The Channel Islands At War

by Peter King

  Lindau was now stung into action, and prepared to take Guernsey next morning only to find himself delayed by fog. At last in the evening Junkers transport planes with naval assault troops, a company of infantry, and a light anti-aircraft unit occupied the Island.

  That day Guernsey people read in their papers a statement by Carey that the public were to offer no resistance, and to obey the orders printed in the paper. These orders included a curfew, no use of private motor vehicles, the handing in of all weapons, a ban on the sale of petrol, the advancing of clocks and watches to Central European Time, the banning of all boat movements, the closure of the aerodrome to the public, and a demand that all British military personnel report to the authorities. On Tuesday 2 July Major Albrecht Lanz, the first commandant of Guernsey, and his English-speaking chief of staff, Major-Doctor Maass, arrived, and had a meeting with Island officials after which a second list of German orders was issued.

  In Jersey the first indication of the coming German invasion was the dropping of several copies of a demand early on the morning of 1 July. Because no one in government circles could read German, a Jesuit was sent for to translate the document which ordered the Island to display white crosses on various places, and stated that if this was not done 'a heavy bombardment will take place'. But once again the Luftwaffe could not resist taking swifter action. This time it was Lieutenant Richard Kern who landed at the airport to be met by the airport controller. Kern asked why white flags were not displayed, and it was pointed out that the bailiff had to get agreement before acting, but that they intended to surrender. Coutanche held a meeting in Royal Square, and there was considerable discontent in the crowd when he said they must surrender. 'We've got men, we've got our fists' called out someone. But there was no alternative. The white flags were put up, and Coutanche accompanied by Duret Aubin, the attorney general, went to the airport. By this time, a small number of planes under the command of Staff Captain Obernitz had arrived, and it was to Kern and Obernitz that actual surrender was made. As in Guernsey some Germans entered the car with the bailiff and the attorney general, and they drove to St Helier town hall which became their headquarters. A meeting was arranged for ten o'clock next morning.

  At the meeting Coutanche, Duret Aubin, Edgar Dorey, and the bailiffs secretary, Ralph Mollet met the German commandant. Captain Erich Gussek. A more detailed set of occupation orders was presented and agreed. These laid down the relationship between the Germans and the existing government. They ended with an ominous little clause saying, that the privileges granted to the civilian population were dependent on their good behaviour, and that military necessity might require the orders now in force to be made more stringent.

  On 2 July two small planes under the command of Scrgeant-Major Schmidt landed on Alderney to find it practically deserted. It was decided that all that was needed there for the moment was a small detachment of 80 harbour defence troops under the command of Captain Koch.

  The old Guernsey lifeboat brought Lanz and Maass to Sark on 3 July with a small contingent of ten men and a sergeant who were billeted in the Bel Air Hotel. When the Germans entered the Seigneurie, they gave the Nazi salute to Sibyl Hathaway and her husband, after they had walked up from the harbour with the seneschal. They began by presenting a copy of the conditions, but matters relaxed when Sibyl Hathaway spoke in German. Lunch was served, and thereafter 'I was treated with great courtesy by the senior officers, and I, in turn, extended to them the hospitality of the Seigneurie'.

  These first few days were halcyon ones. The German commandants were all civilized men on the surface even if they served the Nazi regime. The first orders were not oppressive, and the first German soldiers were young healthy men more interested in good food, buying up goods in the shops, and getting down to the beaches than in any brutal occupation tactics. The occupation orders contained an important reassurance which said that 'The German Commandant has taken over the military powers of the Islands of Guernsey and Jersey. The population is hereby required to retain calmness, order and discipline. If this is assured, the life and property of the population will be respected and guaranteed.’

  Both sides thought occupation might not last long. The Germans thought England would fall. The Islanders believed they would be rescued in some way. Julia Tremayne was disappointed when Churchill's broadcast urging the French to resist made no mention of the Channel Islands, but as late as December she was writing 'we long for the British Navy to come and put the fear of God in their hearts, and I pray it won't be far off. For a few months the Islanders could get used to Germans passing Boots the Chemist and Barclays Bank, marching along the lanes singing, and even to meeting them at dances or football matches. As the Germans anticipated this was not what people expected. They had achieved a bloodless conquest, and had established themselves without a shadow of opposition, apart from a few incidents as when James Colgan struck a German soldier in a St Helier cafe for which offence he received a month in prison.

  Inside the Channel War Zone for Five Years

  Not long after D-Day when the government on Jersey plucked up a little courage to complain about food and other shortages the Military commandant von Schmettow replied. 'People in the Islands do not know what war is, nor what war means. They can have no idea of what every German town, the whole of France, London and the South of England are experiencing daily in the way of sacrifices and sufferings." Morrison, the home secretary, made the same point when he told his cabinet colleagues that the Islanders had 'lost touch with events in the outside world' and 'had no comprehension of conditions in this country, including the bombing and war time privations'.

  Churchill was naturally furious when he heard about the seizure of the Channel Islands, and minuted General Ismay demanding that 'plans should be studied to land secretly by night on the Islands and kill or capture the invaders'. The prime minister thought this would be a useful task for the newly forming commandos. As a result his large scale attacks on one or more of the Channel Islands were considered in 1941 and 1942. In February 1941 Operation Attaboy was put forward involving the landing of 5,000 troops on Alderney. Sir Roger Keyes, Director of Combined Operations, was asked to make plans, and Churchill was prepared to accept heavy casualties. Keyes and the Joint Planning Staff put forward numerous objections saying fighter cover would be menaced by the Luftwaffe in France, and that though capturing Alderney or another Island was feasible, it would bring no strategic gain, and a long-term maintenance problem. Churchill argued for even a day's occupation, but the plan was abandoned.

  1942 saw the development of a second major operation called at first Operation Blazing. Consideration was given to capturing all three main Islands although it was stressed that cither Guernsey or Jersey would require up to 8,000 troops with large scale air and naval support. Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten had just taken over as Chief of Combined Operations and supported Blazing because he knew Churchill liked offensive actions of this kind. He argued that Island captures would provide facilities for attacking German shipping while at the same time helping the Navy with a Channel base, extending air cover of France,

  and providing a useful starting-point for raids on the French coast by Commando forces. Mountbatten proposed an invasion of Alderney with 5,000 troops landing from up to 23 ships protected by six destroyers, and covering air attack designed particularly to eliminate Fort Albert overlooking Braye. But once this plan was put forward the chiefs of both Fighter and Bomber Command, and the newly appointed head of the Airborne Division all objected, and Churchill and Mountbatten abandoned the plan on 11 May.

  In spite of disaster at Dieppe that summer, the plan was resurrected before the end of the year as Operation Constellation. Three separate plans for the Islands were drawn up, and a serious effort was made to collect information under the code-name Concubine. All three plans involved large forces. That for Alderney required the dropping of nearly 5,000 tons of bombs while that for Jersey involved air attack, infantry and commando landings on
the coast, and parachute drops from 190 aircraft of the Airborne Division on the race-course, airfield and at St Peter's Mill. The climax of the operation was to be a three-pronged advance on St Helier with a tank column coming from the north, and other forces from east and west and it is clear evacuation of remaining civilians was to be considered suggesting widespread devastation. Fortunately these plans were stillborn, and after D-Day, massive German fortifications, and the fate of French coastal towns subject to air attack, were convincing arguments against attempting any such invasion.

  But in June and July 1940 when the Islands fell Churchill was involved in the creation of the commandos based on striking companies recently employed in Norway. He told General Ismay on 4 June that 'we should immediately set to work to organize raiding forces', and two days later came his vital minute ordering the planning of such forces. The director of military operations prepared blueprints, and on 5 July the first commando brigade (Number 3) was formed at Plymouth under Major John Durnford-Slater. It was unclear if their main purpose was to harry the enemy tying down his forces, and encouraging resistance, or whether they were intelligence gathering units. Naturally the organization was at its flimsiest in the early months, but the Channel Isles provided an obvious testing ground, particularly since military men with knowledge of the Islands were available in the services. From July to September 1940 a series of small operations were carried out along the south Guernsey coast which while providing some military information were hamstrung by lack of resources, ended in failure, and presented the Island government of Carey and Sherwill with a serious crisis. Every raid faced some Islanders with the problem of aiding the invaders, and therefore raised the collaboration-resistance issue for the first time.

  Twenty-year-old Hubert Nicolle serving in the Hampshire Regiment was the first man sent to Guernsey. His expedition was so amateur that he had to buy his canoe at Gamages before travelling down to Plymouth to set off for the Island in a submarine on 5 July. It was impossible for the submarine to come close inshore, and Nicolle and Sub-Lieutenant Leitch had to row two miles to Le Jaonnet Bay. Leitch landed him and Nicolle

  made his way inland meeting two old friends. The second of these, Thomas Mansell, agreed to obtain information about the airport for him and donning dark glasses Nicolle then borrowed a bicycle and cycled home. His Uncle Frank Nicolle was assistant harbour-master, and he was able to provide naval information. From a local grocer given the task of supplying the garrison Nicolle obtained details of German ration strength. On 9 July, three days after his arrival, Nicolle made for the bay where a dinghy appeared which landed two men and then took him back to the submarine.

  The two men arriving were second lieutenants Philip Martel and Desmond Mulholland, both Guernsey men who had been asked to make a reconnaissance and guide in a raiding party on the night of 12 July. But after hiding out for two days and returning to the beach the two men found nothing happening, unaware that the attack had been postponed for 48 hours. Martel had visited his sister, Mrs Michael, but he was unwilling to return to her house so the two men set off to hide on the Island in a barn near Vazon and in a house that belonged to Colonel and Mrs Cantan, son-in-law and daughter of Sibyl Hathaway. The Dame claimed in her memoirs to have taken them supplies under the pretext of visiting her property. The two men went to Sark to try and get a boat, but German restrictions on fishing boats made this impossible, and a boat they stole at Perelle Bay in Guernsey broke up on the rocks. They were cut off and in great danger.

  Operation Ambassador took place on the night of 14-15 July. It was meant to be a three-pronged attack. One part, would land at Point dc la Moye and make for the airport to destroy planes and fuel. A second one would land at Le Jaonnet to intercept relieving troops going to the airport, and a third party would land at Petit Port to immobilize a machine-gun post there. Unfortunately there was a shortage of proper landing-craft, and in tough sea conditions everything went wrong. The airport group failed to land, as did the Le Jaonnet group misled by a faulty compass. The group who landed at Petit Port found no machine-gun post, and when it came to taking them off this proved impossible. Their boat was smashed after five attempts, and as the Germans were now alerted they had to be left behind although there was a reserve plan to return on the night of 17/18 July. Four soldiers, McGoldrick, Drain, Ross and Dumper, therefore had to stay hidden. They found a garden shed at the home of Doctor and Mrs Sullivan, a retired couple where they hid for two days, but unknown to them the relief force had been cancelled in order to cut losses. The men found refuge with Walter and Ada Bourgaize, at their general shop at Torteval even though German troops were billeted nearby. After one or two nights at the store, and failure to obtain a boat, they realized they would have to leave. Corporal Dumper left all his personal possessions behind, which caused the Bourgaizes considerable worry because they included u service revolver which had to be buried in a tin under the coal tip. The four soldiers were arrested walking along the road to the airport, and sent to Lamsdorf Stalag for the duration of the war.

  Martel and Mulholland had still to be rescued. Another Gucrnscyman, Stanley Ferbrache, volunteered to go to the Island and bring them back.

  He landed on 3 August at Le Jaonnet from a motor torpedo boat and then called on his uncle, Albert Callighan. That night he went to the bungalow where Mulholland's mother, Mrs Le Masurier lived, but she told him he was too late. The two men had surrendered the previous week. Ferbrache had to content himself with collecting information and even walked round the airport perimeter. He was taken off on the night of 6 August. In spite of these failures it was still thought valuable to establish contact with the local population, and Hubert Nicolle was sent back with another Hampshire Regiment Guernseyman, James Symes. They landed at Petit Port on 4 September, and went first to Nicolle's uncle, Frank. The two men were to remain at large for five weeks, and precipitate severe German reaction.

  But Churchill was still determined on attack, and Operation Tomato was in preparation to land forces of up to 500 men who would immobilize Guernsey and Jersey aerodromes as well as landing on Sark and Alderney. Captain John Parker, an Islander whose father still lived there, was chosen to obtain intelligence, and discover the fate of the four missing men. Unfortunately, his landing at La Corbiere was in the wrong place. He fell into a ditch, startling a German sentry, and was promptly arrested. He and his father were interrogated, and Parker was then sent to the Cherche Midi in Paris, and later to a POW camp. Keyes probably wrote with some relief to Churchill that, 'I understand from my conversation with you today that in present circumstances you do not wish me to proceed further with the project against the Channel Islands.'

  Parker's capture on 30 September a week later brought to an end the first attempt to bring war to the Islands.

  Martel and Mulholland surrendered to the Germans on 28 July and Nicolle and Symes on 21 October, as a result of a policy adopted by Ambrose Sherwill on behalf of the Island government. As early as 18 July Sherwill had drafted a complaint to the home office about the dispatch of missions saying Carey, he, and 'many prominent people' objected to them although it is noteworthy that all the ordinary Islanders who met the troops gave them assistance. This was not, however, the policy of the ruling group who were thoroughly alarmed on two grounds: such events would damage good relations with the Germans or precipitate action against the population as a whole, and secondly, their own relatives and government positions were at stake. Nicolle's uncle was harbour-master, and his father, Emile, was secretary to the Control Commission. Carey's secretary, Louis Guillemette found out his brother was to have been used in a raid, and Sherwill naturally feared his serving son, John, might be involved. In Jersey, Coutanche had a serving son who might be involved, and the Le Masuriers knew of an attempt to land Robert on Jersey. In Sark, Sibyl Hathaway knew Martel and Mulholland had visited her daughter Amice's house. As a result of the four agents' presence, Sherwill, both Nicolles, and H.E. Marquand, the States Supervisor, were to lose their post
s.

  These factors would undoubtedly have weighed with Shcrwill as much as the safety of the Islanders as a whole, and it led him to take action which in other European countries would have been seen as collaboration. When in desperation Martcl and Mulholland arrived at Havclet House willing to surrender Sherwill backed their decision, although a further effort was made to rescue them a week later. Sherwill rang up Doctor Maass after providing them with uniforms, and the two men surrendered. They were interrogated and then sent to POW camp for the rest of the war. Mrs Michael and Mrs Le Masurier were confined under house arrest at St-L6 until January 1941.

  Nicolle and Symes presented a more serious challenge to the Germans as the weeks passed, and gradually involved an increasing number of Islanders in their fate. Hubert Nicolle stayed with his uncle, and met his girlfriend, Jessie Mariette, while James Symes went to stay with his girlfriend Mary Bird's parents. Her father, Wilfred Bird, was working at Elizabeth College, and the two evaders spent three nights in the college cricket pavilion and had meals with William Allen, the groundsman, who lived in a cottage nearby. The two men made four escape attempts which failed, and a ban on the use of fishing boats resulting from some successful Island escapes blocked any chance of getting away. The arrival of the first Island Military Commander, von Schmettow, and his subordinate in Guernsey. Major Bandelosv, meant pressure was stepped up because the Germans had no way of knowing how many British troops were still at large. On 11 October Bandelow wrote to Sherwill saying he knew soldiers were present, and stressing that harbouring such people was a serious crime. He said that he would arrange a date by which time all those at large must surrender: 'Those reporting up to that date will be treated as prisoners of war; also no measures will be taken against their relatives who had assisted in hiding them. Those members of the British forces who may be found after this time limit must expect to be treated as agents of an enemy power.'