a direct order from General Admiral Karl Dönitz was he willing to Surrender. A signal came that General major Heine, second in command of the Channel Islands and commander of Guernsey, would come to the same rendezvous at midnight.
As it was after midnight when Heine came on board. Hüffmeier could no longer threaten to fire on the destroyers. Snow therefore decided to move from Les Hanois to St Peter Port.
The surrender was duly signed by Heine on the quarterdeck of the Bulldog at 7.14 a.m. on 9 May. It features in this short film.
There is another film where you can see Hüffmeier being described as “pretty browned off.”
Following the surrender Brigadier Snow transferred to the Beagle, which anchored off St Helier at 10 a.m. to receive the surrender of the garrison of Jersey. Generalmajor Wulf, the Inselkommandant, was ordered on board but failed to put in an appearance. Snow said he must be found immediately.
Eventually he turned up. He was at first ‘somewhat arrogant and aggressive’, but after Snow had expressed his severe displeasure (which he was well qualified to do) he was reduced ‘almost to tears’ and duly signed the surrender.
Snow returned to Guernsey on 12 May and received Hüffmeier’s surrender. Hüffmeier explained that he could not hand over his sword as he had destroyed it in accordance with orders.
Hüffmeier was promptly shipped off to a prisoner of war camp where he remained until release in April 1948. He died in Germany in 1972. Living a quiet life and not really appearing in the post war media with the exception of the below.
I recently found this article which was somewhat surprising it fails to mention that he was was an ardent Nazi as outlined above. He was quite prepared to let the Channel Islanders and his own men starve rather than surrender which is completely missed by this article.
Nottingham Guardian – Friday 22 October 1971
Zimmermann went on to serve in the post war German Navy and rose to the rank of Admiral.
I hope you have enjoyed the blog. If you would like to receive email notifications of future blogs, you can sign up to the right of this blog post. Feel free to look around the website, where I have categorised posts to make them easier to find and other resources such as tours, films and other resources that may be of interest.
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.
I thought this might be useful to share for those readers of the blog that are either on Island but for whatever reason unable to go out to watch events live or those overseas.
You can take part in the Church Service, watch the Cavalcade and even the Fireworks. Just follow the link for details. All times are British Summer Time.
The small-scale raids that took place around Alderney and the other Channel Islands are well recorded; however, this planned raid was something completely different. This would have been a full-scale invasion of the island with the intention of holding it for a week during 1942.
The attack would have involved a force of 6,000-7,000 personnel from all services—a vastly different proposition from anything planned before. An estimated 4,800 men to land on the island.
It raises many questions; why hold it for a week and then leave? Why do it at all? What would it achieve, especially in the first half of 1942? This blog post will look at all these questions and more.
Whilst researching something else, I listened to an interview on the IWM website with General Michael Stephen Hancock, part of which he talked about his role in this proposed raid and the training that was undertaken in early 1942.
Before I start with an explanation, there are a couple of things that would be useful to set the scene, particularly for those not familiar with Alderney or its location. This will help understand the reasons for the proposed raid and the challenges they may have faced if it had been executed. If you are already familiar with Alderney, then feel free to skip past this bit.
Alderney is the most northerly Channel Island and approximately ten miles from La Hague on the Cotentin Peninsula. You can see it on the map below with the red pin.
Map from Google Maps.
The island is shown on the map below, and it is 3 miles (5 km) long by 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide. The size of the island is essential for understanding some of the challenges the proposed raid may face.
Map from Visit Alderney
I remembered that I had come across a few references to this planned raid some time ago when reading the diaries of General Sir Alan Brooke, later 1st Viscount Alan Brooke. The references to the planned raid did not provide much information but are of interest because it involved those at the highest level of the armed forces and the prime minister Winston Churchill.
Frankly, the diaries do not give you a lot to go on. It is also important to note that his diary entries are obviously from his perspective and need to be tempered by reviewing other documents from the time. I decided to search the National Archives and various other sources to see what I could find.
Brooke notes on 28 March 1942 that “Mountbatten was still hankering after a landing near Cherbourg where proper air support is not possible.”
It is fair to say that Brooke found Mountbatten quite irritating at times, not least because of his status and his relationship with Churchill. Brooke found it frustrating because he frequently stayed with Churchill at Ditchley Park and Chequers from late 1942. This gave him the opportunity to discuss his ideas and try to get Churchill onside.
Now Lord Mountbatten was known for his love of a hair-brained scheme, and this certainly would seem to be one. However, he was not alone in these ideas of actions in the Channel Islands. Vice-Admiral John Hughes-Hallett also advocated operations to retake the Channel Islands by force at various times during the war.
These were discounted for many reasons. Primarily because of the massive loss of life, this would have caused the civilian population let alone the inevitable casualties of any invading force. One must remember that an estimated 8% of all the concrete used on the Atlantic Wall was poured into the fortifications of the Channel Islands by the end of the war. The fortifications in the Islands contained more armaments than the 350 miles of the nearby Normandy coastline.
The other Channel Islands were also of less significance for the Allies from a strategic point of view aside from the other challenges mentioned above. The fortification and sinking of men and resources into the Islands are often referred to as “Hitler’s Island Madness.”
Alderney would have been a different prospect as only approximately seven civilians were left on the island. However, many forced workers on the island would have also become casualties. During the war, Alderney was heavily fortified and became one of the most heavily armed sections of the Atlantic Wall. Alderney was designated a Festung (Fortress).
Alderney had gun batteries that could prove troublesome to any attack on Cherbourg at a later stage in the war but not in the summer of 1942. Later in the war, in June 1944, the 150 mm guns in Battery Blücher on Alderney fired upon the American troops on the Cotentin Peninsula. Subsequently, the British warship HMS Rodney attacked the gun battery, which cost the lives of two German soldiers.
Article from the Northampton Mercury & Herald 18 August 1944
What purpose could risking so many lives to occupy the island for a week serve war effort? There appears to be some speculation that such a raid could have been used to appease Stalin that the Allies were serious about mounting operations to open a second front, but surely this would have been too small scale.
Another reason that they considered the raid to be of value was that the Germans were using Alderney as a control centre for U Boats in the area returning to or leaving the French ports.
In his book “The German Occupation of The Channel Islands” Cruickshank states that Mountbatten first raised the idea of a an operation to take Alderney at a meeting of his staff on 6 March 1942.
Brooke notes in his diary on 8 April 1942, “Very difficult COS attended by Paget, Sholto Douglas, and Mountbatten. Subject-attempt to assist Russia through action in France. Plan they had put up was a thoroughly bad one!!” This would indicate some substance to the assertion that the raid may have been partly for this purpose.
Mountbatten briefed the Chiefs of Staff Committee on 16 April 1942. His initial plan was to take and hold Alderney permanently. His reasons for doing so were:
A) The island would provide a base for small craft to be used to attack the German’s convoy route from the Channel ports down to Bay of Biscay.
B) It could be used to site a radar installation to extend Fighter Command’s radar coverage.
C) It could be used as an emergency landing strip.
D) To open a second front in a small way.
The plan changed many times during the course of April and early May. Not least changing from a plan to hold the island permanently to a plan to hold it for a week.
The interview with General Michael Hancock sheds more light on the plan and just how far preparations went.
“The object of the operation was only to hold the island for about a week, and the stated objects in the Chiefs of Staffs um appro… approval of it were, (I cannot remember in what order they were), but they included three things, and I don’t know that I can remember them all, but one of them, (which surprised me having had nothing to do with the political side of things) was in order to satisfy the clamour for a second front. Seems a little surprising, I suppose for a small-scale thing like this, but still, it was not all that small scale. We are talking about 7,000 men that sort of size.”
“A lot of men to put on such a small island. It is the island is what three miles by one something about that, but the Germans were holding it with four or five thousand.”
“Secondly, to put out of action, er, their control of their submarines, which they did from there with radio control etcetera and thirdly, to hold it long enough, so the Germans might think we intended springboards for the invasion of France and might withdraw something from the Russian front.”
“Wishful thinking, I suspect. We had allocated not only for this not only for this, but we had also been allocated a Parachute Battalion.”
“One of the snags was that the island is about a mile wide from the northwest side, north, east side and southwest side. The prevailing wind, of course, is across that, and in those days, you jumped out of an aircraft with 20 men, one after the other, and the mathematics of it are that if you do this and everything goes perfectly, you drop two or three men in the sea, either before you start or at the end of the run.“
“This was one of the difficulties at any rate, in the end, after I suppose three or four weeks of planning and rehearsal and so on. It was called off because it was recommended the RAF, who would have to give us a great deal of support beforehand, would lose several hundred aircraft, and they could not afford it at the time.”
So how far did they get with the plan?
“We got as far as having a particular beach and the Isle of Wight, which had the right characteristics tarted up a bit with certain little floating jetties, but to make it similar to where we would be landing in at Alderney. We did rehearsal landings on it.”
When asked why they expected such significant losses, he explained “It was heavily defended, very heavily defended. I don’t know, but that is what we were told.”
Brooke notes in his diary on 6 May 1942, “Arrived just in time to go to COS meeting to turn down proposed attack on Alderney Island [Channel Islands] as a large raid by Guards Brigade.”
So why did they turn it down, given the immense effort put into planning and training? These extracts from that meeting explain the discussion and the reasons. They even considered scaling back the operation to a single day.
A significant problem was the gap they would have between the bombing of the island and the landing. Given the small size of the island and the lack of accurate bombing in 1942, it was doubtful how effective it would have been in softening up the defences.
In 1942 it would only have been possible for fighters to provide cover for fifteen minutes at a time. The Luftwaffe would have been able to operate from airfields only twenty miles from Alderney where as the RAF would have had to operate from airfields more than seventy miles away. This partly explains the massive commitment of aircraft that would have been required.
Overall, they felt that the casualties would not be worth the dividend from such an operation. You can read the complete deliberations in the extracts of the War Cabinet Chiefs of Staff Committee minutes below.
Churchill was still keen for a raid, perhaps spurred on by Mountbatten. Brooke notes in his diary of 11 May 1942, “At 12 noon we had meeting with PM to discuss the giving up of the attack on Alderney, and raids planned as alternatives.”
The minute of this meeting is not very clearly scanned in the national archives, but you can get its gist. (Blue text added to clarify the feint wording)
Even at this stage, they didn’t discount resurrecting the operation later in the year. It did make an appearance later in they year as Operation “Aimwell” with the intention of a smaller force and only holding the island for twenty four hours. This was also cancelled.
Going back to the interview with Hancock, he talks about what happened next. “So as we were there and all geared up for such an operation, an alternative operation was planned as a raid on the French coast. Somewhere in the … between Boulogne and Dieppe, I forget where but in that sort of area, and so we then started planning for that instead. And they got us in, I suppose it must have been the end of May, early June, and we are about then getting into the ships ready to go, and we were all in our ships with these funny little radios off Spithead, and the weather was foul.”
“That is why I remember the ship was flat bottomed pitching and, and so all these six-seven thousand men but in the ship sitting there we sat down for three days. The weather showed no sign of abating. And they decided then that it was too long or risks to security over us being there for three days. Without anything happening were too great. So, the whole operation was called off. We were sent back to Scotland.”
Ultimately some of what they planned was used in the planning and execution of Operation “Jubilee”, the raid on Dieppe.
I wonder what the impact would have been on the civilian population of the Channel Islands if the raid had gone ahead, given the deportations following other raids later in the war.
If you find this of interest, I can highly recommend visiting Alderney, where you can visit some of the fortifications. You can find details at Visit Alderney.
Worth a watch if you want to get a feel for the fortifications on Alderney.
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Thanks to my brother Matt Le Huray for his patience in proofreading these longer blog posts. Any typos in the shorter ones that I put out are nothing to do with him 😊
Whilst busy writing another blog post I stumbled across a great film by Nicola White. I have followed her for some time on Twitter @tidelineart and had no idea that Nicola had a connection to the Island.
Nicola has featured on a number of programmes on the BBC on both radio and film. This film made in February 2022 is well worth a watch and features many people I know. Click the video below to watch it. Also do take a look at her website for some great mud larking finds in London.
Following my blog post recommending the film “Nazi Britain – Life in the Channel Islands 1940-1945” I was delighted to receive an email from Martin Morgan who was one of the producers. Martin also happens to be a subscriber to this blog.
Martin was pleased that I had highlighted the film that he produced with his sister Jane Morgan and Chris Denton. This film was part of a trilogy of films that they made which were originally shown on the History Channel.
Over a million people have watched these films. This helped them to achieve their promise to the interviewees that they would share their stories as far and wide as possible.
They produced these films as a response to what they felt were the overly sensationalised and unfair versions of the story in other films. They set out to tell the story of everyday life in Occupied Guernsey.
If you follow my personal Twitter account (@Nickleh) or the Twitter account for this blog (@fortress_island) you will know that the misleading films they made these to counter are also a pet hate of mine!
The format they chose is in my opinion an excellent format. They took the decision to only use first hand testimony, designing the production so it required no script , voice over or third party explanation – just the voices of Islanders who lived through the war.
“Fleeing the Reich – the story of the Evacuees” tells the first hand accounts of people that were evacuated as school children to England in June 1940. It turned out they got away just in time. Many of them had never left the Islands before and were sent to live with strangers who picked them from the groups of children that arrived. Siblings sometimes found themselves in different parts of the country.
“Stolen by Hitler – the story of the Deportees” tells the story of those that were forcibly deported to internment camps in Germany for allied civilians, mainly from the Channel Islands. A fascinating story of their experiences.
They have also produced another great documentary in a more conventional format. I will share that in another blog post.
Thanks once again to Martin for getting in touch and sharing these fantastic films.
At the time of writing in April 2022 this of course resonates with current world events.
Whilst I am busy researching and writing a couple of articles which are not quite complete I thought it might be worth sharing this video that I found yesterday.
It is an interesting selection of interviews with Islanders that lived through the Occupation. Some of whom I had the privilege to know.
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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Guernsey Policeman with a German Soldier – German propaganda photograph
Today is the 80th anniversary of the day that the German occupying forces arrested all of the Island’s police force. Their crime was stealing food from German stores and giving it to civilians. At this point in the occupation the Germans had plentiful supplies of food but Islanders did not.
The thefts of food were initially started by Constables Kingston Bailey and Frank Tuck. Bailey notes in his memoir that it started to get out of hand and practically the entire police force was involved.
Eventually Bailey and Tuck were apprehended on 3 March 1942 by German soldiers who were laying in wait. Subsequent to this the entire police force was arrested on 5 March 1942.
Accounts indicate that they were tortured and forced to sign confessions or be shot.
In May and June 1942 seventeen police officers were brought to trial. The sentences were severe and they were deported to Prisons and camps in mainland Europe. Many suffered life changing health issues from their time in the camps and sadly one officer Herbert Smith died whilst in detention.
18 May 1942 Guernsey Evening Press
Islanders were of course keen to know what was happening in the trial and were largely reliant on the Guernsey Press and The Star newspapers which was subject to censorship by the Germans. The editor Frank Falla managed to get approximately 1,500 copies of the newspaper printed with an uncensored version before the censor had redacted a large part of the article. Unfortunately for Falla one of the unauthorised copies was purchased by a German who was sitting on the bench for the trial.
The case had further impact on the local community as in late January 1943 former police officers and some of the family members of the imprisoned officers were deported to camps on mainland Europe for “military reasons”.
You can read more about the individual officers at the Frank Falla Archive by following these links to those that I have mentioned by name here Kingston Bailey, Frank Tuck and Herbert Smith. Thanks to Jenna Holloway who also pointed me in the direction of her great grandfather William Quin who was one of the Policeman and Adelaide Laine who lives in the house previously owned by Thomas Gaudion.
Recent attempts to clear the names of those involved have unfortunately been unsuccessful at the time of writing. The campaign to get an apology continues and well known historian Dr Gilly Carr is actively involved in this. You can read about this in a recent BBC article and an article from the Daily Mail.
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