The Channel Islands At War

by Peter King

  Whatever may be said about the value of the black market for ordinary people, this was not its main purpose, and they were not always its main beneficiaries. Edward Chapman and Anthony Faramus were involved in the black market in 1941 when Chapman came out of prison. They operated from a hairdresser's run by a local bookmaker called 'Sandy', buying goods from the Germans and selling them at twice the price to Islanders. They helped to supply pubs with drink, and sold cigarettes at seven and six a packet. They got to know certain German officers. When the Island police tried to arrest Chapman one night, German marines tried to free him, but the Feldpolizei joined in the brawl and he was captured. However, one of the officers telephoned the police station, and he was released.

  Helping Germans and being helped by them was dangerous in wartime because blackmail was never far away. The Germans needed information, and usually obtained it from among the Island population closest to them. The Germans could overlook crimes, cancel sentences, provide jobs, dole out bribes, and give rewards, and in the hard days of occupation there were not a few who found themselves working for the Germans, some out of necessity, but others for more squalid motives.

  Part 3: Collaboration

  Working for or with the Germans: The Informers

  In one of the museums devoted to the war years on the Islands are displayed some wartime letters from informers. In the cold light of day, these anonymous documents in the German Occupation Museum in St Peter's, some of which sent fellow Islanders to their deaths in Germany, still arouse feelings of contempt and shame. One began by asking why a particular man had a ton of anthracite delivered when other people had no fuel, and went on to urge the Germans to "call and see his stock of food in bedroom cupboards and billiard room, and sec what you think of it'. This letter was sent to the Feldpolizei, inaccurately described on the envelope as the Gestapo, at their Silvertide headquarters in St Helier. Another letter sent to the Commandant at Victoria College House said: 'Please search Brompton Villa, Great Union Road for at least two wireless' hidden under floor boards, loft and cellars.'

  The informers are a category of Island quisling for which no writer has a good word, and nearly all accept they were not isolated individuals, but part of a substantial group. Cruickshank is not sure if such activity was collaboration, and without any real evidence suggests they acted out of personal animosities and spite. In reality, motives for informing were extremely varied: the hope of personal gain, the wish to stand well with the Germans, fury at injustice in the distribution of food or the exaction of penalties, concealment of their own illegal activities and a wish to avoid being involved in reprisals. All such acts clearly helped enemy forces, and were therefore illegal in Britain under the Treason Act passed in 1940, but this act did not apply in the Channel Islands, and therefore none of the informers who had acted directly or covertly were ever punished.

  It was believed, spies operated by standing in queues to listen to grumblers, and there can be no doubt that foreign staff in the surviving hotels were willing to inform on residents or fellow staff. This had occurred, it will be recalled, in the case of Mrs Green and her remark about the rice pudding, and Mrs Cortvriend reported another case of a waitress imprisoned as a result of being informed against by a member of the staff.

  The Germans did all they could to encourage informers, and some Island government pronouncements seemed to indicate giving information to the Germans was a duty. This must have been a powerful inducement or a partial justification to some at least of the informers. Victor Carey's condemnation of cutting a German cable near the airport included the statement that, 'it is the duty of any individual who has any information with regard to the perpetration of this act of sabotage to inform the police immediately.' His public request regarding V-for-Victory signs is well known. He offered a reward: 'to the person who first gives the Inspector of Police information leading to the conviction of anyone not yet discovered for the offence of marking on any gate, wall or place whatsoever visible to the public the letter "V or any other word or sign calculated to offend the German authorities or soldiers.'

  The truth about the extent of informing will never be known. According to some Island writers, the total of such people was to be numbered in three figures rather than two. Post office workers in Jersey claimed to have stopped several hundred such letters, and Inspector Albert Lamy on Guernsey said he destroyed many sometimes warning those involved. In a few individual cases there can be no doubt. John Ingrouille was betrayed by a well-known mother and daughter who were seized on Liberation Day and had their hands tied before soldiers rescued them. Mrs Chalus, their daily help, betrayed Connie and Robert Vaynor for having a wireless. Several informed on died in German camps as a result of receiving sentences for listening to the wireless like Cohu, Tierney, Nicolle and the Painters. Even on Sark informers operated, and Sibyl Hathaway recorded, 'I know for certain that we had one Quisling on the Island because the German Commandant told me she had helped to select the people she most disliked for deportation.'

  The most well-known case of an informer's activity is the betrayal by 'Paddy' of those producing the underground news sheet GUNS, which led to the death in Germany of two of those convicted. He was a friend of Charles Machon, and took copies he obtained from him to the Feldpolizei. Later, he was seen with the Feldpolizei as they raided Machon's house in the Victoria Road district of St Peter Port. Even Herbert Morrison had to admit the role of Irish itinerant workers in supporting the Germans, and wrote that "most Irish labourers had no compunction about working for the Germans'.

  Military Intelligence reports said there were nearly 400 Irish potato-pickers stranded on the Islands, who 'constitute a serious threat to law and order' and on liberation 'should be interned until repatriated'. A German spy on the Islands before 1939 had met some of the Irish working in the quarries and found them friendly towards Germany. After occupation, several of them went to Germany to work. In return the Germans treated the Irish well.

  The treacherous role of informer was one way in which Islanders worked for the Germans. In another way, nearly all made a contribution to the Island economy and hence to the income and lives of the occupying forces. Article 52 of the Hague Convention said that an occupying power could demand labour 'in proportion to the resources of the country and of such a nature as not to involve the inhabitants in the obligation of taking part in military operations against their own country". This was a false distinction because anyone working was allowing the Germans to transfer their own labour to war activities, and because the Islands were in a battle zone the operation of air raid precautions and emergency services were as much in the Germans' interests as those of the citizens. Nor was it easy to distinguish work that was purely military from work that was civilian. For instance, German sea walls were useful sea defences as well as anti-tank devices, and works like the Beaumont powerhouse on Jersey, or the water supply for St Anne on Alderney, were generally beneficial. The Island governments tried to preserve the distinction in Article 52, and on a number of occasions quarrelled with the Germans over particular pieces of work. Coutanche complained that the raising of St Aubin's Bay wall protected a road used by military convoys, and therefore Germans must do the work. On another occasion, when a gun emplacement was flooded, international law was preserved by the Jersey fire brigade pumping out enough water to prevent anyone drowning, but not enough to save the ammunition.

  Such nice legal points could not survive grim reality. The Islands had to bear occupation costs unaided for two years with an unfavourable rate of exchange in occupation marks. Little money was available for public works or the wages of public employees. The Germans made major demands on Island resources, and distorted the economy with some of their agricultural demands. The absence of many men in their twenties and thirties threw the burden of fending for dependants on a smaller, older work force, and compelled women to seek work in a depressed labour market. By the end of 1940, the labour department in Jersey estimated there were 2,300 out
of work.

  Naturally, the Germans were delighted to replace their own nationals with voluntary Island labour. By Christmas 1940, the Germans were able to withdraw large numbers of civilians in posts like secretaries, telephonists, kitchen hands, waiters, and even medical staff replacing them with Island workers. Numbers employed grew, and in Guernsey alone by early 1943 over 2,000 were directly employed by the Germans giving a possible total for the Islands of 4,000. In Alderney, the evacuated civilian population was replaced between the spring of 1941 and June 1944 by several hundred Island workers who made life pleasant for the garrison.

  Almost all those forced by poverty to work for the Germans probably heartily disliked what they were doing, but they had no alternative. Only in 1945 did some of them begin to show their feelings. Von Aufsess noticed the electricity works manager who had been co-operative had now turned surly perhaps because 'his feelings have been worked on by would-be patriots or with the end approaching he is getting worried about having co-operated with the occupying power up to now.' Many Island workers toiled alongside Todt slaves and saw the brutality. Sometimes they were its victims. Gordon Prigent argued with the Germans on his building site, and found himself in Norderney.

  The Germans had plenty of slave labourers, and their usual way of persuading Islanders to work for them was to offer better terms than Island employers. Although Richard Johns, in charge of the Guernsey labour department, warned Organization Todt against wage differentials claiming it would help to bankrupt the Islands, the Germans held off for a few months, and then began to offer £1 1s. 4d. a week extra combined with larger food rations and special allowances for those willing to move to another Island. Islanders therefore worked in almost every conceivable capacity for the Germans.

  Two places where Island workers were most needed, where there could be no doubt that they were breaking the Hague convention, and where they ran the risk of being killed by British air attack, were harbours and airports. A demand for labour at the airports for levelling new runways and hangar building clearly broke the convention, but Island labour departments had no alternative but to comply. In Guernsey about 180 men were employed in this way. In wartime it was inevitable the RAF killed British allies in bombing attacks on West European countries. A rather muddled notice was issued by the Island authorities saying that no one would be required to work at the airports, 'if flying conditions are such that there is a danger of attack from the air'. This would have been hard enough to define, but the notice went on to increase pay to 'time and a third' and admitted 'that it is impossible with the best will in the world entirely to eliminate all risks'.

  It was in 1943 that the Germans, under pressure to complete their fortification programme, introduced more widespread forced labour when unemployed shop assistants and glass-house workers were taken on for such purposes as ammunition-cleaning and trench-digging which clearly violated the convention. Knackfuss, the commandant, issued an order stating: in order that the States shall not have to choose and engage the necessary persons themselves, it has been agreed that the States shall only report to the Feldkommandantur the groups of people to whom this compulsory employment applied. We reserve ourselves the right of completing the lists by referring to the card index file of persons with present place of employment added.'

  There followed a period of administrative double-speak while the work was carried out. After three weeks Leale complained, but his letter was not replied to for six months. Knackfuss stressed workers had been given the opportunity to refuse even though the forms for this had been printed in German, and very few are recorded as having taken advantage of this let-out clause. Most of them were desperate for work, and orders early in February 1943 had established favourable conditions for such workers. Knackfuss never accepted that the convention had been broken, and work of a military nature was demanded on other occasions.

  On Alderney there were no more than a handful of civilians, and the need for labour was great. In spite of tough conditions, the army billeting office established there to recruit labour never had any difficulty, and from early in 1941 until the summer of 1944 hundreds went from other Islands to work on Alderney and service the daily life to the garrison. Mrs Tremayne heard as early as July 1940 that attempts were being made to recruit labour to 'clear it all up and put the houses and hotels in order, also gather in their harvest and bring it back to Guernsey for our use'.

  Among those who stayed were four individuals who were on hand to greet British forces when they landed. Frank Oselton returned to farm with his cattle, George Pope acted as a pilot and did a little farming, Clifford Bichard was the foreman of building works and presided over the construction of a pay office and new bakery for the Germans, and Peter Doyle worked as a handyman, and pilot. Their testimony was to be vital in 1945 when alleged atrocities were investigated, and, apart from Pope who made exaggerated claims he could not substantiate, none of them appeared to be willing to give evidence about brutal German policy on the Island.

  Three groups of workers went to Alderney: farm labourers, those involved in maritime matters like pilotage and salvage, and those required to service Wehrmacht and Organization Todt facilities. The agricultural workers arrived early in 1941 having been directed there by Raymond Falla and Richard Johns. They cleared the land and collected 200 tons of straw. Crops were then planted and cultivation carried on until the summer of 1943. Four farms - Island, Mignot, Rose and Mill - were the main ones brought back into use, and working with Italians, Moroccans, POWs, and other camp inmates they managed to raise 250 tons of barley, oats, potatoes and vegetables. Some 40 workers were involved in the harvest that year. Pigs, cows, and a flock of 300 sheep with a Scots shepherd, Thomas Creron, were also tended on Alderney. A small number of Guernsey fishing boats were ordered to operate off Alderney with more severe restrictions than those imposed on all Island fishermen, and once again their catch was exclusively for German use.

  The harbour commandants, Jacobi, Parsenow and Massmann, required expert maritime labour to pilot boats, maintain harbour works or check wrecks, and called on French and Dutch volunteers as well as Islanders for these tasks. Braye Harbour was subjected to considerable changes to accommodate convoys from Cherbourg every ten days. A spur was built to accommodate a bunker and guardroom, a boom with a gap in the centre was placed across the harbour from the end of the main breakwater to Bibette Head which proved difficult to maintain in high seas and the appalling winters of 1942-3, and 1944-5. A steel pier with a wooden deck was added to the original stone jetty, and cranes installed.

  Storms were responsible for the sinking of several ships like the Xaver Dorsch, a dredger, a barge, and a harbour guard vessel, and after the winter of 1942-3 the Germans decided to recruit workers to salvage these wrecks.

  A group was formed under John Matthews from marine workers on all three Islands, amounting to some 30 or more including several from Sark. Mrs Tremayne heard the men were told 'it was either Alderney or Germany', and this is borne out by Matthews' own account of their recruitment. The team were ordered to leave at once for Alderney and refused. After discussion, the Germans had to give way because they needed the equipment and skills of Matthews' men. They were told their task was to try and salvage a trawler, and that they would be given proper living quarters, Navy diet, and adequate leave. The party them embarked on the Alfreda and sailed to Braye where they were met by Captain Jacobi. They worked with German and French divers, but after a week it became clear the trawler could not be retrieved and was likely to break up where she lay wedged in a rock crevice. The marine workers remained on Alderney from May to October 1943.

  The complete departure of the Island population left Alderney for some months largely uninhabited. Property decayed, and boatloads of German sightseers from other Islands and Cherbourg began to loot deserted houses. Doors and windows were smashed, and valuable goods, including a collection of silver trophies won by an Island farmer, were stolen. Other property was dragged out and left to rot in
gardens. The Island governments were responsible for the property of evacuees and made some attempts to do their job by recruiting 40 Guernsey men to make the properties safe. With the decision to fortify the Island, and establish camps and a large garrison, Sonderfuhrer Herzog was ordered to requisition property and prepare accommodation for the coming forces, and this led in the spring of 1941 to substantial maintenance gangs of electricians, plumbers, and builders going to Alderney. Looting was stopped and the church plate of St Anne, for example, was sent to Guernsey for safekeeping, although the church was later desecrated by its use as a butcher's shop and wine store. Then, as the garrison grew, more Islanders went over to work as waiters, cooks, drivers, and domestic servants. The exact number is unknown but Mrs Cortvriend referred to 'several hundred' disembarking at St Peter Port in June 1944 when air raids forced the Germans to remove almost all civilians from Alderney.