Personal recollections of the Occupation

Occupation memories

A panel from the Occupation Tapestry

A set of personal recollections of the Occupation, added to the site in 2020

Radio under the curate's bed

I wonder how many people can claim to have heard of the surrender of Italy under the curate's bad. This happened to me.

All day I had heard rumours of very good news and, knowing the curate had a wireless, decided to visit him. I was greeted by the lady in whose house he lived and explained my errand. The said he was out, but to my surprise led me upstairs to one of the bedrooms, explaining that the set was no longer in the dining room as it was getting too hot there.

We went into a bedroom where there was a large four-poster bed. She crawled underneath it and I followed. After about five minutes came the welcome news – the surrender of Italy. Suddenly the door burst open. We thought we had been betrayed. But it was only the curate. I don't think I'll ever forget the look on his face when he saw two heads pop out from under his bed as he prepared to crawl in to hear the news.

D M

German soldier and Russian PoW

We Jersey farmers did not suffer as much as other islanders as regards food. We could (although under supervision) retain for our own use milk, potatoes, wheat etc. This enabled us secretly to help others less fortunate, including Russian PoWs – in fact we harboured one.

Towards the end of the war a German soldier came into the yard just as the Russian was going outside. The German, pale, thin and hungry, asked him if he could have the rotten apples dumped in a basket. The Russian came indoors and asked us if he could give him the food he was going to have for his meal, adding: 'I have known what it is to be hungry myself'.

We gladly agreed and the German soldier was most grateful and said: 'Good for me when the war finished'.

'Good for me, too,' replied the Russian

Little did the soldier realise that he was speaking to a Russian PoW, whom we had clothed,. And who had learnt that 'Love is better than hatred'.

J LE B

Two forced moves

We had been turned out of our home just two weeks before the first Christmas of the Occupation and moved into a small house at First Tower.

Then, just before Christmas of the second year, an officer came to our house and informed us that it would be requisitioned by the German Commandant, and we were to move out in a week.

My mother, who was not one to be perturbed by an officer of an occupying force, said to him:'How is it that you turn us out of our home for the second time, when on your arrival in Jersey you promised that if we ceceived you peacably, our lands, homes and property would be solemnly guaranteed?'

The officer looked straight at her, placed his hand over his heart and, with a little bow, replied: 'Madam, that was another Commandant.'

J D WALKER

Leaflet discussions

It was September 1944 and following some initial contacts between the Jersey Communist Party and some anti-Nazi soldiers, it had been agreed that Les Huelin and I should meet a German soldier called Muelbach at the Grosse Lager at Georgetown, to discuss further the duplicating of leaflets by us for this group of soldiers calling for a mutiny of the garrison.

There were many locals working at the Grosse Lager, so it was reasonably easy to walk through the gate and approach the hut we had been told to walk into. We were both pretty tense as we were not at all sure that we were not walking into a trap.

The discussion took all evening, again because there was quite a bit of verbal fencing on both sides before trust was established and a good working arrangement arrived at.

But when Les and I left thehut to return to the main gate, it was locked.

It was undoubtedly only seconds before we turned back to the hut, and to Muelbach's apology for forgetting the time and production of a key. But I still remember those few seconds seeming like a lifetime.

NORMAN LE BROCQ

Left behind

My father had given help and advice to a young countryman who had supplied the money for a group of four to buy a boat and supplies in order to escape from the island. The day before the vitalnight he came to say 'goodbye' and was given letters to post to relatives in the UK should his attempt prove successful.

Imagine the family's alarm when, at about 4 o'clock the next morning there was a hammering at the front door and there, still wearing his escape kit and with his share of survival provisions still strapped to his back, was the same young man.

It was a dry night but he was soaked to the skin. What had happened? 'We got the boat out of its hiding place and down to the sea,' he explained. 'The others climbed in and I agreed to wade and push until it was floating well. Then they heaved on the oars and left me standing – the bastards.'

He dared not shout, but decided to make his way to the nearest friends' house – ours. Later, dried out and warmed up, he admitted that, instead of him hiding until well after morning curfew, his action might have had the whole family arrested.

A R M

Confinement

Early in 1945 I was caught for a curfew infraction. Reporting at the Occupying Forces headquarters I was told I would be sent to jail. But in case I was keenly anticipating the fact, they added that so many of my fellow islanders were in prison that I would have to wait an indefinite period before serving sentence.

Time passed. I began to wonder if I'd been forgotten. But whether I was to be confined in Gloucester Street or not, another quite different form of confinement was certain. Evidence of this was visible when, two months later, I was again summoned. Alarmed at the idea of confining a person who would have to be confined while being confined, they told me to go home again and wait until called for.

But before that happened, Liberation Day arrived. Five weeks later I was duly confined, but not by the Occupying Forces.

MRS L SHOWELL

Flooded macaroni

The French barge with eight holds berthed at No 5 in the Harbour. I boarded and received the manifest and noticed that No 3 hold contained macaroni packed in 2,000 paper bags.

The hatches were removed and, to my amazement, it was flooded with sea water. The macaroni was just visible and had changed into a pulp. I phoned Food Control and received instructions to tip it into a store on the New North Quay. This massive pudding was grabbed out into lorries and tipped into the store, and looked for all the world like a mountain of snow.

Next morning at 8 o'clock I arrived at the store and noticed a slimy mass of dough oozing out of the front door. Going to the back of the store, a similar sight greeted me. Slowly and with difficulty I slid the door open and could not believe it – spread over the entire floor of the store was a sea of macaroni about two inches deep.

Eventually it was cleared up and went to fatten someone's pigs.

TALLYMAN

Commando raid

On Boxing Night 1943, when the majority of the islanders were asleep, four British Commandos silently crept up from a small bay called Petit Port, on the north coast of the island. Tension and expectancy were there as the men, faces blackened, made their way up the steep cliff, skilfully evading the land mines.

Reaching the top of the cliff, they noticed in the hollow of a nearby meadow, streaks of light coming from a blacked-out window. A knock at the door brought both the farmer and his dog to their feet.

The door was opened and the men pushed their way in. Immediately realising they were among islanders, they fired questions at the household but were advised against attempting to raid the nearest German anti-aircraft battery. Returning to the awaiting British submarine, they took an Evening Post and German Occupation money as evidence of having landed in Jersey.

Ironically, not 200 yeards away, two young men were scheming to escape from the island. Little did they know that transport was on their doorstep.

M M HICKEY

Colloquial English

The internees were being transferred from Dorsten, in the Ruhr, to Biberach, in Wurtemburg, a train journey of about 48 hours.

The german interpreter, who spoke good colloquial English, was trying to get the milling, chattering horde on to the train, but was not finding it easy. They crowded round, clamouring to be put in a compartment with their particular friends, or complaining that they were being separated from their families.

He did his best to cope, but finally lost patience and exploded: 'You must go in this compartment, you won’t go in that compartment. You want me to put you all in the compartments youo want. Damn and blast it all. I cannot do it. Will you get on the bloody train!'

We got on the bloody train.

A S H DICKINSON

Whistle sabotage

Outside the Abattoirs, the locomotive was belching smoke and steam. The German driver was oiling the vital parts, waiting for the ceremony of opening up the railway to the west by driving the train through a tape across the line.

A dais had been erected outside the Harbour Office and resting on the silk cover was a silver whistle. At that time nobody was about, so I took it off and stuffed a small piece of paper down the end and returned it.

In due course squads of troops arrived and drew up on each side of the dais. Then a car swung around the corner and the Commandant alighted and mounted the platform.

The driver waited patiently for the 'blast off'. The Commandant addressed his troops. Then he picked up the whistle and blew. No soun d. The officer looked up, horrified. He blew again, turning purple in the attempt. No sound. In disgust he threw down the whistle and, with a shout and a wave of his hand, ordered the driver to proceed.

TALLYMAN

Son's killing

It was on the morning of 11 October 1844 – my husband's birthday – that the Gestapo came to my door. Bluntly they said that my son, Douglas, had been shot and killed.

With three of his friends he had been trying to escape from the island in a boat. Three miles out a strong current and heavy seas caught them. They tried to head south, but were drifting north, finally beaching at Anne Port. Suddenly a stream of bullets were fired at them, killing Douglas.

His three friends were made to carry his body to the sea wall and they were then marched away and put in prison, where they stayed until the war was over. Meanwhile I was made to appear before a German court three times and ordered to pay a heavy fine. This I refused to do, saying that I would go to prison, instead. In the end they let me go, promising that I would be jailed when the war was over.

Then they let me go home to my two young children, with memories … memories which will remain to the end of my days.

M LE MARCHAND

A mother's sacrifice for her children

I was 14 years old and i remember going to a Miss Frazer in Philips Street in St Helier to get a meal of cold meat and salad. The boys had to go to a place called Chelsea House for their meals, this was because we had no way of cooking at home, there was no light and very little food. In 1944 we each recieved a parcel from the red cross. I remember mum being ill because she would give us, me and my four brothers and sisters, her food. I remember my mother fainting from lack of food.

MRS BUESNEL

Shop at Snow Hill

Like many others we had a shop during the Occupation. It was approximately 80 yards from Snow Hill. At no time at all did the German soldiers ‘swarm through the shops, stripping us bare of food and clothing and every other commodity’

At Fredrick Bakers, George D Laurens or Broughs, the soldiers always clicked their heels, saluted and paid for what they required. I know, I was there. It happened in our shop.

Bulk buying, yes. That did happen, but they always paid for it.

However, the first Kommandant in Jersey, Hauptmann Gussek, (who incidentally had been a POW in Jersey during the 1914-18 war) put a stop to it by issuing orders to the effect that as from a certain date shop owners would supply German troops only with amounts as prescribed by an order of the high command. The order which was put into effect had to be on display and was printed in English and German and signed by Haupt Gussek. I still have one of these orders.

Slave workers have been mentioned in the past. And yes we did have them — but not all were slave workers. Many who worked for the Germans were volunteers; others political prisoners of Hitler’s Third Reich. In most cases these workers were controlled by Org Todt, who were the brutal ones, not the ordinary German soldiers.

One Russian we knew, whom we nicknamed George, actually stayed with my family for a while and it was many years after the war when he returned to the island we found out his name was George Kosloff.

ARTHUR SHALES

A stolen dog

Towards the end of the Occupation, France was liberated, thus cutting off food supplies to both islanders and also from the German occupying forces. Everyone was getting hungry. Luckily for the islanders, the Red Cross parcels started arriving via SS Vega and this eased the situation to some extent. The Germans however, no longer in touch with France, were seen gathering stinging nettles and also collecting limpets (not a very tasty fish) from the sea shore.

About this time, pets started to disappear. My sister, Vivienne, was walking our black Scotch Terrier when a car pulled up and a German soldier just picked him up and drove off with him. She returned home very upset. On another occasion, I saw two German soldiers walking near our house and one picked up a cat that was sitting on a wall and pushed it under his cape type jacket and walked on. I was about 14 at the time and rushed to a neighbour and told her and we both ran after them and demanded them to return the cat. At first they pleaded innocence but the cat was struggling under his jacket and eventually they let go of it. A very lucky cat!

On a completely different subject, two of my older sisters were in town waiting to meet a friend and happened to be standing in an arcade near the main road. Two German soldiers passed by and got the wrong impression and tried to flirt with them. When they were rebuffed, one of them got hold of the younger sister and pushed her head back very roughly. At that moment, an ARP officer came along and said "All right girls?" and saved the situation. My sisters decided not to tell our parents as they would have forbidden them to go into town!

KAY HOUIELLEBECQ

Crossing the rifle range

There were perhaps six of us children, all under 11, who used to take a short cut home from school by cutting through a field that was used by the Germans for rifle practice, and mortar practice. If there was shooting in progress when we turned up, they would always take a break until we were well clear.

Once we watched them practicing with mortars, using dummy rounds and a dummy village consisting of cardboard houses. The buildings were very small, and would have made good accessories for a 00 gauge model railway. On another occasion, the field was deserted, but they had been there recently because we found a pistol on the ground. There was no-one in sight, so we gathered around in a circle to admire this find, only to be interrupted by a uniformed arm reaching into the circle and taking the pistol with a polite "danke". This was an officer in a very smart uniform, and as he left for his barracks we followed behind him.

He must have had a runny nose, but had no handkerchief, so chose to blow his nose by leaning forward, closing one nostril with a finger, and blowing snot into free space. I expect we have all done that, but usually you must take into account the wind direction. Our officer did not, and we then learned our second German word for the day. It begins with sh... in both languages I think.

At the end of the field was a mock tank. built of wood on an old lorry chassis, and using a section of steel chimney stack as a gun. After the rifle practice there were frequently unused bullets to be found on the grass, sometimes a full clip of five. We collected these, broke off the heads which were made of wood, picked out the cotton stuff and then poured the gunpowder into a small heap under the tank. A small trail of gunpowder to the outside was then ignited with a match and we all ran like the wind. We looked back once to see smoke pouring from the 'gun'.

By morning, the ruins of the tank had been removed. We innocently went past on our way to school.

When we came back that afternoon, the tank had been replaced with a large bill board with the head and shoulders of a British soldier on it. We could not have them shooting at British soldiers. The next day coming home from school we had some crayons. I was hoisted onto the shoulders of the biggest boy and instructed to change the shape of the helmet to the German variety, and to add a toothbrush moustache under the nose. The following morning the bill board had been removed. Nothing replaced it. We had won.

JOHN HEWLETT

Curfew problems

I remember coming home from a dance with my sister; two German officers approached us and one of them pointed to his watch telling us it was 10 o'clock curfew time.I said no it was five minutes to ten and he said no its ten o'clock!

We felt intimidated and were frightened, the soldiers told us to go so we ran all the way home, which was not easy because we were wearing sabots (shoes similar to clogs).

MRS ATTLESEY

An attic search

We lived at 2 Library Place. Mum and Dad were caretakers for Edward Falle Le Gresley, Solicitors, and Bois & Bois Advocates.

Up in the attic, Dad had an aviary of canaries. Somehow, a cat got in one day and caused havoc, so Dad put a wire mesh over the window. Now at that time, the Royal Square was home to many pigeons. The story was that someone told the Germans that these could be used for sending messages to England, but on reflection, I think they they were seen as a source of food. Anyhow, the idea was to catch the birds. A net was put up on a contraption, much like a football goal and placed up near the statue, and the birds enticed into it.

Whilst this was going on (it took quite a while, because the birds weren’t that stupid) someone in the German Office next to the Library must have noticed the wire mesh on the window across the Square. So one Sunday morning there was a rapping of the front door and there stood an NCO with two men, wanting to inspect the room, as we may have been hiding the pigeons. Up they came and saw that it was just an aviary, which by that time only contained a couple of canaries. They were satisfied, but as they came out of the attic, the one in charge noticed a trap door to the roof. He insisted on seeing what was up there, even though my father told him that nobody had been up there since he had been living there (about 12 years). Nevertheless the NCO insisted, so a chair was brought and up he went and opened the trap. Down came a pile of soot and dirt all over him. His two men roared with laughter, but the language that came out, it was a good job it was in German!

He had to be brushed down and have a wash. My sister, Pat, and I didn’t see any of this as we were ushered into the front room out of the way. But Mum and Dad delighted in relating the story. Luckily they didn’t come into the front room, because in the corner was a crystal radio set, and that would have been trouble indeed.

GRAEME HARVEY

The Germans took my money

From The War Illustrated, 8 November 1940

George Turner, a Jersey tomato grower, remained on the island for more than three months before escaping to England, where he told the following story of the life of the islanders under Nazi rule.

About 300 Germans were the first to arrive in Jersey. I went on with my work until two of them came and wanted to know whether my house was my property. They went in, opened drawers and took £63, saying I would get a receipt and would be give full marks to that value. When I went to an office in the town I got nothing.

The Germans were quite nice and courteous and did not lay a finger on me, but the next morning three more arrived, picked all my fruit and tomatoes and took them away. I asked them about the money and they said "That will be all right." I never received anything. I cannot say that they looted. It was all done by the officials in a very courteous way. They took all the flour in the island and commandeered the hotels, billeted themselves there and emptied the cellars.

They went straight to the town hall and interviewed Mr John Pinel, the police magistrate. They appointed about 40 town guards, who patrolled the streets in couples, usurping the police force. Although they are what might be termed 'tolerant' they let you know that they are the bosses. If anyone carries a case he is stopped and made to show what is inside. If the Germans see anyone hanging about they put them to work on the fields.

There is nothing Prussian about their manner, but they said to us, "You will all be Prussians from now on and the Channel Islands belong to Germany for ever. They boats will come here now from Hamburg instead of from England, and if you want to go away you will go to Germany because you are German subjects now. Germany is a very good place, and England does not know how to govern." They also told us that Ribbentrop would be the boss for Germany in England.

They took the food from the boarding houses, went into the largest grocers' warehouse and packed great crates and sent them away. From the large drapers they sent all the women's lingerie away, and helped themselves from the jewellers.

Wireless is not allowed, and there is a curfew at 10 pm. The banks are closed, and there are no cinemas.

The bread we had was dark brown. We had no sweetstuffs, no sugar, no butter, but a bit of margarine. When the German soldiers came they were ravenous, and the first thing they did was to have a good feed. Strangely, they never took the tobacco.

One day four of us met in a hotel, and one man said: 'I am going to make a bolt for it. There is a boat in the harbour'. This boat was captained by an Irishman, and he had been there for a long time. He was not allowed to move, but he had coal in his bunkers. He said he would take us to England for £3 5s a head. Eventually nine of us, including a girl, made our way to the boat at 9 o'clock one night. We all went to the quay by different routes, and I hid a small suitcase under my coat whenever I passed German soldiers. About 4 am the ship glided around the headland and we were away. In three days we reached England.

GEORGE TURNER

I worked for the Germans

I was born on the island of Alderney in 1920 but my mother moved the family to Jersey when I was four, as she realised that I would have to attend school. This meant that I was 20 years of age when the Germans arrived to occupy Jersey for the length of the war.

We knew that the Germans were coming because we were so close to France and we could see the German planes which flew low over the island. There were British troops on the island but they left when the Germans got closer. I was not surprised about this as I did not expect a small amount of soldiers to protect Jersey from the entire German army. I do not remember feeling frightened.

I remember just before the Germans arrived it was a beautiful sunny day and I saw some German planes flying towards us. Suddenly I saw that there were silver flashes falling from the planes and I realised that they were either bullets or bombs. I ran back into the house and shouted at my mother and younger brother to hide under our kitchen table. We did not have much furniture but I remember that the table was very big and strong. The German planes were bombing the harbour which was only 500 yards from our house and the noise and shaking was terrifying.

A short time after this the planes came again and dropped hundreds of pamphlets over the town. My mother had gone out early to do the shopping and came back with a handful of them. I can recall the pamphlets well. They were printed on white paper with black ink in English and told us that if we wanted to show that we had surrendered we must put up a white flag. In town the Union Jack was taken down and replaced with a white flag and my mother, like all the other households, hung a white pillow-case out the window.

A day or so later the German soldiers landed at the airport and I went down into town to see what would happen. I remember standing by the cenotaph which was opposite the police station and a drunk woman was shouting and pushing people. One of the soldiers spoke English and told her to “behave because the boss was coming”. The boss was an officer who went into the police station to give them orders.

Eventually 49,000 Germans were stationed on Jersey and I went to work for them. I had been working on farms or building roads for the council when they arrived but the Germans paid higher wages so I went to work for them as a potato peeler. When my younger brother left school the masters advised him to apply to the Germans for a job. He was employed as part of a team who cleaned up and prepared the weapons ready for use and was paid very well for this.

In my experience the Germans were very kind to us. Fortes stayed open throughout the occupation and was a very popular meeting place for the young German soldiers and local girls. They often played football with our local teams and we all went to the cinema regularly where we watched German and French films with subtitles. As far as I know the Germans did not destroy anything on the island and they made some improvements such as a new sea wall.

Many people on the island had wireless sets though this was forbidden by the Germans and they could find out what was happening in the rest of the world. The Evening Post was still printed and available on the island but I cannot recall now if it appeared to have contained a lot of German propaganda.

The Germans knew that the end of the war was coming and that the British would return and so they built themselves a Prisoner of War camp though they did not stay on the island long after the British came back. I went to work in the hospital kitchens as food was short and such a job ensured a good supply.

JOHN MEAD

Childhood memories

During the war I was aged between 8 and 14 and lived with my father and older brother. Just prior to the German invasion my father went down to the docks to see if he could get us a berth on a boat out. But there were thousands of people milling around, all trying to do the same thing. So in the end he came home and said we would have to stay put for the duration of the war, however long it lasted.

I can remember the arrival of the German troops with their noisy boots as they marched along the streets singing their awful marching songs. My father told me to hang out a pillowcase from the window as a white flag and my brother was made to hide all our valuables in the washhouse, as we had no idea what the German troops would do. In the end they were generally quite well behaved towards the local population. People were still allowed access to certain beaches on the island, but many were permanently locked off for the entire war

As school-age children, my brother and I were forced to take German in class and also learn their terrible marching songs. They hoped to turn us all in to ‘good little Nazis’ but it didn’t quite work that way. We kids would stand on the top of the Martello Tower at St Catherine’s Bay throwing tomatoes at the Germans and chanting ‘Pig! Pig! Pig!’ at the top of our voices — it was amazing they didn’t shoot us.

My father was a linguist by profession and turned out to be the only person on the island who could speak German, and subsequently became very necessary to the occupying authorities and the Island’s Bailiff. He had to translate all the proclamations that were then plastered all over the place.

My abiding memory of the war was the hunger and the constant search for food. At first there was rationing, which seemed to work fairly well, but as the war went on there was less and less to eat — everybody lost weight and became very thin. It was a constant worry for my father to ensure we were never separated as a family, or that we should have sufficient to eat. It wasn’t much better for the Germans — we even had to keep our dogs and cats locked indoors or the Germans would eat them. My poor father would cycle home from work and go scavenging for potatoes in the fields, or swop same family trinket for a piece of meat from the local farmer.

Later in the war the Germans brought in slave labour, mainly Russians, to build the ugly concrete fortifications that were constructed everywhere. The islanders may have had it tough, but these prisoners were treated abominably. One of them escaped and hid in the farm buildings nearby — I remember he was a very good-looking man. We kept quiet but eventually he was caught and almost certainly shot.

The Channel Islands were by-passed by the war effort - long after France and other occupied countries had been liberated we were still waiting to be free. The end came as a surprise, I can remember going down into the main square in St Helier where there was a wild party in progress and being amazed to find that there were British Tommies dancing, instead of the Germans — the war was finally over for us.

However, the worry and deprivation of it all took its toll on my poor father and he never really recovered his health, dying some years later. After the war I left the island and only went back once, for the 50th anniversary of the liberation. I’d never go back to live there now — just too many bad memories from those times.

PIP BRATBY

Letter to brother

Letter from Maria Jane de Ste Croix to her brother Nicolas Francois de Ste Croix a few days after the end of the war: Dear Brother

Once more I can write to you which I never thought I would. At last we are free after five years we can hardly realize it is true. Only for your wonderful Canadian food parcels we would have starved, and many would have died. They came just in time as the Germans had taken everything. We have been living on potatoes and swedes, very little meat and coarse bread. Everything was rationed. I do not know how we managed and at times it seemed very dark.

God has been good, he has delivered us without any fighting. If the British and Americans had come over we would have all been killed. They could not do otherwise to get them out, that is why they did not come before it was all over because Jersey was the most fortified place. It was guns all around the coast. If there was a house in the way they brought it down. I have been lucky that they have not brought my house down.

The British have some work to do. To see a British Tommy in his uniform is a joy, and they all look so pleasant. I have never seen anything like it, when they arrived to deliver us they could not move we were all so mad with joy. We have had a week of rejoicing. As soon as it is allowed I will send you the papers to see, it has all been so wonderful.

I must conclude I am longing to have a letter from you to know how you all are. There is a lot of sadness so many have news that their relations are dead and so many have been killed in the air raids in England. We do not want to see any of all this again. Hoping you are all well, love to all."

From your loving sister Maria

Maria died less than two years after writing this letter, in her 78th year

A penny for an aircraft

Having escaped from France to Jersey in June 1940 the platoon of soldiers of which I was a member were given defence duties at the States of Jersey airport. We were poorly equipped having only one antiquated Lewis machine gun. As I stood on duty scanning the sky for any possible German planes, a naval officer left the queue of passengers boarding the last civilian plane to leave Jersey. He pointed to a small biplane which was parked about a hundred yards away. "This is my plane", he said. "Please destroy it before the Germans come." I promised I would do as he asked when I was relieved from my post. A few minutes later I was approached by a farmer who had been working in a nearby field. He asked if he might buy the plane from me and I replied that he could take it with pleasure providing he could hide it from the Germans. Before he towed away the biplane behind his tractor the farmer thanked me and gave me a packet of Woodbine cigarettes. As these only cost one old penny it might rightly be thought of as a huge bargain.

Along with my comrades in the Cheshire Regiment I was waiting to board the last boat to leave Jersey harbour - it was called the SS Shepperton Ferry and the incident took place in June 1940. Occasionally German fighter planes wouls skim over the dock and spray the harbour wall with machine gun fire. The dozen or so soldiers of which I was a member crouched low against the harbour wall attempting to make themselves as small a target as possible.

Suddenly along the quayside walked a figure bearing a billboard saying 'Jersey Four Square Gospelers. As he walked along the quay oblivious of the danger from machine gunfire he handed out leaflets. I accepted mine appropriately. Hell and Damnation is Amongst You. Prepare to Meet Your God.

ERIC ATKINSON