Occupied Channels

Some people don't believe that the Germans ever occupied British territory during World War 2.

British Channel Islands (Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark)

-          Population of the Channel Islands in 1931 = 93,200. On Jersey = 50,500, Guernsey = 40,600, Alderney = 1,500, Sark = 600.

-          After the Fall of France in June 1940: 25,000 people went to England including the whole population of Alderney in 10 days.

-          German Occupation lasted from June 30, 1940 until May 9, 1945.

-          Forced to drive on the right-hand side, use German time and learn German.

-          The Germans deported 2,200 people (most from mainland UK living on the island) from Jersey and Guernsey to internment camps in France and Germany.

-          The Germans deported 12 Jews from Jersey and 4 Jews from Guernsey to Concentration/Death Camps where they all died.

-          Under the Nazi Organisation Todt (OT) the Germans transported over 16,000 slave workers (Jews from Eastern Europe, Soviet POWs, Spanish refugees and French, Belgian and Dutch resistance members)  to the Channel Islands to build Atlantic Wall fortifications with camps on Guernsey, Jersey and four on Alderney.) On Alderney the fortifications included bunkers, gun emplacements, air-raid shelters, tunnels and concrete fortifications.

-          Deaths during the German Occupation:

1.)    Allied forces: about 550 (504 from the sinking of HMS Charybdis and HMS Limbourne)

2.)    Civilians: about 150, mainly air raids, deportees and in prisons (excludes Island deaths from malnutrition and the cold)

3.)    OT workers: over 700 (500 graves and 200 drowned when a ship was sunk)

^  A higher percentage of civilians died in the islands per head of pre-war population than in the UK. ^

-          Liberation Day has been celebrated in Jersey and Guernsey  9 May 9^th, Sark marks Liberation Day on May 10^th In Alderney there was no official local population to be liberated, so Alderney celebrates "Homecoming Day" on December 15^th.

-          German Occupation of the Channel islands on Film/TV: here have also been TV and film dramas set in the occupied islands:

1.)    Appointment with Venus, a 1951 film set on the fictional island of Armorel (based on the island of Sark).

2.)    The Eagle Has Landed (1977), directed by John Sturges, had a passage set in Alderney where Radl (Robert Duvall) meets Steiner (Michael Caine).

3.)    ITV's Enemy at the Door, set in Guernsey and shown between 1978 and 1980

4.)    A&E's Night of the Fox (1990), set in Jersey shortly before D-Day in 1944.

5.)    The 2001 film The Others starring Nicole Kidman was set in Jersey in 1945 just after the end of the occupation.

6.)    ITV's Island at War (2004), a drama set in the fictional Channel Island of St Gregory. It was shown by US TV network PBS as part of its Masterpiece Theatre series in 2005.

7.)    Another Mother's Son, a 2017 film about Louisa Gould, hiding a Russian war prisoner, starring Jenny Seagrove as Louisa Gould and Ronan Keating as Harold Le Druillenec.

 ^ Taken from several links on Wikipedia.  ^

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_the_Channel_Islands