With British air and land forces outnumbered by their German counterparts, and U.S. aid not yet begun, it seemed certain that Britain would soon follow the fate of France. Go. This means that their citizens are British but that they have an independent administration. log in. When France fell, the British decided not to defend the islands and offered evacuation to all residents who wanted it. The Channel Islands - comprising Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm - were the only part of Britain ever to fall under Nazi rule after Winston Churchill thought them impossible to defend. The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles to fall under Nazi Occupation during World War Two.. After the German offensive raced through France, the British government concluded in June 1940 that the islands were indefensible; island officials were ordered to demilitarise and some citizens were evacuated to mainland Britain. This was for two reasons: firstly, Britain didn’t have the resources to fight for the islanders, and the local people had been told not to resist; secondly, the geography of the Channel Islands would have made it very difficult for a potential resistance to hide and organise ­– the islands … Occupying Germans imposed an 11pm curfew, outlawed crystal radio sets, and ordered traffic onto the opposite side of the road, until petrol shortages reduced travel to bicycles and horse-drawn vehicles. As Germans marched into Paris on June 14, 1940, the British war cabinet debated demilitarising the Channel Islands, believing Britain did not have the military might to defend an area of no strategic value. Prior to the invasion, many island children were evacuated to the mainland, and Alderney became uninhabited, later to be used for concentration camps by the Nazis. sight of France but part of England since 1066, as Europe braced for German invasion in early 1940 the Channel Islands were still advertising as a summer holiday haven. Each child could take one change of clothes, nightclothes, a towel and toothbrush. The islands set their own fiscal policy and have their own judicial systems. Some, like the Isles of Scilly, off Cornwall and Orkney, off Scotland, are part of the UK.. Hitler became obsessed with the idea that Britain would try to recapture the islands and issued a personal directive that they be turned into an "impregnable fortress". In mid-July, therefore, he launched a massive attack on British aircraft and airfields with the intention of destroying Britain’s capacity to defend itself. Victor Hugo sum it up by saying that Guernsey and Jersey were “pieces of France that fall into the water and were picked up by the British”. The Channel Islands lay in the English Channel about 161km from England and 22km from Normandy. On Sunday, June 30, leaflets dropped, demanding surrender of Jersey authorities, with the display of white crosses and white flags on buildings. It is because of this link to the crown and associated history that the Channel Islands are part of the British Isles (bizarely) but NOT part of the United Kingdom. The Jerrybags who slept with German soldiers are a reminder that the bulldog breed collaborated too. Why aren't the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands (Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, etc.) Why didn't the British try to reconquer the US after 1812? Woolworth opened a store in the Jersey capital of St Helier on 9 April 1921, followed by another in … JavaScript is disabled. Shopkeeper Louisa Gould, who lost a son serving in the Royal Navy, sheltered an escaped Russian prisoner of war for 18 months, telling a friend, “I had to do something for another mother’s son.” Arrested in 1944, she was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp where she was gassed to death in 1945. When Britain and Russia took control of Iran in 1941, interring German citizens, an infuriated Adolf Hitler demanded deportation of 10 British citizens from the islands for every German interned. Did it help shape the nation? Hitler turned the Channel Islands were the most heavily defended portion of the Atlantic Wall, but was not part of it and thus did not add to the defensive strength of the Wall. There is evidence that the islands have been populated by humans for over 25,000 years. Military History. The Channel Islands - comprising Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm - were the only part of Britain ever to fall under Nazi rule after Winston Churchill thought them impossible to defend. The Islanders made the best of situation and with a decent German occupying force it was not too difficult. "Channel Islands" is a geographical term, not a political unit. They are divided into two British Crown Dependencies, the Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey. Chaos prevailed in Guernsey, where locals arranged evacuation of the first 1900 schoolchildren, some with their mothers, others with schoolteachers. The Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom, nor the European Union – they are Crown Dependencies. All rights reserved. But Colin Smith argues that we should not jump to conclusions-the Islands were unlike any other part of occ All times AEST (GMT +10). The British originally expected the island to be totally destroyed. Most of Britain was under Roman rule for almost 400 years, but when the Roman Empire began to falter, the people of Britain were increasingly left to defend themselves. This was despite prime minister Winston Churchill’s insistence that Britain should be able to use naval power to protect the islands, arguing it was “repugnant ... to abandon British territory which has been in the possession of the Crown since the Norman Conquest”. "Overall I do analyse Jersey and Guernsey as a case of submission on the grounds of superior force." Interactive exhibits, interspersed with wartime footage, sound effects and displays of household objects, walk you through the British government's decision not to defend the Channel Islands, privations suffered by locals, the slave labour used to build these tunnels, the deportations of British-born families to Germany, and Jersey's subsequent liberation. The Royal Air Force continued to use the island as a bombing range until it was returned to West Germany on March 1, 1952. On July 16, 1940, Hitler issued a directive ordering the preparation and, if necessary, the execution of a plan for the invasion of Great Britain. Apr 18, 2017 #21 Why did they have little strategic importance? The residents do not vote in UK elections (unless they are resident in the UK at the time). As British Crown dependencies, the Channel Islands are not part of the UK, but they have an allegiance to the British Crown that dates back more than 800 years. When Jeannie Lockett’s husband seduced their maid, she left him and embarked on a career that would see her hailed as one of Sydney’s outstanding pioneer teachers. Instead they settled down, with few overt signs of resistance, to a hard, dull but relatively peaceful five years of occupation, in which more than half the population was working for the Germans." Nationwide News Pty Ltd © 2020. 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