The Channel Islands At War (29 page)

Behind amusing occupation stories of improvisation, life was in grim reality a wretched business. In September 1941 one commentator asked how with the ending of the paraffin ration, and the reduction in candles they would pass the long winter evenings? In Guernsey by October 1944: 'Most of the people have to stay in bed all day, there is no heat or light of any kind either to warm or cook by, no hot water can be had for toilet purposes or washing dishes, all has to be done in cold.'

By the winter of 1944 there were no batteries, flints, candles or matches. Coal was controlled from December 1940, but became too expensive to buy. The ration ceased in September 1944. Gas and electricity were first rationed, and then cut off altogether in the winter of 1944-5. On Jersey, gas use was restricted in August 1941 to 7.30-12.30 in the morning, and from 5 to 9 at night. On the same Island, electricity was curbed from May 1942 from 7
-
1.15, and from 7 to 11. In November 1944 it was cut to one period from 6-10.30 in the evening. Gas ceased on 21 December 1944, and electricity on 25 February 1945.

To meet this situation a range of improvised methods of cooking were devised. Margaret Bird described bakehouse cooking when her husband and herself trundled a 14-stone jar containing soup, or a baking-tin holding vegetables in a cloth to the local bakehouse. For a charge of 2d a container, people were allowed to use the bakehouse ovens after the bread had been baked until September 1943. At home there was haybox cooking. This, said Margaret Bird, was most effective. The sawdust that those like Molly Finigan collected was put to good use in a tin with a hole at the side. The sawdust was lit, and gave a good hot top.

For many there was no means of providing hot meals, and the Island authorities acted to provide community ovens and kitchens, and registered people's restaurants. In Jersey, 6,500 people used the ovens, and 1,400 the community kitchens. In September 1944, von Aufsess visited them and thought the contents of the dishes very meagre 'mostly a few potatoes cooked without fat, and some tomatoes here and there'. Here were the poorest Island people on the brink of starvation. In Guernsey matters were equally bad, and when fuel gave out even the communal ovens had to close, Doctor Symons told Carey in September 1944, 'To talk of communal cooking for the whole population or the greater part is only an attempt to conceal the seriousness of the situation ... the scattering of a dozen kitchens in different parts of the Island and expecting all, old and young, sick and infirm, to proceed anything up to a mile and more and to carry home the rapidly congealing vegetable stew is puerile.' Towards the bitter end even these meagre services ceased. On 17 April 1945 in Jersey, 11 ovens closed as did the restaurants which 'had been the main dining centres to many hundreds of the poorer class of the people'.

It might have been thought that burning wood would have provided the answer, but the Germans were aware of its value, and as early as July 1941 overruled the system of permits created by the Island governments. A limit of one hundred weight of logs a month was introduced, and as usual systematically reduced until in January 1945 an order prohibited the collection, cutting or gathering of any description of wood even by occupiers or owners. Severe penalties and confiscation of tools were the punishment. Meanwhile the Germans took timber for themselves, and as late as April 1945 Sark was ordered to provide 250 tons of wood for Alderney. 'The lovely chestnut trees just opposite this house are scheduled to come down', wrote Mrs
Tremayne
. The effects of this order led to criminal attacks on property to get wood in the winter of 1944-5.

Symons told Carey that if something was not done there would be disaster. By December on Guernsey there would be,
the cold, nearly sixteen hours of darkness, practically no artificial illumination, half-cooked vegetables to eat if lucky, medical services almost at a standstill, no work to occupy the time, for how is work possible under such conditions, the worry and mental distress engendered by these conditions. If there are to be many weeks of these conditions, the lucky ones will be those who die quickly.'

In September 1945 the ministry of health bulletin contained a survey of health and nutrition which concluded that they had not been as seriously affected as had been thought. Certainly this report makes odd post-war reading if reports produced during the occupation are considered because there was no doubt in the minds of medical officers of health like Revell and Symons on Guernsey or McKinstry on Jersey about malnutrition, poor health, nervous illness, epidemics, suffering of old and ill people, the parlous state of Island hospitals, and, with the possible exception of maternity services, of every other medical service. On Sark conditions were desperate throughout the occupation. The doctor left with the evacuees, and a retired Doctor - Pittard - and a nurse-midwife held the fort. Doctor Pittard died and the Island was dependent on the nurse who got appendicitis, and after this there was only the German medical staff. Patients including pregnant mothers, had to go to Guernsey. There was a shortage of medical staff. In Guernsey, Mrs Tremayne thought the doctors should all be given medals after the war because they were 'worked to death* with so few left behind. Doctors had to go with the deportees in 1942 and 1943 still further depleting their ranks. There were no oculists left in the Islands, and few enough dentists.

Lack of proper medical facilities led to unnec
essary deaths. Jacqueline Carre
broke her leg jumping over a high bank. Removed to hospital she had her lower leg amputed which greatly alarmed her parents considering it was only a fracture. However, gangrene then set in, and the rest of the leg to the hip joint was removed. She was a healthy 19 year old, but died soon afterwards. Molly Finigan referred to her Uncle Reginald who had a bullet removed from his leg, and then died of gangrene poisoning. Lack of disinfectant, surgical spirit, heating for wards and sterilizing units, and shortages of vital drugs as early as March 1942 contributed to bad hospital conditions, and the injured suffered as well as the dying.

Psychological illness was less well studied then, and its symptoms often dismissed as 'nerves', but there can be little doubt that five years oppression brought disaster in its wake. There were suicides at the time of occupation and when Islanders were deported. Others simply lost the will to go on under successive blows. A friend of the Finigans, Clifford Holloway, took his meals at their house as his wife and son had gone with the evacuees. Sadly he heard his son had died on active service, and then his wife died soon after she returned to the Island. Mr Holloway killed himself, and Molly's mother found the body. 'The mental torture from this German occupation is becoming indescribable', wrote Mrs Tremayne as early as September 1942.

There was a positive side to the medical miseries. Both individuals and doctors commented until the summer on 1944 on the good health of many people produced by more exercise, less bad food, and more sleep. Although Mrs Tremayne suffered from nervous depression and bad colds, she often referred to her good health putting it down to the sea air, and spartan living conditions. Her own weight fell from 13 to
10o
z
stone which was no bad thing for a middle-aged woman. One doctor said in June 1944 that, 'the health of the population has, on the whole, been remarkably good, and much above that which one would have anticipated on the past and present scale of rationing'.

In spite of this Doctor Symons said that, 'the people have only just kept above the danger line' so that further cuts in 1944 would lead to disaster. Moreover, culminative effects had to be taken into account, and by early 1944 people had suffered three years of a diet deficient in almost every aspect. In particular the young and old suffered. Molly Bihet referred to some benefits for children like extra milk and cod-liver oil, but these did not last, and she admitted many were underweight. Statistics show considerable reductions in height as well, and a report by Doctor Revell in 1941 said Guernsey schoolchildren exhibited 'a greater number of pinched, drawn anxious little faces and diminished inclination for hearty play and laughter'. On Sark, the schoolmistress said in the autumn of 1943 that "all the children turn up like frozen rabbits, full of colds and do nothing but cough and sneeze'.

There is evidence of a rise in death rates, due in part to the rise in the average age of the population following evacuation. Towards the end, however, general death rates were high in the winter months. The average was 13 or 14 per 1,000 before the occupation. During it, they rose to 35.6 per 1,000 in January 1944. It seems hard not to conclude that old people thrown out of their homes, unable to fend for themselves, without cash for black market products, or transport to get to soup kitchens, and too infirm to stand long hours in queues, must have suffered more than younger Islanders.

One of the most vexed questions is whether deaths were due to malnutrition. Widespread symptoms of malnutrition existed. Physically they consisted of loss of weight, tuberculosis, stomach upsets, lengthy septic conditions, neuritis, skin conditions, and a number of cases of enteritis and oedema. Mentally it led to dizziness, inability to concentrate, lassitude and depression. A complaint was made by a Guernsey resident in 1942 that people were dying of malnutrition. The Germans made a great fuss, and insisted on a full investigation. They would only admit malnutrition might have been a contributory cause of death. Mrs
Tremayne
dramatically referred to old people dropping dead in the streets by the autumn of 1944, and Maugham refers to an increase in sudden deaths from syncope, and fainting fits in public.

Epidemics were largely avoided in spite of the inadequacy of the sewage system, and the lavatorial habits of many of the occupiers. A camp at Rue Sauvage in Guernsey had a privy built over a stream at right angles to the main road in full view of passers by, which polluted water used by the German troops further down its course. From November 1944 the Germans were considering reducing the water supply to save fuel at the pumping stations. When Doctor Symons protested in Guernsey he was temporarily dismissed. Typhoid developed, and there were bad outbreaks in 1941 and 1943 with death among Todt workers, and the closing off as quarantine areas of parts of St Peter Port. Diphtheria increased because vaccine ended, and doctors were unwilling to use untried German products. Apart from some limited imports of medical supplies by the Red Cross: two in 1942, one in 1943 and three in 1944, the Islands were cut off from modern medicine.

Shortage of drugs, fuel and light meant that by autumn 1944 the hospital system was in danger of collapse. Perhaps the most remarkable achievement was that of the maternity services which coped with births without any increase in child or maternal mortality even if anaesthetics were not available by the winter of 1944. Although the
managers of Boots in both St He
lier and St Peter Port did their best to import drugs from France, or improvise native remedies, by the summer of 1944 there were severe shortages and diabetics died in Jersey General Hospital through lack of insulin. Antisepsis in hospitals suffered from lack of surgical spirit, disinfectant, and even hot water. People were asked to wash their own dressings. It was inevitable that wounds took longer to heal, and septicaemia and gangrene were pos
sibilities virtually unknown in
peacetime. Operations were hampered by small but crucial shortages like worn-out rubber gloves, and lack of catgut for sutures. Tomato paper was used to cover wounds, and bandages were made from paper and old bits of cloth. By November 1944, said Doctor Symons, as fuel was reduced to operating theatres, laundries, and cooking facilities in hospitals, 'these institutions can no longer be claimed to be functioning as modern hospitals but rather as medical sick houses'. Hospital staff suffered as well. Nurses' diet was cut at one time to acorn coffee for breakfast, turnip stew for lunch, and no supper at all.

But in the final months for healthy, sick and starving alike there was worse to come.

14

The Last Year and the Red Cross Ship

News of the invasion of Normandy in June 1944 filled many Islanders with conviction that liberation for them could not be long delayed although some thought it would not come until the whole French coastline had been freed. The sounds of the Battle of Normandy were clearly audible in the Islands, particularly when St Malo and Cherbourg fell, and all round them in intensified air and sea warfare in the Channel was evidence enough of a decisive battle. 'I pray and trust there will be no fighting, for the Island folks have suffered quite enough', said one observer. On Sark rumour followed rumour, and in August they heard that British troops had landed in Jersey, 'so we feel the day of rejoicing has nearly arrived". But it was not to be.

When Julia Tremayne heard a rumour they would be relieved by Christmas she put it from her mind, 'because so many times our hearts
are
lifted, then flop, nothing happens.' Like so many in Europe who had believed liberation would come by Christmas, she was to be disappointed. By February 1945 she was writing, 'Never have 1 felt such hunger as I have this last fortnight. Saturday when we got up, there wasn't a bit of bread or anything in the cupboard, these are grim, le
an and hungry times for us all.’

It was hardly surprising that neglect of the Islands caused discontent coming as it did after years in which there had been little enough contact or support from England. Bitterly Maugham wrote later, 'we often wondered if any thought of our sufferings, both mental and physical ever occurred to those statesmen in London*. He heard about measures of international relief for various parts of Europe, and no mention of the Islands.