The Channel Islands At War (13 page)

Von Schmettow was loyal to his supreme commander, and sent a wireless message to Berlin declaring that, 'The three Island fortresses conscious of their strength and following the example of other fortresses, will faithfully hold out to the last. Wi
th this in mind we salute the Führe
r and the Fatherland'. When the Americans made two half-hearted attempts on 9 and 22 September to start negotiations for surrender by reopening the cable to France, and then by direct parley with a major from Eise
nhower's headquarters, von Schme
ttow abruptly rejected them, worried that his own position was under threat. Until June 1944 control had been exercised by the military government in St Germain, but clearly war prevented this administrative system from operating. On 25 October 1944 cont
rol was invested in Marinegruppe
West under the command of Admiral Krancke who from the comparative comfort of Bad Schwalbach and under orders from Admiral Dfinitz was to insist on the no-surrender policy which would involve the Islanders and German troops in months of prolonged suffering.

The storm petrel heralding t
his change was Vice-Admiral Frie
drich
Hüffmeier
, naval commander in the Channel Isles region, who arrived on 30 June to replace von Helldorf as von Schmettow's chief of staff in view of the increased naval role in affairs.
Hüffmeier
was the former commander of the
Scharnhorst
,
and in spite of his avuncular appearanc
e he was a ruthless Kriegsmarine
Nazi determined to hold the Islands at all costs, and deeply suspicious of the existing generals whom he saw as being too close to the Island rulers. At the end of July his first report to Krancke stressed that nothing was being done to strengthen the Islands for a long siege by bringing in more supplies or evacuating the civilian population. Von Schmettow was certainly pessimistic because by this time the blockade was cutting mail supplies, and an order for long-range planes to supply the Islands could not be carried out. Von Aufsess noted that, "the first long term report on the besieged fortress has been drawn up. We can hold out until the end of December. After that famine is inevitable.' Indeed another estimate said that only 45 days supply was left.

H
ü
ffmeie
r had three solutions: cut supplies to troops; cut supplies to Islanders; then cut-off all supplies to Islanders and force their evacuation or supply by the British or their mass starvation on the Islands. Keitel, Jodl, Donitz and Krancke supported these severe proposals, and after a second report from H
ü
ffmeier spoke of defeatist tal
k in the garrison.

OKW acted on 18 September and Keitel issued a directive cutting civilian rations to a minimum, saying that if supplies still proved inadequate the civilians would be
abgeschoben,
i.e. pushed over the British, a vague phrase whose purpose was made clear in a further clause stating that: 'An Order will follow for the complete stopping of rations to the civilian population, and for measures to inform the British government that this has been done.'

Next day the Swiss protecting power was informed of the German plan to withdraw supplies and a long-drawn-out battle to persuade Churchill to send relief began with tragic consequences for the starving Islanders. The policy naturally won the strong backing of Nazis on the Islands so that Heine could warn that all private stocks might be confiscated on Jersey
by military necessity. Von Aufse
ss was shocked by a document circulated by someone in Military Intelligence saying that, 'the civilian population following a brief ultimatum to Great Britain, should be abandoned to starvation straight away. They should be rounded up in camps, where they would be cut off from any further food supplies.'

Von Schmettow knew he was being watched by military intelligence, and he decided to make it clear to the Island governments that he backed a tough policy. This
he did in a letter to Coutanche
in Jersey on 25 September, also sent to Carey on Guernsey on 23 October when the bailiffs complained about decreasing food supplies, and dared to warn von Schmettow he might be held accountable after the war for unnecessary restrictions on supplies. 'The necessities of war", said von Schmettow, 'cannot be disregarded'. They were now cut-off and i can no longer provide for the civilian population'. Even if things came to the worst, he said, and a calamitous situation arose for the population 'this would not in any way alter the case', and Britain would be to blame in the first place as the besieging force. Coutanche's and Carey's fond belief that they were dealing with civilized men vanished, and von
Schmettow
made this very plain ending, 'I must also abstain from personal conversation' following criticisms made of German policy. A non-fraternization order for all troops soon followed.

In his 1945 New Year message von Schmettow told the troops they had a hard year ahead of them, and there would have
to be more sacrifices. The Inse
lkommandant had done all he could to use the forces at his disposal offensively to help the Normandy front, and the Kriegsmarine. During the siege of St Malo von Schmettow sent the hospital ship
Bordeaux
to the besieged city on 7 August escorted by two other vessels, and brought off some 600 wounded as well as about 90 unwounded troops. The Commander in St Malo was able to order vessels to leave for the Channel Islands and nine did so. He was determined to hold out in the fortress of St Servan, and ordered
troops on the Island of Cezembre
under the command of Obit. Seuss to fight to the finish. Requests for help reached the communications bunker on Guernsey, and von Schmettow despatched two ships with supplies. One boat returned, but the other one went aground in the night, and was sunk by the Americans off Cezembre next day.

This action enabled Seuss to reject an American offer of surrender, and the men had to stay there two nights while the Island was bombarded by the USAAF. A vessel with amm
unition was then sent from St Helie
r and the men from the second boat taken off together with wounded, and 22 unwounded Italians. Nightly visits were tried to help sustain the tiny garrison who were subjected to bombardment by a French battleship, the dropping of napalm bombs, and aircraft rocket strikes.
Hüffmeier
ordered the
Bordeaux
out a second time, but it was captured
and taken to Portland.
Hüffmeier
radioed not to surrender, but bad weather prevented the next relieving force and on 2 September the garrison surrendered 15 days after the fall of St Malo and a siege which cost the Germans 300 casualties.

Just before Christmas a number of Germans managed to escape from their POW camp near Granville, and in an American patrol boat reached St Helier with details of the harbour and the American positions. A model of the port was constructed and a raid in force planned by von Schmettow and
Hüffmeier
. It was scheduled for the night of 6/7 February but had to be called off, and so by the time it did take place on the night of 8/9 March
Hüffmeier
was able to claim the credit. The ships used were six mine-sweepers, three artillery carriers, two landing-craft, three MTBs, and a tug, and 600 men were involved.

Five ships took up positions to hold off relieving forces, and two mine-sweepers entered the harbour under the covering fire of three others. Meanwhile, MTBs landed assault parties of engineers to destroy installations, naval ratings to place charges on moored ships, Luftwaffe men to immobilize the anti-aircraft guns, a party of 12 to destroy the radar station, and a prize party. A force of infantry created a diversionary attack on the Hotel des Bains to cover these forces. The Germans controlled the port for an hour and a half in spite of American attacks. Moored ships had their mechanisms smashed, and port installations were demolished. A British coaster, the
Eskwood,
was towed out, but found to contain few supplies. Only the attack on the radar station failed. Prisoners were taken, including a party of Americans in their pyjamas from the Hotel des Bains. Attempts by naval forces to stop the raid failed with an American submarine chaser and possibly another vessel being sunk. On their way back the force put out of action a signal station on the Chausey Islands, and returned in triumph having lost one dead and five wounded and but one ship. They had taken 30 prisoners and released 55 Germans. Donitz convinced Hitler that
it was all
Hüffmeier
's doing, and
Hüffmeier
replied that he could hold the Islands for a year, and planned a second raid in April.

In spite of von Schmettow's efforts,
Hüffmeier
continued to undermine him in his reports, and at last in February 1945 orders came that von
Schmettow
was to retire on health grounds. Changes in personnel then took place.
Hüffmeier
took Major-General Dini as his chief of staff, and, as he clearly could not command 319 Division, Major-General Rudolf Wulf was flown in from the Russian front. Heine was promoted to Major-General and became
Hüffmeier
's right-hand man. The Platzkom
mandantur was also shaken up. Heider was replaced by Captain von

Cleve, and Captain Reich took over in Guernsey. The task of these dedicated Nazis was formidable since the German army was going to pieces as it starved slowly to death. Soldiers died trying to get sea-birds eggs on the cliffs or poisoned themselves eating hemlock. Sedition in the forces had to be severely repressed, and this led to attacks on
Hüffmeier
and Wulf by troops maddened with despair and hunger.

Hüffmeier
and his colleagues were determined to deal with those officers they believed wanted to surrender. By now von Aufsess was terrified he would be arrested, and had planned his escape from Jersey. He wrote later that he had identity documents as a French labourer, bearing his photograph and duly stamped by his own office. His fellow conspirators were young local people, two men and a girl whose sailing boat lay in Gorey Harbour. With his help they fitted it up with two outboard motors, a supply of petrol and a week's rations.

Von Cleve
was suspicious of von Helldorf and von Aufscss, and
said they should be shot. Von He
lldorf was placed under house arrest, and on 28 April he was banished to the Island of Herm. Von Aufsess was then transferred to Guernsey on 14 April disrupting his escape plans, and he remained desperately worried to the end of the occupation.

Having squashed discontent in the administration,
Hüffmeier
set out to restore the garrison's morale with the issue of 30 pages of new standing orders. Drilling began again, and proper guards were mounted outside German headquarters buildings. When he doubted the loyalty of Russian troops he sent them to Alderney and Sark, and on Alderney there was a court martial in April 1945 after which two soldiers were executed. The Islanders were also cowed by severe orders ending with one issued on 3 May which stated that: 'The German authorities are determined to maintain and have the power to enforce the maintenance of law and order until the end of the occupation. There must therefore be no public marches, assemblies or demonstrations. Those who transgress this order will be most severely dealt with ...'

Had the Islanders known it, behind the scenes more drastic measur
es were often debated. Von Aufse
ss noted that at one discussion on taking hostages he was the only one to oppose the idea, and on 12 April von Cleve ordered the drawing up of a list of 100 hostages although in the end only 50 names appeared. The extremists wanted to provoke the people so they could finish them off. One German told von Aufsess he wished a soldier would be killed 'then all would go better', and one night in February 1945 pro-Nazi officers ordered troops to daub swastikas on hundreds of houses during the night in order to provoke retaliation.

Hüffmeier
addressed rallies of the troops in the Forum Cinema in St Helier, and the Regal Cinema in St Peter Port on Hitler's birthday. He even went to Sark to rally troops there. In
Jersey he finished by saying,
Passionately filled with the belief in the justice of our National Socialist conception of the world in the age breaking upon us, from our present pain, and with the certainty of German victory, as Commander of the defence of the Channel Islands I will carry out plainly and without compromise, strictly but justly, the mandate given to me by the Filhrcr.'

Perhaps
Hüffmeier
did not realize that before he could even make this speech intense security preparations had to be made against his own troops. In Sark he ordered troops to pile their arms to one side, and told them they would be sent to the Eastern front if they did not resist. Court martials and guard duties continued to the end. and at his last parade
Hüffmeier
ordered troops only to salute with the Nazi salute when they met the British.