Guernsey Then and Now.....

Guernsey then and now!!

As I have been reading this month’s book I have been wondering what this place, this Guernsey Island looked like. If you are like me you get an image in your head of what a character or place in a book looks like, and it can shape how you feel about either that person or place. Well knowing that this island was an actual place I decided to do some investigative work and see what it looked like during the war and today. So without further ado...

 “Guernsey then”:

On 15 June 1940, the British government decided that the Channel Islands were of no strategic importance and would not be defended, but did not give Germany this information. Thus despite the reluctance of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the British government gave up the oldest possession of the Crown "without firing a single shot”. The Channel Islands served no purpose to the Germans other than the propaganda value of having occupied some British territory. The "Channel Islands had been demilitarized and declared...'an open town' ".

The British Government consulted the islands' elected government representatives, in order to formulate a policy regarding evacuation. Opinion was divided and, without a policy being imposed on the islands, chaos ensued and different policies were adopted by the different islands. The British Government concluded their best policy was to make available as many ships as possible so that islanders had the option to leave if they wanted to. The authorities on Alderney recommended that all islanders evacuate, and nearly all did so; the Dame of Sark, Sibyl Mary Hathaway, encouraged everyone to stay. Guernsey evacuated all children of school age, giving the parents the option of keeping their children with them, or evacuating with their school. In Jersey, the majority of islanders chose to stay.

Since the Germans did not realize that the islands had been demilitarized, they approached them with some caution. Reconnaissance flights were inconclusive. On 28 June 1940, they sent a squadron of bombers over the islands and bombed the harbors of Guernsey and Jersey. In St Peter Port, the main town of Guernsey, some Lorries lined up to load tomatoes for export to England were mistaken by the reconnaissance for troop carriers. Forty-four islanders were killed in the raids.

While the German Army was preparing to land an assault force of two battalions to capture the islands, a reconnaissance pilot landed in Guernsey on 30 June and the island officially surrendered to him. Jersey surrendered on 1 July. Alderney, where only a handful of islanders remained, was occupied on 2 July and a small detachment travelled from Guernsey to Sark, which officially surrendered on 4 July

The German forces quickly consolidated their positions. They brought in infantry, established communications and anti-aircraft defenses, established an air service with mainland France and rounded up British servicemen on leave.

The Germans built four concentration camps in Alderney. The camps were sub camps of the Neuengamme concentration camp outside Hamburg and each was named after one of the Frisian Islands: Lager Norderney located at Saye, Lager Borkum at Platte Saline, Lager Sylt near the old telegraph tower at La Foulère and Lager Helgoland in the north west corner of Alderney. The Nazi Organization Todt operated each sub camp and used forced labor to build bunkers, gun emplacements, air raid shelters, and concrete fortifications. The camps commenced operation in January 1942 and had a total inmate population of about 6,000.

The Borkum and Helgoland camps were "volunteer" (Hilfswillige) labor camps and the laborers in those camps were treated harshly but marginally better than the inmates at the Sylt and Norderney camps. The prisoners in Lager Sylt and Lager Norderney were slave laborers forced to build the many military fortifications and installations throughout Alderney. Sylt camp held Jewish forced laborers. Norderney camp housed European (mainly Eastern Europeans but including Spaniards) and Soviet forced laborers. Lager Borkum was used for German technicians and "volunteers" from different countries of Europe. Lager Helgoland was filled with Soviet Organization Todt workers.
In 1942, Lager Norderney, containing Soviet and Polish POWs, and Lager Sylt, holding Jews, were placed under the control of the SS Hauptsturmführer Max List. Over 700 of the inmates lost their lives before the camps were closed and the remaining inmates transferred to Germany in 1944.

During June 1944, the Allied Forces launched the D-Day landings and the liberation of Normandy. They decided to bypass the Channel Islands due to their heavy fortifications described above. As a result, German supply lines for food and other supplies through France were completely severed. The islanders' food supplies were already dwindling, and this made matters considerably worse - the islanders and German forces alike were on the point of starvation.

Churchill's reaction to the plight of the German garrison was to "let 'em rot"; even though this meant that the islanders had to rot with them. It took months of protracted negotiations before the International Red Cross ship SS Vega was permitted to relieve the starving islanders in December 1944, bringing Red Cross food parcels, salt and soap, as well as medical and surgical supplies. The Vega made five further trips to the islands before liberation in May 1945.
Although plans had been drawn up and proposed in 1943 by Vice Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten for Operation Constellation, a military reconquest of the islands, these plans were never carried out. The Channel Islands were liberated after the German surrender.

On 8 May 1945 at 10 am, the islanders were informed by the German authorities that the war was over. Churchill made a radio broadcast at 3pm during which he announced that:

Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight to-night, but in the interests of saving lives the "Cease fire" began yesterday to be sounded all along the front, and our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed to-day

The following morning, 9 May 1945, HMS Bulldog arrived in St Peter Port, Guernsey and the German forces surrendered unconditionally aboard the vessel at dawn. British forces landed in St Peter Port shortly afterwards, greeted by crowds of joyous but malnourished islanders.
It appears that the first place liberated on Jersey may have been the British General Post Office Jersey repeater station. Mr. Warder, a GPO lineman, had been stranded on the island during the occupation. He did not wait for the island to be liberated and went to the repeater station where he informed the German officer in charge that he was taking over the building on behalf of the British Post Office.

“Guernsey now”:

Post war, tourism started to really take off and around 250,000 people per annum were visiting Guernsey. The tax rate was reduced to 20% in 1959 and a large influx of wealthy UK individuals followed. Housing controls were brought in during the 1960s to try and control the population growth but with limited success.

In the 1970s the old harbor and Victoria dock were converted to marinas for local and visiting boat owners and in 1973 Guernsey became an Associate member of the EEC. At the start of the 1980s the North Beach marina and car park were built. Today, two million visitors (largely European) treat the twenty-five square mile island as their own pretty Bermuda.

Luckily, a small but determined band of history-minded volunteers—who later formed an organization called Fortress Guernsey—decided that the past should not be whitewashed away, but instead studied and, in some cases, restored. They recognized too that the details of the Nazi invasion are little known to outsiders, perhaps in part because huge casualties did not occur.

Presently, through the efforts of Fortress Guernsey, a visitor can come to this peaceful island, enjoy all its amenities, and they can also view what many military historians consider part of one of the largest war invasion efforts. Using Fortress Guernsey brochures, booklets and maps available at the tourist offices, it is possible to visit the coastal defense works, the underground hospital and the Occupation Museum.

Richard Heaume, born after the war was over, had a fascination with the treasures he dug up as a boy: helmets, knives, bullets, guns. Today many of these items are in the Fortress Guernsey Occupation Museum he runs. "I would trade things I found with other boys. Gradually I realized it all had to be preserved. It is part of who we are." At the museum you can see a recreated St. Peter Port street, along with some of the wars oddities: a gas mask for horses; the forbidden "V for Victory" signs, and even packets of ersatz foods, such as parsnip tea and carrageen moss, that islanders ate to allay their hunger pains.

Today locally grown vegetables, including the justly famous tomato, as well as freshly caught fish and shellfish make up most of the popular meals at both upscale restaurants and fish and chip shops. French cooking means that it is impossible to get a bad meal here.

Islanders host events each year for almost every interest: kite-flying, bridge and chess tournaments, agricultural and horticultural events, Petanque (French bowling), and even a real ale and cider festival. During the month of April, people flock to Guernsey for the Annual Festival of Food and Wine. Local restaurants compete for awards, producing attractively priced menus and creating new dishes. On May 9 every year, the residents celebrate Liberation Day with fireworks, street entertainment and speeches. In September, Fortress Guernsey hosts a symposium about the events of the war and the progress of the restoration.

Sports events also bring in many visitors: horse driving shows, air shows, fun races, duathalons, triathlons, swimming, hockey, and yachting regattas. Vintage car rallies, ballet performances, jazz events are scheduled throughout the year at the attractive Saumerez Park, where you can also visit the attractive manor house and the floral gardens. Floral festivals and plantings are practically a cottage industry all over the island.

It’s obvious that even though the war is still evident on the walls and buried deep in the ground, Guernsey has dusted itself off and gained its strength. It has become a beautiful thriving community that will always remember what it went through to get to where it is.

(some text taken from wikipedia and travellady.com)