BATTLE FOR THE CHANNEL ISLANDS

In 1945, the Allies were ready with a daring amphibious operation to liberate Jersey and Guernsey by force

- WORDS NATE DRAKE

On 9 May 1945, Generalmajor Siegfried Heine, the German commander in Guernsey, arrived on board the B-class destroyer HMS Bulldog. After a few formalities, including having his identification papers checked, he was led to the wardroom, where he agreed to the unconditional surrender of the occupying forces. After a delegation on HMS Beagle arranged the signing of similar surrender documents in Jersey, the five-year Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands formally came to an end.

Yet even a few short hours beforehand, this victory had seemed uncertain. Just the previous day, junior naval officer Kapitänleutnant Armin Zimmermann had warned that safe passage had only been granted to British vessels to discuss armistice terms, as the agreed ceasefire didn't begin until one minute after midnight on the 9th.

In the event, the liberation of the Channel Islands was bloodless, as British troops began to disembark to the great enthusiasm of the local populace.

Since February 1945, Vizeadmiral Friedrich Hüffmeier had been charged by the Wehrmacht to hold the islands, no matter what that meant for the occupying troops and the civilian population. This raises the question of what would have happened if, in his zeal to enact the Führer's will, Hüffmeier had ordered his men to fight on until the bitter end?

Crown dependencies sacrificed

While it's safe to say that, as far as the Germans were concerned, the handover of the Channel Islands back to the British forces happened not with a bang but with a whimper, the same can't be said of the Nazis' initial occupation of these Crown dependencies. By 1940, Fall Gelb, also known as the Manstein Plan, had largely been successful. German Panzer divisions had reached France's northern coast. Beyond this lay the Channel Islands and the United Kingdom itself.