Britain Would Not Defend the Channel Islands - Guernsey Parents Had Hours to Decide Whether Their Children Should Leave

Britain Would Not Defend the Channel Islands - Guernsey Parents Had Hours to Decide Whether Their Children Should Leave

On the 19th of June 1940, families in Guernsey learned that the Channel Islands were to be demilitarised. British forces would be withdrawn, and civilians who wanted to leave would be given the chance to do so.

Schoolchildren could be evacuated to Britain. They were to be registered that evening and brought to St Peter Port harbour at eight o’clock the following morning, packed and ready to leave.

France was collapsing under the German advance. German forces now held ports and airfields only a short distance from the islands, which British planners had long regarded as difficult and costly to defend. The War Cabinet decided on the 19th of June that the Channel Islands should be demilitarised, and ships were sent so that civilians who wished to leave could do so. Evacuation began the next morning.

The Guernsey Evening Press of the 20th of June described thousands of people crowding the narrow streets making last-minute arrangements. It also recorded that “Nowhere in the town could a suitcase be purchased.”
Families were looking for luggage, packing clothes, working out who would go and getting children ready for the harbour. The evacuation was not completed in a single morning; boats continued to leave over the next few days as places were found for those who had decided to go.

Thousands of Guernsey schoolchildren were evacuated at very short notice. Children of school age travelled in their school groups, with some mothers accompanying them as helpers. Mothers with children under five were allowed to travel with their young children. For many of those leaving, it was the first time they had ever left Guernsey.

Evacuation was voluntary, so every household had to make its own decision. Children sometimes left while their parents stayed behind. Some families managed to leave together, while others remained on the island. Nobody could know at that point how long any separation might last.

The other islands responded differently. Alderney’s authorities recommended evacuation and most of the population left. In Sark, most people stayed. In Jersey, more than half the population initially registered to evacuate, but only about 6,600 eventually left.
Guernsey saw a much larger exodus. Around 17,000 people left, about two-fifths of the island’s population according to contemporary parliamentary figures. Four-fifths of Guernsey’s children were evacuated.

On the 28th of June, German aircraft attacked Guernsey. At St Peter Port, tomato trucks at the harbour were mistaken for military vehicles. Thirty-three people were killed and 67 were injured.

On the 30th of June, German troop-carrying aircraft landed at Guernsey airport and the occupation began. German forces arrived in Jersey on the 1st of July.

The word evacuation can sound orderly. In Guernsey it meant thousands of people making last-minute arrangements, shops running out of suitcases and children expected at the harbour the next morning.

I’d especially like to hear from anyone with a Channel Island family connection to this period. Did someone in your family leave in June 1940, or did they stay through the occupation?

And if this had been your family, do you think you could have put your child on that boat the next morning?

Image info:
Two Guernsey women with children collecting Red Cross parcels from Le Riche’s shop in St Peter Port during the occupation. Imperial War Museums, HU 25920 / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.