Wartime police officer stayed but lost his home to Germans
A POLICE officer decided not to evacuate with his young family because he felt it was important to stay at his post and help islanders.
Yet just two years later the occupying Germans were trying to paint a picture of Archibald Tardif as a man who would abuse his position and steal food from his fellow islanders.
His family want nothing more than to see his name cleared, but since the Nazi military court no longer exists, there seem to be few options.
Archibald Tardif was born in Guernsey and at the start of the Occupation was working as a policeman and married to Violet. They had a son, Rex, who was six at the outbreak of war.
Rex’s children, Sandra Pugh and Geoff Tardif, can remember hearing stories though the family.
‘Arch had hoped to follow 10 days after [Violet and Rex were evacuated to Glasgow] as they hoped there would be a whole-island evacuation,’ Mrs Pugh said.
‘And the emergency services would be the last to leave.’
But unfortunately he did not have a chance to leave before the Germans arrived and he watched his police partner killed in the attack on the tomato lorries at the White Rock.
In April 1942, he appeared before the court and gave evidence that he raided a German butchers’ shop three times, as well as a grain store. He took some sausages, some of which he said he smoked, and some oats, which he ground to make flour.
It was noted that the Germans had taken Mr Tardif’s home, including his crops, and while he was promised compensation for this, he had received nothing and had been left very short of food.
The court said this would be taken into account and he was sentenced to one year and six months in prison. Most of the other officers were sentenced to hard labour.
Mr Tardif was taken to Caen prison with his colleagues, but then he and former colleague Alfred Howlett – both sentenced to prison rather than labour – were sent to Troyes Hauts-Clos Prison and then Clairvaux Prison.
In July 1943 his sentence was suspended for an unknown reason and he was later sent to a prison and then to internment camps. He managed to get away and go to Paris and in 1944 he was sent back to England by Duff Cooper, the British ambassador to France.
He managed to reunite with his family in Guernsey and they went on to have a daughter, Rosemary, but the conviction affected his life after the war. He was not allowed to become a policeman and instead became a porter at the Royal Hotel. The damp conditions of his imprisonment left him with severe rheumatoid arthritis. He passed away in 1973, aged 62.
The family have heard Mr Tardif was tortured into giving his ‘confession’. Geoff’s son, Tom, said they believed Archibald had cognac thrown in his face and his head smashed against a wall in a bid to get him to admit to the crimes.
Geoff Tardif said he did not recognise the charges against his grandfather.
‘He was a fine, upstanding man and very religious – Methodist,’ he said.
‘I think if he stole it was because he was starving.’
The original newspaper reports note that Mr Tardif said he had smoked some of the sausages and the court joked this was for flavour. But perhaps this was to preserve the meat, as food was short.
Unlike some of the other police officers, he had taken only from German-controlled premises, meaning he was sentenced only by the Nazi military tribunal and not the Royal Court, meaning the family cannot appeal to the UK court system.
Geoff Tardif said he would like to see his grandfather’s name cleared.
After the war what happened was rarely mentioned.
‘I think they felt that after being through all that, they thought let’s get on with it,’ he said.
Mrs Pugh said seeing the officers pardoned would mean a lot to the families.
