REMEMBRANCE: Growing up under the Nazi Occupation of the British Channel Islands, 1940–45 by Geoffrey Messervy-Norman

Author:Geoffrey Messervy-Norman [Messervy-Norman, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780993265716
Publisher: Seeker Publishing
Published: 2015-04-29T23:00:00+00:00

19 “Boys Own” was a pre-war magazine for boys

20 Small rockfish

19 Leaflets, ovens and hay-boxes

On 18 August, 1944, the ancient walled city of St Malo finally fell to the Americans. Colonel von Aulock, the German commander ordered to fight to the last man, was taken prisoner. As far as any future food and fuel supplies were concerned, the Channel Islands were now completely cut off from all their mainland sources. Any hope of survival was destined to become intensely difficult for everyone. Shortages in fuel supplies to even maintain public utilities threatened a total breakdown of Island life.

As the distant booms from the mounting siege of St Malo some thirty miles away drifted toward us, relations between the Feldkommandantur and the Superior Council became difficult and increasingly strained. Several adventurous young men had escaped from the local prison, while others secretly prepared to escape across the fourteen-mile stretch of water that lay between the Island and the nearest beach in France. As a result, Major Heider, the German Military Platzkommandant, threatened to close down all the beaches in a reprisal against the civilian population. Fortunately, the major’s anger was subdued and this did not happen.

A large number of evacuated German sailors and soldiers, many of them very badly wounded during the siege of St Malo, suddenly arrived in Jersey. This put an immediate and enormous strain, not only on the scarce food reserves, but also on the very limited stocks of available medical supplies. Surgical procedures were immediately restricted to life-threatening cases. Within a few short months, by mid November of 1944, the situation would see most medical treatments and services nearly coming to a complete standstill.

A few nights after the siege we were all woken up by the sound of big anti-aircraft guns firing on Allied planes that were flying over the Islands and dropping thousands of leaflets printed in both German and English in a vain attempt to get the Germans to consider surrendering. This they defiantly rejected.

Some of the mixed leaflets contained an overall report on the latest Allied advances into Europe, while others offered general news of their far-flung war efforts, enough to bring everyone up-to-date and correct some of the wildly inaccurate rumours that had been circulating. As the leaflets had been randomly dropped and scattered through the night skies across the Island, many were immediately gathered up before the Germans could confiscate them and as such became popular items that we could swap with each other at school; I managed to acquire quite a fistful.

My father, having read most of the leaflets already circulated around the factory, chose three or four from my collection that he thought might offer the Jerries the most poignant reminder of their now uncertain war situation.

“We have to place them right where they can’t miss them,” he said. “Right up under old Jerry’s nose.”

Naturally, my mother was not too happy about the idea of him going out and violating the strict curfew in what she saw as no more than an act of pointless defiance and became quite irritated with him as the evening darkened.

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