The Channel Islands At War

by Peter King

  When the British government was told of German intentions via the protecting power their immediate reaction was muted indeed. It was no more than a comment that such action was a violation of the Hague Convention, illegal and inhumane. Churchill often listed Nazi 'crimes', but never referred to this particular one in the Commons. Impending deportation also broke the commandant's initial promise to respect the lives of the Islanders.

  It was not until September 1942, when the protecting power suggested to the Germans that Islanders who wanted to go to England might be permitted to leave, that Hitler realized the 'English' Channel Islanders were still there. General Warlimont of OKW was asked to investigate, and his report found that, as so often happened in Nazi Germany, several authorities involved had been at cross-purposes. OKW in France had begun preparations, and located a camp near Cologne, but on checking with the Foreign Ministry they were told nothing was required, and so stopped preparations.

  Warlimont's report ended with an extremely revealing passage. He stressed the military argument that there was no need for deportations. The population had been thoroughly loyal, there had been no military sabotage, and no passive resistance. German orders had been carried out quickly, and without obstruction by the Island authorities. But however successfully German policy was working this did not mean the Islanders were safe. Hitler was naturally furious as an order had not been carried out. A precise order was sent to Paris, and arrived in the Channel Islands on 15 September 1942. It was for the immediate deportation of all those without permanent residence on the Islands including those caught there by circumstance of war, and all men between 16 and 70 'who belong to the English people' together with their families.

  There was a flurry of activity on the main Islands. Coutanche said he

  protested and the Jersey superior council considered resigning en masse. All that happened was that they did not issue the deportation orders themselves. Some people on Jersey had less than twelve hours to prepare for deportation on 16 September when 280 left the Island at nine in the evening. "Should you fail to obey the order", said Knackfuss 'sentence by court martial shall be effected'. Buses were laid on from the country where knots of people gathered at village halls while those in St Helier walked to the harbour. Maugham watched people walking with their heads held high, and left the scene 'with an unaccustomed constriction in my throat, but also burning with indignation and disgust". One man who collapsed was placed on a stretcher and carried aboard. Possibly this was J.P. Walters, aged sixty-eight, who died in the drear and rough conditions at Dorsten on 10 October. The St John Ambulance Association did their best to distribute food parcels. That evening the boat left, and those on Mount Bingham could hear patriotic songs as the ship pulled away. As the first group their worries must have been the greatest. Next day orders were issued for a second group to be ready for 18 September.

  Public reaction to deportation began to gather strength, and took different forms. Apparently some girls contracted marriages with Islanders. Tragically a man and his wife at Beaumont were the first to attempt suicide, the woman dying in the attempt, and they were followed by others in the next few months. Medical exemptions were pressed to the uttermost. A few brave people volunteered to go in place of others. Three of the conscientious objectors who had come to do harvest work in 1940 went instead of a clergyman and his family. But in spite of all about 340 people were assembled at the Weighbridge on the evening of the 18th. Michael Ginns recalled how his father, an elderly, sick man, fortunately included later among those repatriated before April 1945, fainted, and was revived so he could go aboard. Two boats had arrived. The La France was all right, but the other was the Robert Müller, an unsatisfactory craft. As a result only about half those due to go left that evening and joined a convoy to St Malo at two in the morning. The rest were told to go home, and report again on the 25th. This led to further suffering where homes had been shut up, and even more disreputably, where people found their homes had already been broken into. The delays which included the ramming of a harbour crane by the reversing La France brought out crowds in the streets and the first public anti-German expressions of feeling.

  On the 23rd came the third Jersey notice to assemble at the Weighbridge two days later, and on this occasion youngsters indulged in a small riot for which 14 people were arrested, and one man received three years imprisonment. There was a new feature of the list of deportees. It included 20 Jerseymen who had been convicted of offences by the Germans, although this group was reprieved at the last minute. This showed that the Kommandantur was starting to think deportation might be a way of removing small groups of potential troublemakers. On 29 September, although the sea was rough, two small boats with over 500 on board sailed out at twenty to nine in the evening. They only reached St Malo in the morning after many had been sea sick in rough conditions.

  In spite of brave singsongs and heads held high, there can be no doubt that deportation was a terrible blow. On 15 September the order also arrived in Guernsey. Carey kept in the background, and it was Louis Guillemette who hurried to Brosch to protest, only to be told it was a Fuhrer order, and that those required must be ready by 20 September. A form was issued in the press for all those covered by the German order to fill in, and return by the 18th. Had anyone failed to fill these in, the lists prepared by Carey the previous year would have provided an unseen check on defaulters.

  As there were a few more days warning for the first Guernsey deportees, it was possible to do a little to mitigate their going. Medical exemptions could be gone into more carefully and two Guernsey doctors were allowed to be present when German doctors vetted the Island doctors' exemptions. There was time to appeal for exemptions. Essential workers were exempted, as were all employed by the Germans. Some doctors volunteered to go with the people, but Doctor William McGlashen, who had complained about the Germans taking over Island hospitals, was forced to go instead even though he was ill, and had to be included among the first batch of repatriated Islanders in September 1944. Harris says 'a few of the older people' committed suicide on Guernsey, including a couple who took poison, the woman recovering, and the man dying.

  The departures were scheduled for 21 and 23 September, and involved over 800 people. They assembled at the Gaumont Cinema for a final medical, picked up their luggage, and made their way to the White Rock. Feldpolizei confiscated valuable goods including silver-framed family photographs as they went on board. Once again the La France and the Robert Müller had arrived, and the people went on board even though a gale was blowing up. In the Midler there was simply a dark hold with a bench round the wall, and children were terrified by their confinement. Knackfuss had just arrived on Guernsey, and told Brosch he could not use the Midler. The people spent the night in the boats, and were disembarked the next day.

  People then returned to find looters had already been at work. A couple who had left a girl in charge found neighbours had called and told her they had been asked to remove various articles. In one house all the coal had gone; in another, the light bulbs had vanished. The people had to report again on the 24th, but weather conditions were too bad, and it was only on the 25th when the La France was joined by the Minotaure that they were finally able to embark, and set sail on Saturday 26 September arriving at St Malo at seven in the morning. The boats returned to take on the rest of the deportees on Sunday. On board too were nine residents of Sark, but small though the number were there was tragedy. Major John Skelton and his wife decided to commit suicide, and left notes with Sibyl Hathaway telling her, which she did not open, believing them to be ordinary farewell letters. The couple were found with their wrists cut on the Common after they had failed to turn up to leave. Mrs Skelton survived, and later returned to the Island. On Sunday 20 September Mrs Tremayne described how, "The Thanksgiving Service was very saddened by a prayer being offered by the vicar for the evacuees leaving for Germany, and all the new laid eggs sent to the Festival are to be hard-boiled and given to the people as they leave th
e Island.'

  Hitler's order had now been partially obeyed, but the Kommandantur officials were seeking ways of extending registration to include other groups. On Guernsey, Brosch required all men, single women, widows and wives of Guernseymen or any other nationality to be registered, and shortly before Christmas the Controlling Committee was ordered to provide details of convicted persons over a period of ten years. The commando raid on Sark had several unfortunate consequences. The British government had been able to publicize the deportations. It was clear the commandos had received some help. German soldiers had died, and a row broke out over the shackling of prisoners which once again brought the Islands to Hitler's attention. The same month as the deportations the first successful escape since 1940 occurred. The Kommandantur could not be seen to be slack, and the 1943 deportations were essentially a police measure to strike fear into people. During January requests similar to those already made on Guernsey were made on Jersey although there was no clear indication who would be involved this time. Mention was made of a very mixed bag: Jews, freemasons, members of friendly societies, and religious groups like Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists and other political suspects, work-shy people (who presumably had refused to work for the Germans), unemployed youths, prominent Islanders suspected of being anti-German, officials, and those involved in criminal cases like the wives and children of policemen convicted in the black market scandal.

  Knackfuss said the second deportation was entirely caused by the need to remove Mrs Pittard whose name would inevitably come up in court-martial proceedings, and that this prevented her trial. This was no more than a convenient story to cover the basic fact of a severe order which would reinstate the Kommandantur in Hitler's good books.

  But bureaucratic muddle prevented immediate action because of the need for careful checking, and in the end no deportations occurred in January 1943. The numbers involved shrank from a thousand to 500, and eventually only about 200 were involved including 47 from Sark. Among those in high places said to have been listed were the bailiffs and their families, the Sherwills, Leale, Symons, Falla, and Robert Hathaway. Some like Sherwill and Hathaway had to go. So too did Crawford-Morrison, organizer of the only effective military intelligence espionage. Clergymen seemed to be a particular target for the Germans, and a number were deported including James, Flint, Phillips, Atyeo, Wood and Gerhold. Those who had been friendly to the Germans did not find this worked in their favour on every occasion. A barber who said his business was much patronized by Germans, and a man who said he bottled beer for the troops, were not exempted. On the other hand a businessman who had been reprieved in 1942 was reprieved again in 1943, because 'he was used in various ways as an informer'.

  On 6 February people in Jersey were told to hold themselves ready. Sixty-three were ordered to appear, but a man at Grouville committed suicide, and this led to delay. Postponements meant that people did not assemble at the Plaza until 12 February, sailing the next day at seven in the evening. This group were told that on landing they would be separated due to lack of accommodation so that women and children were to remain in France for a while.

  Delays occurred before the last groups left on 25 February from both Islands. On Jersey it seems this second group consisted of 'undesirables' and amounted to only 27 people. Some effort was made that week to induce more to work for the Germans by threatening those that would not with deportation. The last contingent from Guernsey numbered only 13, and it was therefore the Sarkees who attracted the most attention. Two groups left: 20 on 12 February, and 24 on 25 February. On Guernsey Mrs Cortvriend went down to see them go: 'My heart ached as I saw so many whom I knew, some of them close friends, crossing the gangway. One little fellow of six held my hand until the last minute ... I learnt, some weeks later, that he had contracted asthma as a result of being housed in damp and unhealthy premises."

  On the other side of the Channel, on the wet and windswept quays of St Malo, and at the station after a ration of a loaf of bread, a German sausage, and a bowl of soup had been given out, the Islanders were seated in second class carriages to begin their journey into the Third Reich.

  Where they were to go had been a matter of brisk argument between the army, the foreign ministry and the SS camp authority. There was a shortage of camp accommodation in Germany, apart from two former POW camps at Biberach and Laufen, and for this reason the first internees ended up in some cases for a time at the unpleasant Dorsten camp. Then a third camp, Wurzach for women and children, became available, and a series of moves took place which the accompanying diagram makes clear. The Reichsführer SS, Himmler, was ultimately responsible for all camp guards, but in the case of the camps in the south, effective day-to-day control was in the hands of the state police supervised from Stuttgart or Munich. Discussion of the Islanders occurred from time to time in the first three months of 1943, but at last on 8 March Knackfuss reported that as far as could be judged the evacuation was over.

  The German decision was that single men should be based at Laufen, married couples, single women and children at Wurzach, and the rest at Biberach, and once that was decided on 25 October things moved swiftly, and between then and 12 November the Islanders were moved to a large extent to the appropriate camp.

  Laufen was the most attractive scenically of the camps in a former palace of the archbishop of Salzburg. Inmates were treated in Salzburg general and mental hospitals with every consideration. Because Laufen was for men only it was possible to enforce clear rules, and set up the traditional committee and disciplinary tribunal elected by inmates. Frank Stroobant became the commandant, until Ambrose Sherwill arrived, and took over in June 1943. At Wurzach, the Islanders were in a castle which had been a Catholic monastery. When inmates arrived they found French POWs had left it in a disgusting mess which took a week to clean up. The camp commander Captain Ashton Hilton proved less effective, and when he fell ill in the autumn of 1944, he was replaced by his deputy, Major F.A. Ray. The women were represented on the committee by Mrs Downer, and as will be seen the atmosphere in this camp, cramped by admissions of other categories of prisoners - like Jews - was the least satisfactory of all.

  No sooner were the first deportees settled than the second wave arrived, and the Germans' accommodation problem was renewed. This time the men were sent to Laufen, and a few to Kreuzburg near Breslau, and the women, children, and men over 64 to Compiegne in France. Twelve men ended up at Kreuzburg where they found a Guernsey POW, and by May 1943 some 35 Channel Islanders were listed as being in this camp. The majority left for Biberach in August 1943, and only one was still there at the end of the war. The group who went to Compiegne numbering about 130 found poor conditions for the women prisoners. Those who went there were not able to send mail, and vanished from sight for several months. In June 1943 they were moved on to Biberach and Wurzach, except for one woman who had a breakdown and was left behind. When, in August 1943, any men in Laufen with relatives were transferred to Biberach, it must have seemed that all were neatly behind barbed-wire at last.

  In fact Islanders found their way to four other camps. Liebenau, seven miles north of Lake Constance was a women's camp to which about a half a dozen people like Miss Duckett and Miss Page from Sark were transferred. By March 1944 the camp had about 240 women from Britain, and a hundred from America. That year single women at Biberach were moved there by early October, and the camp became increasingly overcrowded. On liberation there were nearly 450 in the camp, including 91 families from the Channel Islands. A similar move occurred for men from Laufen who moved to Spittal, south-east of Innsbruck during October 1943. There were still 22 in the camp at liberation.

  Rather more rarely, Islanders turned up in other camps which were for POWs. One at Marlag and Milag Nord, north of Hamburg, was for merchant seamen and rescued passengers, and eight Islanders are mentioned as being there. Teschen or Lamsdorf was a major Allied POW camp in Silesia containing up to 40,000 prisoners, and among them were over a hundred Channel Isles POWs. In June 1942
six men were transferred there from neighbouring Kreuzburg. It is unclear why a small number of Channel Islanders also ended up at Oranienburg.

  On the Islands people waited anxiously for news, and when it came the changes of camp made it confusing. In January 1943 Julia Tremayne referred to the deportees who: 'complain of the cold and ask for food and warm clothing. This does not sound too good, poor souls, taken from their warm homes here.' Soon after the second batch of Sarkees were deported in February she heard from Miss Carter that they were 17 in one room all day, with straw beds, and she wanted her lilo sent. In another letter Mrs Tremayne was shocked to hear baths had to be taken ten people at a time, and that they had been put into barracks where there were lice.

  But as the months passed, and the internees settled down in camps with their organization, and entertainments, and above all with the regular supply of Red Cross parcels, life became more tolerable. Indeed their food was better than the Islanders, and they were to be liberated first. Miss Carter sent a letter saying they were all well and contented.

  Throughout their imprisonment the Islanders were under threat from a brutal regime, and they were aware of what was going on around them. Dachau lay halfway between two of the camps. Jews from Belsen arrived at Wurzach. The mental strain of internment must have been considerable. Stroobant referred to 'one or two of our number' who broke down under the strain and were sent to Schussenreid or Salzburg hospitals. At Wurzach the number of neurotic cases %vas increasing sharply in 1945, according to the Red Cross, and a number of such cases had to be left behind on liberation.