The War Was Almost Over - But the Channel Islands Were Still Occupied

The War Was Almost Over - But the Channel Islands Were Still Occupied

By the beginning of 1945, people in the Channel Islands could see that the war was moving towards its end.

But for them, occupation was not over.

The Allied landings in Normandy on the 6th of June 1944 had eventually cut the islands off from their main supply routes through France. By the winter, food, fuel and other essentials had become desperately scarce.

Then, on the 31st of December 1944, the Red Cross ship Vega arrived in Jersey carrying badly needed relief supplies for civilians.

The parcels made an enormous difference. They contained food such as tinned meat, milk powder, chocolate, biscuits, sugar and other items that had become almost impossible to obtain locally.

But the arrival of the Vega did not mean normal life had returned.

Gas and electricity had failed, fuel remained desperately scarce, and people were exhausted after more than four years of occupation. The German garrison was also increasingly isolated from the rest of Europe.

News was still getting through. Islanders who had managed to hide wireless sets continued listening secretly to the BBC and passing on what they heard. Germany was being pushed back, and as Allied armies advanced further into Europe, there must have been a growing feeling that the occupation could not last forever.

There was still one enormous question.

How would it actually end?

The Channel Islands had been heavily fortified as part of the Atlantic Wall, and thousands of German troops still remained. Liberation might have been getting closer, but there was no guarantee that the occupying forces would simply surrender when the time came.

For the people of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark, the final months of the war became a strange period of waiting. After nearly five years of occupation, freedom finally seemed close enough to imagine, but nobody yet knew exactly when it would come.

Next, I want to look at the extraordinary final days of the occupation and how the German surrender of the Channel Islands actually happened.

Can you imagine knowing the war was almost over, but still having no idea when your own freedom would come?

Image: German occupation fortifications at Noirmont, Jersey. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.