by Peter King
Detector vans were in use, but in the main the Germans relied on Islanders handing in their sets. Many failed to do so, and at a stroke became liable to prosecution for the rest of the war, resorting to all manner of tricks to hide sets and spread information. Wirelesses were hidden beneath floorboards, in the bottom of armchairs, in unused water tanks, or in specially constructed cupboards like one made by the Cortvriends. Many were the tales of narrow escapes during the frequent searches. A small set was concealed by one woman under a tea-cosy which she carried round with her pretending it was a teapot while the Germans searched her house. The manager of a St Peter Port bank heard of a woman who had kept a set, but was now frightened and wanted to get rid of it. He took the set and concealed it in the basket of an errand-boy's bicycle he was using. As luck would have it, he had to cycle past Germans, but he got the set to Barclay's Bank, and hid it in the strongroom. To his horror, the bank was subjected to a detailed search, but fortunately for him the searchers were too lazy to go downstairs, and he was ordered to bring the boxes up being able of course to keep the one with the wireless back. Others faced with searches had to lose their sets. One woman plunged hers into the suds of the weekly wash just in time, and another tipped hers into a septic tank.
Possession of a set led to three months in prison and even death. So many were convicted they had to wait their turn to serve sentences in Island prisons. On Jersey, they would have been even more surprised to know the assistant matron of the women's wing in the prison listened to a set in her sitting-room. But all traces of comedy vanish when the fate of some Islanders is considered. It was seen that when Canon Clifford Cohu of St Saviour's in Jersey, visited the general and maternity hospitals he was able to impart information he could only have got from BBC broadcasts, and it is likely that one of the women fraternizers betrayed this fact. It is said that Cohu had a set concealed in the organ loft, and he received information from a cemetery worker, Joseph Tierney, who in turn heard the details from John Nicolle listening to his own set. The
Germans surprised Tierney at the cemetery, and although Nicolle escaped to his father's farm nearby, he was arrested. Others were soon roped in including Joseph's wife, Eileen, Mr Mourant, a local farmer, and officials at the hospital. Some received short sentences.
Three were sent to the Continent. John Nicolle died in a camp near Dortmund, Joseph Tierney died at Celle, and Clifford Cohu at Spergau. They were not the only men to die for listening to a wireless. A former CID officer Percy Miller and Peter Painter and his young son Peter were among those who also lost their lives. Jack Soyer sentenced for the same offence managed to escape in France, and joined the Maquis. He was killed in action on 29 July 1944, and honoured by them. Others, like Stanley Green sent to Buchenwald for a wireless offence, managed to survive the war.
Ingenuity produced new wireless sets. At first these were handmade mains receivers, but when electricity was cut off crystal sets were introduced early in 1945 which could pick up Forces broadcasts from France. Telephone boxes were raided for earpieces. A large piece of crystal in the Jesuit College museum on Jersey was used to make over 60 such sets, while in Guernsey a jeweller cut up an old meteorite for the same purpose. Sets were available for £10 according to Mrs Cortvriend, and Mrs Tremayne had access to news from a crystal set somewhere on Sark. In 1945 L'Amy wanted a transmitter, because the number of escapers had fallen rapidly once Hüffmeier had taken over. The set was made by a post office engineer, and installed in a convalescent home at Les Vaux where it was possible to enter the room secretly from below. But before the set could operate, the cipher and call sign had to be smuggled out. Gladden was persuaded to build another boat, and two boys were willing to escape with the material. Plans were laid for an escape in April 1945, but bad weather delayed them, and it never took place.
From clandestine radios producers of resistance news-sheets obtained their information. One appeared on each of the main Islands although both were closed down by the Germans. On Jersey, Herbert and George Gallichan produced the Bulletin of British Patriots which took as its theme the illegality of confiscating radios. 'For our part', they wrote, 'we refuse to comply with the confiscation order'. Herbert worked in the food office in the town hall where it was typed and duplicated, while George was responsible for distribution. When no one owned up to producing the paper, the Germans seized ten hostages - an indication of how effective they thought this kind of activity was. The Gallichans then surrendered. George was given a year in Dijon Prison, and Herbert remained in Wolfenbuttel concentration camp until the end of the war.
In Guernsey the underground news-sheet, entitled (perhaps unwisely) GUNS (Guernsey Underground News Service) circulated from May 1942 to February 1944. Conceived by Charles Machon of the Guernsey Evening Star, the others involved included Frank Falla, Ernest Legg, Joseph Gillingham, and Cecil Duquemin. A good many others were involved in distribution, but it was policy only to communicate directly with Machon, so that even Falla, for example, did not know Duquemin was involved. On Sark, Wakley the carter and Lanyon the baker were the distributors. The sheet, 13½” x 8" with a heading bearing the illegal V-sign, came out daily and contained about 700 words from BBC broadcasts. It was dangerous to produce it in the office, and even more unwise on occasions to use linotype. This was sometimes done when Churchill gave an important speech, and an ex-editor, Bill Taylor, took it down in shorthand for them to set up in type. GUNS circulation of perhaps three hundred reached out to all the Islands successfully. Mrs Tremayne praised Lanyon when he was given six months 'for trying to cheer us all up by telling us a bit of news'. They had many narrow escapes, said Falla. 'Once a subscriber passed his GUNS to a friend with the written injunction 'burn after reading' followed by his initials. Unfortunately this friend left it in a book which he had read and returned to the library. Happily the next person to take out that book chanced to be a regular receiver of our news sheet.'
Falla was worried about security. On one occasion he found a copy on a market stall, and while ticking off the man concerned turned round to find a German directly behind him. Sadly, copies came into the hands of an Irish informer who decided to turn them in.
On 11 February, the Feldpolizci arrested Machon and Duquemin. A typewriter and back copies were found in Machon's possession, and for a fortnight he was interrogated. Faced with threats to his mother he cracked, and Legg and Gillingham were the next arrested. At last on 3 April Falla was rounded up by a Feldpolizei called Einert, taken home and there handed over his wireless. The five men were tried on 26 April, and their sentences confirmed on 17 May. They were two years and four months for Machon, one year and eleven months for Duquemin, one year and ten months for Legg and Gillingham, and one year and four months for Falla. Machon was deported at once and died five months later at Naumburg. The others were forced to work for the Germans, digging trenches, building a bunker, and loading sand on to lorries. On 4 June, in the company of six Feldpolizei, they were taken to the harbour, and next day arrived in St Malo. Gillingham, too, was to die, and although Legg. Duquemin, and Falla did survive it was only by the skin of their teeth. Copies of material from wireless broadcasts continued to circulate after the end of GUNS. In October 1944, Mrs Treymayne wrote that she had 'seen Mr Churchill's speech' which had been lent to her, 'and I dare not say by whom'. She expressed her joy at reading this piece of news knowing that it was genuine.
None of those involved in activities to keep up morale received any award or recognition from either British or Island governments. No compensation was paid to them, and no pensions given to the relatives of the camp victims who died. Even when the British government eventually obtained paltry compensation from the West German government for British victims of war crimes in 1964 none of this was given to those from the Channel Isles imprisoned on the Continent, and a letter from the Foreign Office informed them they would have to wait until the conclusion of a definitive peace treaty with Germany. Few are now left waiting.
Public Demon
strations and Secret Politics
Bitterness and frustrated patriotism led Islanders to show their feelings against the Germans in outbursts of personal anger or violence, or by petty acts of resistance. Sometimes these were in secret like listening to the forbidden wireless or reading news-sheets. Others were more public, like the drunk arrested in St Peter Port in October 1943 for calling out 'Balls to Hitler', or a boxer in the same town, who hit a German and received two years in prison. Public criticism or insulting words directed at Germans led to severe prison sentences like that on Geoffrey Delauney incarcerated for the rest of the war or a lawyer, Mr Ogier, imprisoned with his son Richard for defamatory remarks against the Germans, who died in a German camp in 1943.
Cutting communication cables began in March 1941 at St Martin in Guernsey. Such an act achieved very little because repairs could be quickly carried out. Carey denounced such activity as stupid and criminal because it involved others in punishments, and after the war Coutanche expressed the same view: i didn't think then, and I don't think now, that it did any good to anybody'. However, German reaction showed they resented it, and feared it might lead to more serious actions. The curfew was extended by two hours, and 60 Islanders were ordered to carry out night patrols of the wire for three weeks. John Boucherd remembered his father and brother were among those forced to do this duty. There was a subsequent cable-cutting episode in the Les Vardes district although on this occasion as no civilians lived near no-one was punished. Other minor sabotage had more tangible results. Charles Roche, airport controller on Jersey, told his groundsman, Joseph Quernard, to cut the grass so closely that it became slippery in wet weather, causing aircraft to crash into each other. It is certainly true there were runway collisions like that on 29 August 1940 and claims have been made for over 20 accidents being caused. Questioned about the shortness of his grass-cutting, Quernard told the Germans that climatic conditions conditioned the length.
To people living under dictatorship such small signs of opposition possessed a greater symbolic importance than their trivial nature might suggest. It is in this light that the V-for-Victory campaign started in June 1941 on the Islands needs to be regarded. It was not simply the childish painting or distributing of V-for-Victory signs: the act represented widespread determination to show the Germans they were unwanted.
They were certainly not 'trivial' acts because, as we have seen, a number of people like de Guillebon, Mrs Le Norman and Mrs Kinniard suffered imprisonment as a result. So did one of the most successful V-sign campaigners, Roy Machon. Roy had been involved in cable-cutting, and used his spare time to make V-for-Victory badges out of coins. He was given six months which he served at Munich, although he was then sent to Laufen internment camp for the rest of the war. His friend, Alfred Williams, continued to make the badges without being detected. The first V-for-Victory signs appeared in the St Martin district near the Hotel Beaulieu. The Germans retaliated by confiscating wirelesses over a wide area, and roping in civilians for a month's night-time guard duty. The signs did not stop in spite of threats from the Germans and Carey, culminating in the issuing of the poster offering a reward for anyone who could help detect the culprits. Mrs Cortvriend said Carey told her he went as far as this because prominent Islanders were threatened with deportation. Although de Guillebon was caught the signs continued to appear chalked on gateposts including the Feldkommandantur headquarters, in tar on the roads, in chalk on German bicycle-seats, made in matches on tables, cut from cardboard and slipped through letter-boxes, left on shop counters and in other public places. Some people even took to knocking with the morse V.
Prosecutions continued, and 19 children from Castel Primary School were hauled before the Nazis with their parents and teachers and threatened for their activities. In the end the Germans infuriated by the outbreak of V-sign drawing throughout Europe decided to use the symbol themselves incorporating laurel leaves and using it as a peace symbol, and this eventually had the desired effect.
It is not surprising that the first serious public demonstration took place when deportation was announced in September 1942. In Guernsey, the German authorities took a relaxed attitude, and permitted farewell parties to take place. Frank Stroobant organized one for some 200 people. During the evening they sang their way through a patriotic repertoire from 'Rule Britannia' and 'Land of Hope and Glory' to contemporary songs like "The White Cliffs of Dover' and 'There'll Always be an England'. In St Helier, crowds gathered shouting defiant patriotic slogans like 'Churchill' and 'England'. Troops with fixed bayonets were called out, and in parts of the town like Pier Road, Bond Street and Kensington Place young men gathered - several of them from Queen Elizabeth College. Leslie Sinel described how, 'The Germans chased some young boys, and one of them unloosed a beautiful right hook and laid out a German officer; others played football with a German's helmet.' Some 14 were captured and imprisoned at the Gloucester Street police station for a fortnight. They were tried, and although some were let off, others received a month in prison, and a man who was said to have incited them was given three years.
When the first funeral of RAF crews was held in Jersey on 6 June 1943, it provided the next opportunity to indicate what ordinary Islanders felt.
The cortege passed through crowds numbering hundreds, and Coutanche himself attended the ceremony in the Mont L'Abbe Cemetery. This was followed on 17 November by an even larger demonstration of silent patriotism when victims of the HMS Charybdis disaster were buried at Foulon Cemetery. Falla was present and described the scene. Many people, he said, were suffering from heavy colds, bronchitis and even pneumonia, due "mostly to the lack of nourishing foods'. Nevertheless, under grey winter skies, several thousand Guernsey people crowded into the cemetery. Nine hundred wreaths covered the graves, and the German censors had their work cut out removing all patriotic references from the list of details given in the Guernsey Evening Press. They stopped all publicity for the funerals on Jersey, and soon afterwards an order limited the number who might attend such occasions in the future. The Guernsey Evening Press managed to produce a four-page supplement on the funeral, and the censor ordered that no more than 2,000 be printed. Apparently the order was defied and 5,000 were distributed.
The last time the Islanders were able to demonstrate their feelings was in June 1944 on hearing news of the D-Day landings. According to one eyewitness, 'when the invasion started on June 6th some hundreds of people in Guernsey went nearly mad with joy and excitement singing 'Roll Out the Barrel", and "There'll Always Be an England'.
The Germans issued orders forbidding all public demonstrations of any kind and Hüffmeier was to repeat these orders up to the last minute in May 1945. The curfew was increased by three hours, and all places of public entertainment closed.
The least likely form of resistance was the growth of a politically motivated opposition determined to use the circumstances of the war to oust those in government who had co-operated with the Nazis, and seize the opportunity to recast the outdated government system of the Islands. Intelligence reports referred to opposition political groupings known as the Jersey Democratic Society, and the Guernsey Underground Barbers. The former, founded by a communist who had fought against Franco, was preparing a campaign for 'the abolition of Jersey's feudal system'. Their main work was to contact ROA Russian troops in the German army, or Russian Todt workers. The group's network which is said to have had nearly a hundred members was involved in sheltering and feeding escaped Russians, and also supplied paper, and other materials for underground news-sheets.
It has been claimed that in 1945 the Jersey Democratic Society, or at least its Marxist members, linked up with Communist Germans in the Wehrmacht, and played some part in the opposition among the troops. There was certainly sufficient evidence of impending mutiny among the ROA troops for the Germans to disperse some of them from Jersey to Alderney and Sark. There was a Jersey Communist Party and they were involved in the decision to erect a memorial in 1970 to Russian slave workers killed
on the Islands. The Russians for their part gave gold watches to some who sheltered Russians and have sent Embassy officials to Island liberation celebrations over the years.
As for the Guernsey organization, it never seems to have developed a political content, concerning itself with threats to punish collaborators.
Politically motivated resistance to the German command began under von Schmettow, rapidly increased under von Hüffmeier, and came not from Islanders but from some Wehrmacht soldiers, and Kommandantur officers. Once the Islands were cut off, and fiercely attacked from the air, D-Day had taken place, and the evidence of defeat had arrived on the Islands from St Malo to fill the underground hospitals, the morale of the garrison began to decline. As the months advanced into the icy winter of 1944-45, the rank and file of the Germans began to experience what the Islands had long endured: shortages of every basic item of civilized life, and eventual starvation. The military authorities reacted with severe laws and courts martial when the troops began to take the law into their own hands seizing firewood, looting Red Cross parcels belonging to the Islanders, and thieving every conceivable item. Matters became worse when Hüffmeier announced there would be no surrender, and attempted to restore military discipline with guard duties and kit inspections of soldiers dropping dead on their feet through starvation.
