Jersey
under the Swastika!

Page 34 - Philip Frederick Le Sauteur

CHAPTER TEN (SECTION 3)

1942

A series of new orders was published. All inhabitants had to submit to the Military Commandant a duplicated list of all linen, crookery and certain other goods belonging to evacuated persons, as well as full details of radio sets extra to one per household. The reason given for these two particular registrations was that the Army of Occupation had need of the items covered, but, strange to relate, after a few days the orders were cancelled pending the issue of fresh ones.

With the arrival of summer, the gas came on an hour earlier in the morning, but it was cut off at 8.0 p.m. instead of 9.0 p.m.

Invasion — still the fear of invasion! The official fear of invasion rendered it very difficult for the A.R.P. services to function satisfactorily, if at all. A general call-out had not been made since the Luftwaffe attack in 1940, but there was always present the possibility of trouble — if only by accident — but the only scheme which met the approval of the German Authorities was such as to render the A.R.P. services virtually useless in a real way. In consultation on the subject, the A.R.P. Controller was told very frankly that it was realised that, in the event of a British landing, the A.R.P. personnel would help if they were allowed to be out.

A report that smallpox was rampant in France caused the local authorities to institute a scheme for the free vaccination of the population, and, as supplies of vaccine became available, almost everyone was done. Due to the run-down condition of the majority of the people — after nearly two years under German domination — this vaccination caused some severe discomfort.

The R.A.F. was certainly around, and on May 19th there was a little more excitement, the British planes being greeted with flak in generous measure when they passed over at lunch time. Twice during the night of the same day the A.A. guns went into action, and during one session eleven small bombs were dropped very close to an ammunition dump at Trinity, but, fortunately for the Islanders, without occasioning greater damage than a few holes in the fields nearby.

Five nights later, the RA.F. were again in the neighbourhood, and the heavy flak was followed — a minute or so after the drone of planes had faded out in the distance — by a single heavy explosion. No explanation of this latter ever came to light, although it may well have been an attack on shipping.

Sabotage! How often one hears the word in war-time! All patriots have a sort of instinct in that direction against the enemy. And who can really blame them? And there certainly were sabotage incidents in the Islands at times. Close inquiry sometimes revealed that sabotage is not the prerogative of the patriot. Others may indulge in it too but the patriot doubtless will be blamed!

Sabotage in the form of two military telephone lines being cut resulted in civilian patrols being posted in the affected district (St. Saviour's), but it was generally believed to be the work of some of the foreign labourers.

Additional orders issued at the end of this month covered the requisitioning — for "chemical products" — all old films, whilst another which related to employment and working hours seemed to be length without any sense.

A branch of Le Printemps, the French equivalent of Marks and Spencer, was opened for the troops only in Burton's premises.

Due to the utter disregard by the German soldiers, the local authorities had some previously removed all one-way signs. Now, however, entirely without the knowledge of any local body, the town was being abundantly adorned with one-way signs, continental fashion, and an extensive one-way system instituted.

Fires caused by R.A.F. raids on Granville and St. Malo on the night of June 20th were clearly visible from La Rocque, and the sounds of gunfire and of bomb explosions were heard all over the Island.

The S.S. NORMAND had ceased to run between the Islands and France. The crew had been paid off suddenly in St. Malo, and the food and other essentials for the Island were now being conveyed in the barges and ships manned by the German Kriegsmarine or by French or Dutch merchant seamen.

A.A. guns were kept busy on the night of the 27th June, and during the afternoon of the 29th. It was noticed that their gunnery was much more accurate than it had been hitherto, and the barrage that could be put up was very heavy indeed. In conjunction with the many searchlights, including some blue ones which had been installed, the Island had indeed become a veritable hornets' nest for visiting aircraft.

A complete and accurate description of the defence works which had been finalised or were in course of erection at this time would fill a volume in itself. Wherever there was a good landing beach, and the existing sea walls were not considered as sufficiently steep — as in St. Aubin's, St. Brelade's and St. Ouen's Bays — huge concrete walls with concave fronts were built so as to render the landing of tanks impracticable except by way of the existing slipways, which themselves were later blocked.

Heavy naval guns mounted at Grosnez, Corbiere, Noirmont and St. Catherine's covered the approaches to the whole of the French coast from St. Brieuc to north of Carteret, and concrete forts for local defence were erected at Bel Royal, Millbrook, West Park, Greve d'Azette and elsewhere. ln addition many concrete machine-gun posts were built which covered the approaches to the piers. The main items for defence along the rocky north coast seemed to be the frequent land minefields, barbed wire and machine-gun posts.

The airport had been steadilly enlarged throughout the two years of occupation, and, presumably in order to ensure a steady supply of filling-in materials should it be bombed, a railway line was in construction, connecting the airport with Ronez Quarries. The building of this line was a great inconvenience to those living in the district through which it passed. With German "efficiency", it was pushed forward without consideration of anything else. When it was necessary to cross a road, for example, and the levels did not coincide, a rough steep embankment was built, so that the road was practically impassable; and the line was carried through fields irrespective of crops, through people's gardens, demolishing whatever came in its path without so much as a "by your leave". Also nearing completion was a line following the course of the long-since-extinct railway from town to St. Aubin's. Deep excavations were being made into the side of the old tunnel at St. Aubin's, probably for use as an underground ammunition dump, and the railway was apparently intended to connect this with the forts along St. Aubin's Bay and with the harbours, the line being extended to run down each of the piers. The railway was officially opened on July l5th, with many high-ranking officers present, a band, many swastikas and eagles, flags and fernery to improve the occasion, whilst the solitary Heinkel — which had been stationed in the Island for a few days — dipped in salute.

According to the account given in the local press, it was intended to extend the line so that most parts of the Island were served, and to make a present of it to the Island at a later date. About a dozen locomotives of small size had been brought over, and for the first time for many years, the sound of train whistles was heard, though these were French engines and only able to manage the feminine "peep-peep" typical of the French railways. Most of the hundreds of goods trucks brought over for use on Jersey's new railway were marked POSEN, and if they were a sample of typical Polish efficiency, it can hardly be considered surprising that the German Army walked through Poland so speedily — they seemed not to have had a coat of paint since they came from the works — which must have been many decades ago — and were literally falling to pieces.

The third railway was a short one which had already been running for some time along the road between Gorey Village and Gorey Pier. This one, incidently, was part of a scheme which caused some amusement for its super lack of efficiency, but which, like the other railways systems, was probably prompted by the urge for greater petrol economy. The sea gravel necessary for the concrete in the many fortifications had been brought up by lorries from the beach at Gorey Village and piled, a small mountain of it, on the end of the golf course. From thence it was loaded into trucks and taken by rail down to Gorey Pier, to be tipped into a barge and brought to town by sea, where it was unloaded into lorries and taken to the various jobs. All this elaborate scheme, with the multiplicity of handling, to save a straightforward lorry journey of five miles, and this to convey a material which was available in unlimited quantities on nearly every site where concrete was being used, and therefore need not have been brought at all.

Other scars on the face of the Island were more tunnelling in St. Peter's Valley, Valley des Vaux and under South Hill — the many A.A. and searchlight sites (most of which called for concrete foundations in the middle of some field) ruining standing and future crops, and the huge dumps of building materials at Millbrook, Georgetown and the Quennevais. In addition to housing the O.T. foreign labourers in the Girls' College and West Park Pavilion, big camps, comprising many huts, had been erected on Grouville Marsh and the Route Orange.

From the foregoing brief resume, it will be gathered that there were very few parts of the Island that were not marred by one or other of the machinations of the German Army, and many of the scars will, it is feared, be only too permanent — the concrete forts and anti-tank walls for instance, were constructed on such generous lines, and were so strongly reinforced, that it is unlikely that they will ever be moved, and so must remain, a permanent reminder of the German Occupation of Jersey.