Guernsey teenagers went to work in occupied Alderney

Only a handful of Alderney people were left on the island during the war and there has long been a perception that the island was isolated.

However, the report revealed that the States of Guernsey was employing people – many of them volunteers – in the island until 1942. And a few were still in the island at the time of Liberation.

Overall the chapter in the Alderney Expert Review, written by Dr Gilly Carr from the University of Cambridge, reveals that there were 429 Channel Islanders employed in Alderney over the course of the Occupation, more than three-quarters of them from Guernsey, and almost half engaged by the States themselves.

Policy & Resources Committee president Lyndon Trott said this was another part of the Bailiwick’s Occupation history, which islanders must continue to remember.

‘The clear and comprehensive work instigated by Lord Pickles and carried out by the review panel has covered many aspects of what happened in Alderney during the Occupation,’ he said.

‘We can see that many of those who went to work in Alderney from Guernsey – who were only a small group at any one time – were young men, between just 15 and 19 years old.’

Dr Carr said that more than a quarter of those employed on the island were teenagers – 18 was the most common age.

They were there to carry out a range of tasks, from farming, to growing extra food for Guernsey, to repairing houses.

‘When the population suddenly left Alderney, there would have been undoubtedly some damage to property,’ she said.

‘A lot of the workers from Guernsey were very young and we know very little about their family stories.

‘We also know there were women working at the Soldatenheim [German soldiers’ hostel] doing laundry and cleaning, which would have been humbling for many.’

The report suggests a local population of about 80 people were in the island until 1944, the large scale replacement of people perhaps indicating that Alderney was not somewhere locals were keen to stay for long.

‘There was a high turnover of people, which is why we have such a high number of names,’ said Dr Carr.

‘Alderney cannot have been a pleasant place to be, so despite necessity, many people probably did not want to stay.’

This was despite the German offer of high wages and rations, when food and jobs were scarce.

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POSS BREAK

Anecdotal evidence also suggests that some men had no choice but to go because of minor offences against the Germans, with some names matching those having convictions from the German courts.

The States of Guernsey withdrew its own workforce in 1942 after two key people – member-in-charge Wynne Sayer and storeman Charles Daniel – were deported to a civilian internment camp in Germany.

However Dr Carr thought it was unlikely their deportations were linked any part of the men’s roles in Alderney.

‘In September 1942 and February 1943 there were two waves of deportations, with 2,300 people from the Channel Islands sent to camps in Germany like Biberach,’ she said.

‘These were Channel Islanders targeted because they were born on the mainland or had served in World War I. Britain had invaded Iran and deported German workers from there to Australia, so a lot of this was a ‘tit for tat’ retaliation, and unfortunately the people in the Channel Islanders were sitting ducks for this action.’

Over the course of 1942, men from Guernsey were increasingly employed by German forces, including by the notorious Organisation Todt.

In June 1944, soon after the Allied invasion of Normandy, most of Channel Islanders still working in Alderney for the Germans were evacuated from the island, shown by the issuing of 81 travel permits for civilians from Alderney back to Guernsey.

This left just one family and eight other workers behind, all of whom were present when the island was finally freed in May 1945.

And it was their statements that Dr Carr hopes look at more closely in the future.

‘This was beyond the remit of this review,’ she said. ‘But one of the follow-ups I would like to undertake is a fuller account of the testimonies of those who were present at Alderney’s Liberation.’