The Channel Islands At War Read online

  Sherwill's reply, which even he later described as 'a bit too smarmy', stressed his appreciation of this gesture, condemned escapers and any assistance to military activity against the regime, and ended, it gives me ground for confidence that at a period when the nations to which we respectively belong are locked in combat... it is possible - though only in the Channel Islands - for a German officer and a British official to enter into friendly correspondence..."

  Von Schmettow and his officers were anxious to give a good impression, and to assert some degree of independence from Paris where General Schreiber, head of the military government organization, was calling for severe action. After some argument it was agreed to issue a statement on the lines proposed by Bandelow. The men in hiding were to report to St Peter Port police station by six in the evening on Monday 21 October, and a few minutes before this time Nicolle and Symes appeared.

  The two men were taken to Fort George and interrogated by Captain Schroder of the Feldpolizei. Their role as spies was appreciated, and after a court martial they were sentenced to death. A further order was issued stating that anyone harbouring British subjects who had returned to the Islands and who did not report this by 5 November would be shot. On 2 November William Allen, Mary Bird and her parents, Thomas Mansell, Jessie Mariette and her parents, Mr and Mrs Frank Nicolle, Mr and Mrs

  Emile Nicolle, Mr and Mrs Louis Symes, and Sherwill were all arrested. They were questioned, and then removed to the Cherche Midi Prison in Paris. Von Schmettow and Schumacher were angry that their word as officers that neither course of action would be taken had been overruled, and after considerable argument Symes and Nicolle were let off a second trial demanded in Paris by Schreiber and sent to be POWs.

  But the German promise not to punish anyone was broken. A collective punishment was imposed on the Island including a fine of £3,000 and the confiscation of wireless sets until a few days before Christmas. The captives remained in solitary for 50 days until they were released on 30 December from Cherche Midi Prison. They were only allowed out 'to empty their sanitary buckets in a cesspool in the yard. Soon Captain Nicolle was denied this privilege after he was caught giving part of his bread ration to an RAF prisoner in the cell opposite him. Hubert Nicolle had a bullet flattened on the wall beside his head when he had climbed on a chair and table to have a look out.' Only at Christmas time were they let out together, and forced to sing Christmas carols, but by then tragedy had struck. Depressed by solitary confinement, Louis Symes was found kneeling in his cell, his eyes fixed on an open Bible, and his wrist arteries severed. He had committed suicide three days before Christmas.

  There were no more raids on the Islands for exactly two years, and when they started again they were carried out by the Small Scale Raiding Force commanded by Major Gustavas March-Phillipps. On the night of 23 September 1942 a party of 12 men led by March-Phillipps and Captain Geoffrey Appleyard sailed from Portland to capture the German crew of seven manning the Casquets lighthouse. Lying off Alderney it had not been well fortified, and the raid was a complete success except for an injury to Appleyard. Hitler demanded details and his first reaction was an OKW (German High Command) order withdrawing exposed lighthouse crews. However, it was obvious lighthouses were needed, and later a new garrison of 33 men was installed together with barbed wire and mines.

  Appleyard commanded Operation Basalt, the first raid on Sark. carried out on the foggy night of Saturday and Sunday 3 and 4 October. His party consisted of seven men from the SSRF including the distinguished Lieutenant Anders Lassen, and five from Number 12 Commando. They landed at Point Chateau on Dixcart Bay, and ascended the Hogs Back to level country avoiding a German patrol. After a time they entered an isolated house called La Jaspellerie and met Frances Pittard. Mrs Pittard, the wife of a doctor who had recently died, was a friend of Mrs Tremayne. She gave the troops a map and told them there were Germans billeted a few hundred yards away in the Dixcart Hotel.

  Although they only had four hours the commandos decided to raid the hotel. In the annex they found five members of an engineer detachment, and bundled them half-dressed out of bed. They were shoved outside, their hands secured by soldiers' toggles, and their trousers unbuttoned to stop them escaping. Although neither Appleyard's nor the German official report mention it, access to the annex had been gained after Lassen knifed the guard who was probably Peter Oswald buried with other raid victims at Fort George. Had they known it, the commandos were also benefiting for once from German incompetence. The orderly corporal had been informed of suspicious noises, but had not informed the Island commandant. Lieutenant Herdt. Appleyard wanted an officer from the main hotel, but the prisoners began to make a noise, and a running fight broke out. One escaped naked and unharmed, and so did another although he was wounded. Two Germans - Esslinger and Bleyer - were killed, and one, Lance-Corporal Weinrich remained a prisoner. Lights came on in the hotel, and the party set out for the shore where the MTB (motor torpedo boat) was waiting as they were late, and Germans were in pursuit followed by an armed customs boat. The party got away with a few minutes to spare.

  The repercussions of this raid were considerable. General Muller was furious and his situation report made it clear that both Herdt, who was relieved of command and replaced by Lieutenant Knauf, and the orderly officer were to be court-martialled. 'Contrary to my orders', said Muller, Herdt 'had billeted an engineer detatchment carelessly in Dixcart House, without protection, and away from the Company Reserve'. On Sark it was decided to remove troops from Stocks Hotel and various houses and concentrate them round Le Manoir farm in the centre of the Island. The thatch was torn off the farm roof and replaced with corrugated iron, and the church windows were bricked up as they overlooked the new quarters. It was then necessary to reinforce the garrison, and three small tanks were brought over to the Island. An army report stressed the need to block all landing grounds, and to increase the existing 939 mines by a further 1,400. Eventually there were 4,000 mines on the beaches, strung on wires across the bays and parts of the harbour, and down some cliffs on ropes. This led to tragic consequences for the innocent, like Nanette Carre, killed by a mine playing near her home in October 1944. She was just four years old.

  After the attack German soldiers with fixed bayonets raided houses, and a series of measures designed as punishments were enforced. The curfew was reduced to even shorter hours, fishing was banned, and houses along parts of the shoreline were deliberately destroyed. Throughout the Island guards were doubled and armed. Then the Feldpolizei arrived and for weeks the Islanders went in fear of what might happen to them. Mrs Tremayne commented that 'We used to read about the "Gestapo" in Germany taking people off in the middle of their dinner and putting them into concentration camps, but to enter your house and march you off at a moment's notice, without any explanation, is a ghastly thing to do. No one knows whose turn it will be next."

  A number of people like Issac Carre and George Hammon, were taken to Guernsey for questioning, and the two owners of the Dixcart Hotel, Miss Duckett and Miss Page, who claimed to have slept through it all, were closely questioned. Mrs Pittard who had met the British force was arrested and sent to Guernsey Prison for eleven weeks.

  The raid once again received Hitler's personal attention, and he was apparently infuriated by the suggestion that the dead men had been unable to defend themselves because they had been previously bound by some grey cord. Or it may have been because of the raid's success. One eyewitness has said that a Polish evader who was among Todt workers on the Island known as 'Armand' or 'Roman' Zwadaski was also rescued at a prearranged rendezvous. The raid certainly resulted in the release to the outside world of details of recent deportations from the Islands when the British government published photostats of German orders. The Fuhrcr ordered the shackling of some Dieppe prisoners as a reprisal and the Canadians retaliated by shackling German prisoners. Following other commando and SOE successes the raid may have been the last straw leading to the issue of the infamous Commando Extermi
nation Order (Kommandobefehl) in October. 'Their captured orders divulge'. Hitler said, 'that they are directed not only to shackle prisoners, but also to kill defenceless prisoners on the spot'. All commandos in or out of uniform were to be 'exterminated to the last man', and if they surrendered 'all quarter is to be denied on principle". Individuals were to be handed over to the SD for treatment, and this order was to be followed by many horrific massacres large and small. Hitler overruled a proposal that women and children who had been deported from the Islands might return, and further deportations early in 1943, including Mrs Pittard, Miss Duckett and Miss Page were largely a punishment for this raid.

  The last raids on the Islands code-named Hardtack were designed as part of the run-up to D-Day to obtain prisoners and military information, but by this time German anti-raid measures had been properly established. The two raids on Sark and Jersey were planned for 25-6 December, but the Sark raid led by Lieutenant A.J. McGonigal landed at a point where the cliffs proved unscaleable, and had to return two nights later. The Germans were alerted, and on Boxing Day Mrs Tremayne who had enjoyed Christmas with a gift of candles from Mrs Hathaway and a piece of chocolate sent from the vicar now in a deportation camp, had retired to bed when, in the early hours of the night, about two or three, we were awakened by a thunderous knock at the door which kept on until we had the courage to leap out of bed in the dark, and throw open the window to ask who was there. Four Germans stood there, fully armed, and the officer said "Open the door at once" - they had come to search the house at that time of night.' Mrs Tremayne and her daughter Norah had to follow the Germans through the house by the light of a torch as they searched turning out cupboards and chests, Mrs Tremayne had her heart in her mouth that they would find her diary. Afterwards they sat having hot drinks in the kitchen unable to sleep. When the raiders returned therefore she wrote, I cannot see myself what good the landing here does', as 'the last one brought us nothing but misery'. The raid also brought misery to the commandos because their second attempt stumbled into a mine-field, and four out of five were wounded. Two Frenchmen, Corporal Bellamy and Private Dignac, were killed. 'Two graves were dug in our little churchyard and they were thrown in at dawn one morning, with not one prayer said over them, poor dears. A wooden cross was erected, their names put on and Mrs Hathaway sent two wreaths of camellia.' said Mrs Tremayne.

  The other 1943 Christmas night raid on Jersey was led by Captain Philip Ayton, and landed at Petit Port on the north-east coast. There were nine in the party. Passing through the ruins of Egypt Farm destroyed by the Germans they came to La Geonniere where Miss Le Feuvre refused to open to them, later claiming she thought they were Germans trying to speak English. They moved on to Le Champ du Chemin, owned by John and Hedley Le Breton, where they received a better welcome and information about which strong points were occupied. In spite of some resentment the two farmers stressed there was no resistance, and that their greatest fear was of Russian Todt workers foraging for food. On the way back Ayton was injured by a mine, and died on their return to Dartmouth that evening. He was just 22 years old.

  Other raids contemplated, but not carried out, might well have led to further loss of life: one was for blowing up shipping in St Peter Port, and another for capturing the whole German garrison on Sark. The balance sheet for the raids is hard to draw. Brave men sacrificed their lives, and brave Islanders put their lives at risk to help them. Something at least was done to harrass the Germans and make the Islanders feel they were not completely neglected. Information was obtained. A few Germans were captured or killed. But several were captured and killed in the ranks of the commandos, and in the case of the two serious raids: Ambassador and Basalt, Islanders on Guernsey and Sark suffered a good deal through imprisonment or deportation, damage to property, fines, curfew, fishing restrictions, and the frightening presence of the Feldpolizei which they mistook for the Gestapo. Had the raids got worse there can be little doubt that the German response would have escalated, and so the taste of war the raids brought to the Islands was received with mixed feelings.

  Morrison's remark about the Island's being isolated from the war was wide of the mark in other ways. It did not take account of the closeness of the Island to occupied France. Knowledge of events there was constantly in the minds of Islanders, not least because many of them passed through a variety of French prisons and camps like Caen, Dijon, Cherche Midi, and Compiegne. For administrative purposes the Islands were part of the Department of La Manche, and links with Granville, St Malo, and Cherbourg increased during the occupation. Ultimately the Island authorities were answerable to the military government of General Stulpnagel in Paris who visited the Islands on occasion. After cable-cutting had taken place his order was published stating that, 'any person involved in such an act, as a perpetrator, participant, or instigator will upon conviction by court martial without power of appeal be condemned to suffer the death penalty". The order also said that if further acts occurred, 'the entire population will have to suffer the consequences of the reprisals which will follow'. Cases like that of Louis Berrier of Ernes in France, shot for sending a pigeon with a message to England were displayed, and had their effect. 'The walls', said Mrs Tremayne, 'are all posted with notices about what we are not to do, and it all ends with death penalties'; she had noticed the Berrier poster.

  The treatment of the French on the Islands, including their workers and women, was a constant reminder to Islanders of what might happen to them. According to one writer, some 50 French escapers reached the Islands, but got no further, many being returned to their deaths; although the French consul on Guernsey, M.L.V. Lambert, did help escapers sheltering them in a shed and on rare occasions getting boats for them. In December 1940 a party of 16 young men led by 21-year-old Francois Scornet escaped from Ploujean near Finisterre. They landed at Vazon Bay in Guernsey, thinking they had reached England, only to be captured and sent to Jersey. Early in February, Scornet was tried as their leader in the committee room of the Old Court, and he was executed on 17 March 1941 at St Ouen Manor. His companions were returned to France where some of them later died in prison, although one managed to escape to join the resistance. Sibyl Hathaway had been among the first to turn in military escapers when a few days after the occupation two Frenchmen and a Pole arrived in a dinghy, and were brought to the Seigneurie. The Frenchmen said they wished to join the Free French, but although people were escaping from Guernsey that day, Hathaway said there was no alternative to surrender because the fishing boats had been impounded. They were, she said in her memoirs, 'bitterly disappointed and I did my best to comfort them'.

  Because the Islands were in a war zone, Islanders experienced dangers from crashed planes of both sides, and witnessed the death or capture of many Allied airmen. One list of such crashes also includes 26 German planes. A good many of these were the result of airport collisions due to the large number of transport planes involved in air-lifting supplies and personnel. A Messerschmitt collided with an anti-aircraft position at Guernsey airport killing three gunners in August 1940, and on other occasions German anti-aircraft guns opened up on their own planes. A Junkers 88 crashed near Eden Chapel in Jersey in April 1944 as a result of such an action, and four crew were killed. In other cases planes came down as a result of air war over the Islands which was intense during the Battle of Britain, at the time of convoy battles, and in the period of the D-Day invasion. Although only three German air crew were buried on the Islands the number of deaths was higher; perhaps as many as 25.

  Naturally it was Allied air-crew that Island attention focused on most. On 3 June 1943 the body of Sergeant Dennis Butlin was picked up at La Pulente, and soon afterwards that of Sergeant Abraham Holden at Samares. They were buried at Mont-a-l'Abbe Cemetery on 6 June, and at their burial on Jersey hundreds lined the route and two lorry loads of wreaths followed the cortege. Information about air war over the Islands is notoriously incomplete, but there were 23 confirmed Allied air losses, and there were others like Squadron
Leader Gonay, a Belgian, killed when his plane crashed on a farm at St Ouen in June 1944. Mrs Cortvriend said that, 'the mere sight of a British or Allied plane was a thrill and a signal for rejoicing to most of us'. On Sark a Lancaster bomber managed to land in what is now known as 'Aeroplane Field'.

  Whenever possible, Islanders did their best to treat Allied air-crew with kindness, although that was as far as they dared to go in view of German warnings. In Guernsey when the first plane, an Anson, crashed and four crew came ashore in a dinghy at Portinfer, they were looked after by Reginald Blatchford of the St John Ambulance Brigade before they were handed over to the police. Pilot Officer Robert Stirling whose Hurricane came down near Lihou Island, managed to walk in darkness along the causeway to Guernsey in April 1941. The 23-year-old Scotsman also managed to avoid a German cycle patrol, and sheltered at Mr and Mrs T. Brouard's house at L'Eree overnight.

  At the time of the Nicolle-Symes affair, Schumacher's order had made it clear that anyone who sheltered British subjects "particularly members of the British armed forces, shall be shot', and this order was reissued on a number of occasions. In August 1941, for example, the Guernsey Evening Press contained this order over Carey's name: 'Attention is called to the fact that under the Order relative to protection against acts of sabotage, dated October 10th 1940, any person who hides or shelters escaped prisoners of war shall be punished with death. The same applies for the hiding or sheltering of members of enemy forces, for instance, crews of landing aircraft, parachutists etc. Anyone lending assistance to such persons in their escape is also liable to the death sentence.' Mrs Tremayne saw this notice. 'Just fancy', she wrote, 'it might easily be one of our own and someone we know'. No accurate figures are available for Allied air losses in the Channel Islands, but the list includes ten deaths, sadly not all as a result of enemy action. The pilot of a Spitfire that crashed to the south of Guernsey in May 1944 was killed when his parachute failed to open. Usually crews that came down over land or ditched in the sea were rescued and the list also includes at least 20 rescued crew members. The Germans co-operated in such rescues, although there is one unexplained incident that took place off Alderney. In January 1944 four crew members were saved from a Lancaster that ditched to the west of the Island, but at some time late in June that year another Lancaster crashed west of Essex Castle. Captain Massmann, harbour commandant at Braye since 1943, did not order out any boats, and two of his staff later stated 'all of us were surprised that nothing was done for their rescue'. After the war Massmann was brought to London with a view to prosecution, but none took place.