The Frank Falla Archive

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Frank Falla Archive
of wartime deportees


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Frank Falla, a journalist, was deported for his role in the underground newsletter GUNS (Guernsey Underground News Service). In the mid-1960s, and in the absence of any official help or interest, Frank took it upon himself to help his fellow former political prisoners in the Channel Islands get compensation for their suffering in Nazi prisons and camps. Frank was passionate about getting recognition for all Channel Islanders who had been deported


The Frank Falla Archive is a website launched in 2017 to trace the histories of those Channel Islanders deported during the German Occupation to prisons in France and Germany, other penal institutions, and in the worst cases, concentration camps. This is Jerripedia's index to the articles in the Archive involving those deported from Jersey. Some of our links are to substantial articles, whereas others have yet to be completed.

The pictures of deportees on this page were taken for their German Occupation identity card applications, and are now part of the collection of Jersey Heritage, held by Jersey Archive

Some prisoners were luckier than others. This document allowed the release of Albert Marie (see below) in 1944. He had already been deported once to France and allowed to return to Jersey, and then he was convicted again, at a time when so many prisoners were being held in the St Helier jail that he was freed.

Wartime atrocities

By Mike Bisson

A study of the brief excerpts below from the stories of deportees being added to the Frank Falla Archive website can prove upsetting, and some of the more detailed accounts in the Archive carry warnings about the distressing nature of their content.

This was war, and in the grand scheme of things, the fates of 118 Jersey residents who were deported to French and German prisons and camps was insignificant. But these were islanders who suffered the ultimate deprivation and ill-treatment at the hands of inhuman enemy military and civilian personnel, leading to the deaths of some and shattered lives for those who survived.

And the only crimes that most of them committed were minor infractions of insular law, which in other times would have merited non-custodial sentences; or offences, however minor, against the occupying forces, which made them heroes in the eyes of their fellow islanders.

There are many islanders today who know nothing of the Occupation years, and particularly of these deportees, and the majority of Germans who choose not to understand the atrocities committed by their fathers and grandfathers, and it is right that the war itself should be brought to mind, as well as celebrating its conclusion on Liberation Day every year.

Gilly Carr

Gilly Carr

In 2010 Frank’s daughter gave Gilly Carr (senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Cambridge, best known for her work on the German Occupation of the Channel islands), her father’s extensive archives. This sparked the beginning of what was to become the website.

She explains that she originally estimated that between 200 and 250 Islanders were likely to have been deported to to German prisons and camps.

"This upper number has not yet materialised and, with so many French Archives missing or destroyed, we are unlikely to ever reach the true figure. However, I suspect that the number presented in this website is not too far off the final figure.
"For those from Jersey who are familiar with the figure of 300 quoted by the late Joe Mière, it is important to be clear that Joe and I are counting slightly different things. I made the decision not to include those sent to civilian internment camps, even for acts of resistance, while Joe included these numbers. This is because the experiences in Biberach, Wurzach, Laufen, and Liebenau, etc, are much better documented and the experience there is not a mystery. It was also far more humane than that of Nazi prisons and concentration camps.
"I am also including only those who were in the Channel Islands at the outbreak of the Ooccupation who were deported, so my figures do not include members of the Organisation Todt who came to the Channel Islands during the Occupation, even if their court records are mingled with those of islanders. Of course, one cannot always tell who was here before the occupation as not all occupation registration cards survive, and many aliens records are closed, missing or destroyed in Guernsey and Jersey. This means that of course I include Jews deported during the occupation, but only those sent to Nazi prisons and camps. I also include foreign nationals who lived in the Channel Islands before the Germans arrived, whether they were English, French, Dutch or another nationality, although discovering when they arrived is not always easy."
Caen Prison, the receiving point for many deportees

Jersey deportees

Walter Dauny
Eddie Chapman being escorted from a police van outside the Prison in Gloucester Street by Police Constable Ben Shenton in 1939. Chapman made a living looting abandoned properties with Jerseyman Eric Pleasants, after having fled to Jersey from Scotland while on bail. He was arrested and imprisoned in Jersey before the war broke out, offered his services to the Germans once they arrived in 1940. He was moved to France for training and later parachuted into England with orders to destroy the De Havilland aircraft factory. Once in England he immediately gave himself up and became a double agent, returning to Germany and back to England for a second time in 1944. He was the only Englishman to be awarded a medal by both sides
Josette Janine Falle (nee Rouard)
James Edward Houillebecq
Lilian Kinnard
Frank le Villio
John Henry Moignard
Vivienne Mylne
Philip John Potier
Jean Rossi
June Sinclair
  • Henry Adicott, tea room proprietor, deported on 12 January 1942 after conviction for receiving stolen goods, and sentence of one year imprisonment
  • Richard Angell, no details available yet
  • Flavien Emile Barbier, deported to Dijon Prison and onwards to Germany
  • Ronald Beer, of Swan Hotel, Hope Street, sent to Saint Lo and Dijon Prisons and on to Germany
  • Ronald Henry Bell Baker, deported in 1942 after being sentenced to 9 months imprisonment for receiving stolen property. Liberated from Laufen in 1945
  • Desire Auguste Berezay, deported in 1944 after a number of offences against German orders
  • Gladys Josephine Bewhay, nee Sangan convicted of serious larceny and sent to prison in France
  • Dermot Bonas, Irishman deported twice to Germany
  • Niall Bonass, another deported Irishman, possibly related to Dermot
  • Charles Gordon Burley, Jerseyman who served in the Canadian Army in the Great War and was sent to Kislau Concentration Camp and other German prisons for producing a news leaflet from radio bulletins during the Occupation

Eddie Chapman, criminal and double agent

Involved in three wars

  • William Stanley Canute Cordrey fought in the Great War, and then, on both sides, in the Spanish Civil War. He is described on the website as 'a man who had an extremely adventurous – and dangerous – life and who played anything but an onlooker’s role in two, and probably three, of the most notorious wars of the twentieth century'.
  • John Charles Coutanche, sent to Caen Prison
  • Walter Allen Stanley Dauny, sent to prison in France at the age of 17 for stealing from Germans. His half brother Trevor said of him:'He gave them hell during the war. He hated the Germans and was uncontrollable in his youth. He would make as much misery for them as possible as he had Germans living in his house. He stole shoes from them, let cows out of fields and didn’t have any care for the curfews'.
  • Geoffrey Delauney, too young to join the Royal Navy, remained in Jersey, deported to French prison in 1944 for 'insulting the German forces', released after D-Day, marched into liberated Paris, taken to Southampton by some Americans and eventually joined the Royal Navy.
  • Arthur Dimery involved in the St Saviour wireless case and sent to prison in France; died of a heart attack in a German internment camp
  • John Draper held in three French prisons and an internment camp
  • Emile 'Harry' Aristide du Bois Held in the notorious Cherche-Midi Prison in Paris and then the even more notorious Buchenwald concentration camp
  • George Ernest du Pre died in 1943 after being deported to prisons in the east of France
  • Albert Raymond Durand deported to two French prisons, then a Gestapo camp, then Dachau and Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camps. He died ten days before the war ended
  • Josette Janine Falle (nee Rouard) imprisoned at Coutances and Lisieux

Anthony Faramus

Stealing from the Germans to feed his family

  • George James Fox, arrested in 1943 for stealing food from German barracks to feed his family, and sentenced to two years imprisonment, served in various French and German prisons. He died on 11 March 1945 at Naumburg Prison, and was reburied after the war in Berlin War Cemetery
  • George Gallichan, imprisoned at Dijon and Fort d'Hauteville
  • Herbert Gallichan, imprisoned at Dijon and Fort d'Hauteville
  • Walter John Gallichan, deported to Norderney Concentration Camp, Alderney
  • Clarence Alexander Gosset - no details yet available

Louisa Gould

Peter Hassall, the only one of three would-be escapers to survive

Harold Le Druillenec

Frank Le Villio

  • Frank Rene Julien Le Villio, deported in 1944, thought to have died in a concentration camp, but he was freed, and died in England of tuberculosis in 1946
  • Dennis John Alfred Leister An Englishman deported from Jersey and detained in two Dijon prisons. He managed to escape from Fort d’Hauteville in early 1943 with Reginald Pleasants and Belgian Edmond Vandievoet and a French prisoner. Pleasants and Leister made it as far as St Malo before being taken back to Jersey in German custody. They were then deported a second time, this time to Kreuzburg Internment Camp. Pleasants and Leister later joined the British Free Corps of the Waffen SS and are widely regarded today as traitors.
  • Francis Lewis - no details yet
  • Albert Reginald Marie, deported to France and held at Dijon Prison, and nearby Fort d’Hauteville Prison
  • William Howard Marsh, deported in 1944, convicted of ‘insulting the German forces, disturbing the working peace and disseminating anti-German information’, he was held at Karlsruhe Prison, Frankfurt am Main-Preungesheim Prison, Naumburg Prison, and finally Wille Forced Labour Camp, where he died 12 months after deportation, and was buried in a mass grave
  • Emma Constance Marshall, nee Gander was in her late 40s when deported and followed a remarkable route to Schonebeck Prison west of Berlin, via Saint-Malo, Fresnes, Gotteszell, Stuttgart, Plauen, Nuremberg, Dresden Gestapo, Gommern and Magdeburg prisons
  • Philip James McCallen, born in Barnsley, was deported from Jersey in December 1942 and sent to Caen, Troyes Hauts-Clos, Clairvaux and Chalons-sur-Marne prisons
  • Patrick Joseph McCloskey, born in Londonderry, was sentenced to six months imprisonment for 'receiving stolen articles, and black market activities' He survived the war and died in 1986
  • Michael McGrath, born in Ireland - no details yet
  • John Henry Moignard sent to Saint Lo and Troyes Hauts-Clos prisons
  • George John Frederick Morcel sent to Saint Lo Prison and then Troyes and Paris
  • Stanley John Morel - no details yet

Edward Peter Muels, helped a German soldier

  • Edward Peter Muels, convicted of 'aiding and abetting desertion' by helping a German soldier who had shot an officer, Edward Muels was deported to serve a 15-month sentence in 1944 and died in Kassel-Wehlheiden Prison on 7 January 1945
  • Vivienne Gower Mylne, born in China and deported from Jersey. Sent to St Lo Prison
  • John Birkmyre Neilson, sent to Saint Lô Prison, Troyes Hauts-Clos Prison and Châlons-sur-Marne Prison
  • Thomas Patrick Nelson, born in Australia and sent from Jersey to St Lo Prison and Villeneuve-Saint-Georges near Paris
  • John Whitley Nicolle, part of the St Saviour wireless case, he and his father were the original source of the group's news from their hidden wireless. He was sentenced to three years in prison and deported in May 1943, travelling via Saint Lô Prison, Dijon Prison, Fort d’Hauteville Prison, Saarbrücken Prison and Bochum Prison, to Dortmund Prison, where he died in February 1945
  • Kathleen Violet Norman, sent to Caen Prison
  • Cyril Cornelius O'Callaghan - no details yet
  • Maurice O'Connell, Irishman working at the Soldatenheim, St Brelade, before deportation

Ogier family and espionage charges

  • Leonce l'Hermitte Ogier, tried for espionage in Paris, convicted but then pardoned and returned to Jersey. He was treated as a hero in Jersey and deported a second time. He had terminal cancer and died soon after in Ulm Hospital.
  • Richard l'Hermitte Ogier, son of Leonce, created map of military fortifications which the Germans found at the family home. Sent to Paris for interrogation with his father, but hospitalised until 1944, when he was repatriated to London. He died in 1966
  • Philip George Ozard, deported and sent to Fort de Villeneuve-Saint-Georges Prison, Neuoffingen Forced Labour Camp, Kaisheim Prison and Landsberg Prison
  • Frederick William Page, an Englishman who changed his name from White when he abandoned his wife and children and moved to Jersey, was given an 18-month sentence for listening to wireless broadcasts and deported. He died in January 1945 in Naumburg Prison and was buried in the town cemetery, along with several others from Jersey. He was later reinterred in Berlin

Clarence and Peter Painter

  • Clarence Claude Painter deported with his son Peter after a wireless, camera and gun were found at their home. He was held in various prisons and concentration camps and died en route to Mittelbau-Dora
  • Peter Edward Painter, deported with his father and died of pneumonia in his arms at Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp, which was notorious for its brutal conditions and described as worse than Dachau and Auschwitz
  • Emile John Louis Paisnel sentenced to ten months for receiving stolen goods, probably coal taken from the Germans by his co-accused. Deported in May 1944 and died about three months later in the notorious Naumburg Prison. He was taken there with ten other Channel Islanders and was the first to die
  • Pietro Palestra, an Italian deported from Jersey
  • John de Carteret Pinwell deported and detained in two Dijon prisons
  • Berthe Leonie Pitolet - no details yet

Escape from Dijon prison and recapture in St Malo

  • Reginald Eric Pleasants An Englishman deported from Jersey and detained in two Dijon prisons. He managed to escape from Fort d’Hauteville in early 1943 with Dennis Leister and Belgian Edmond Vandievoet and a French prisoner. Pleasants and Leister made it as far as St Malo before being taken back to Jersey in German custody. They were then deported a second time, this time to Kreuzburg Internment Camp. Pleasants and Leister later joined the British Free Corps of the Waffen SS and are widely regarded today as traitors.
  • Philip John Potier deported and held in Clairvaux Prison near Troyes and Fort de Villeneuve-Saint-Georges Prison near Paris
  • Gordon Augustin Prigent was sent to Nordendy Camp, Alderney
  • Arthur Purtill, an Irishman deported to Germany from Jersey twice, the second time from larceny. He was held in five different prisons in Germany, but is believed to have survived the war
  • Arthur Wilfred Queree - no details available, other than that he, along with many Channel Island deportees, was held in Caen Prison after leaving Jersey

Death shortly after prison liberated

  • Clifford Bond Queree, deported in July 1943 having been sentenced to two years imprisonment for ‘continual receiving' of stolen German bread. He passed through three French and two German prisons before ending up in Naumburg. He survived long enough to be rescued by the Americans, who liberated the prison on 13 April 1945, but was so seriously ill that he died two weeks later in hospital
  • Patrick Quinn, Irishman deported to Fort de Villeneuve-Saint-Georges prison near Paris, and then Kaisheim and Landsberg prisons in Germany, at the last of which Adolf Hitler had been held years before for eight months. He wrote Mein Kampf there. Quinn was one of only two Jersey deportees to be held there
  • Henry Rabet was one of at least 41 Channel Islanders to be held at Fort d'Hauteville Prison near Dijon
  • Richard George Riches also held at Fort d'Hauteville.
  • Annie Muir Henderson Ross née Gilmour, deported to Coutances Prison and Fort de Romainville Internment and Transit Camp at Paris
  • Edward Oliver Ross deported to Compiegne Prison via Avranches

Father and son deported together

  • Jean Marie Rossi, born in Jersey, he was deported along with his son Marcel in February 1943 for refusing to work for the Germans. Eventually they were separated and Jean Marie survived the war
  • Marcel Fortune Rossi was less fortunate than his father Jean Marie. In the closing days of the war he was evacuated from Hersbruck concentration camp and, suffering from pneumonia, forced to join a death march to Dachau. It is likely that he died en route, and he was never heard of again.
  • June Mary Sinclair, worked in a hotel occupied by the Germans and was deported after slapping an officer who made advances to her. Records of her deportation and ultimate fate are non-existent but it is believed that she died at Revensbruck at the age of 23.
  • William Edward Smith, held at Caen, Dijon and Fort d'Hauteville Prisons after deportation, and finally Saint Denis internment camp
  • John Soyer was sentenced to a year in prison in 1943 for having an illegal wireless. He was deported to Fort de Villeneuve-Saint-Georges Prison near Paris, and managed to escape after volunteering to work on unexploded bombs after an American air raid in May 1944. He managed to reach Brehal in Normandy and joined the Resistance as Jean Marion. He was shot dead trying to escape German raids in July 1944.
  • Reginald Symons - not details available
  • Joseph James Tierney one of four members of the group sentenced in the St Saviour wireless case, Tierney passed through a number of prisons and ultimately ended up at Zoschen forced labour camp in 1945 as the end of the war neared. Desperately ill at the time, he was killed by SS guards on 4 May 1945, along with hundreds of others on a forced march away from the camp, and buried in a mass grave
  • Corentin Julian Turpin - no details available
  • Cornelis van Ooststroom, born in Dordrecht, Holland, in 1890, he first came to Jersey in 1929. In 1944 he was working for Organisation Todt and was involved with others in stealing coal. Despite only being given a four-month sentence he was deported in March 1944. He may have gone to Holland after serving his sentence in Paris, but he was back in Jersey by 1946 and lived there until he died in 1951, aged 61
  • Frederick Frank Vasse, convicted of 'serious larceny' in 1941 at the age of 19 - possibly trying to steal food from the Germans - and deported in January the following year to serve his sentence at Fort de Villeneuve-Saint-Georges Prison near Paris. He appears to have returned to Jersey in February 1943, but to have been deported again, and his ultimate fate is not known
  • Jack Frederick Harry Walling - convicted for wireless offences and sentenced to nine months prison. Deported to St Malo in late 1944 and survived US attack on the bus taking him to Rennes and was repatriated to England and back to Jersey after the war ended
  • William John Windebank, born in Alderney, he was deported from Jersey in October 1943 for failing to surrender a wireless. He was transferred from one prison to another but survived the war and was liberated. He claimed compensation in 1965 but died before the money came through
  • John Ernest Frederick Woods, born in London and working as a labourer in Jersey at the start of the Occupation. He was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment for 'serious larceny'. He was sent in 1942 to prisons near Paris but his fate is not known


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