John Nettles - Jewels and Jackboots: Hitler’s British Isles, the German Occupation of the British Channel Islands 1940-1945

This book could never have been compiled without the enormous help I received from a great number of people in the Channel Islands. The number is indeed so great that there is simply not enough space here to mention them all by name, but they all have my heartfelt thanks for sharing with me their knowledge and wisdom about the Occupation years.

Most thanks for his untiring research in my behalf must go to Howard Butlin Baker, who discovered so much about the Occupation that it would take a dozen volumes to tell it all.

Appreciation is due, too, to those three great survivors of those days: Bob Le Sueur and Michael Ginns in Jersey, and Henry Winterflood in Guernsey. Their conversations with me were among the most pleasurable experiences I had in the whole process of compiling this book; through them I was able to hear the true Island voice speak of those difficult times all of seventy years ago.

Paul Sanders and Hazel R. Knowles Smith, two of the foremost historians of the Occupation years also gave of their time to explain to me the complexities and they are complexities of the Islands response to being invaded and occupied by the Germans. Not only that of the men in high places but also that of the ordinary Islanders who were kept largely in the dark about what was going on. They were difficult times and good historians are needed to make some kind of sense of them and explain them in all their many aspects. Paul and Hazel are very good historians indeed. They performed that task for me without thought of reciprocation, and I cannot thank them enough. The same goes for Freddie Cohen, whose work on uncovering the fate of the Islands Jews is a model of fine historical research and a welcome counterbalance to some of the more hysterical approaches to this most difficult and contentious matter. He, very kindly, took time out from his States duties to talk me through what had happened to the Islands Jews during the Occupation, and the story that emerged was quite an eye-opener.

Especial thanks must go to the Socit Jersiaise library folk, and Anna Baghiani in particular, for finding and sending me all kinds of material on the Occupation. It was an invaluable help. As indeed was that given so freely to me by the staff of the Priaulx library in Guernsey and the staff of the Jersey Archive in St Helier a more helpful and friendly group the aspiring writer could not wish to meet.

The pictorial content of the book is most important in the telling of the Occupation story and I am more than grateful to those kindly Islanders who allowed me to use photos from their collections, the better to illustrate the tale. Chief among these is Mark Lamerton who has what must be the best Occupation photos in the Islands. Looking through them counts as one of the pleasantest experiences in the research process.

I spent many a happy hour too in Richard Heaumes wonderful Occupation Museum in Guernsey. Apart from documents, German notices and proclamations, he actually gave me an excellent photograph of Schmettow with which to adorn the chapter on the Occupiers. I thank him for that.

In Jersey, may I thank the staff who showed me around the War Tunnels so expressive of Nazi energy and hellish ambition that they take the breath away. They opened up their extensive archives sparing no effort to find the very best material to use in this book. I am only sorry we could not include more.

Finally, my deepest appreciation for their help and understanding goes to Simon Watkins for publishing and Eddie McGrath for the design and artwork of this work on the Occupation.

Working on this book has been a richly rewarding experience for me, not least in meeting and talking to so many Islanders who have so generously given of their time to tell the story of the Occupation. I am deeply indebted to them all.

John Nettles
October 2012