George Thorburn: Occupation of Channel Islands during WW2

At their meeting on 30^th October, Hawick's Rotarians heard a most interesting talk by member George Thorburn on the WW2 German Occupation of the Channel Islands. George was born and brought up in the Appletreehall area but his career began as a policeman on Guernsey. He patrolled Guernsey and Sark for four years before focussing for the next seven years of residence there on his horticultural interests.

While a policeman, he came to know several Guernseymen who had lived through the occupation, or whose fathers had served in the police at that time.

George used Powerpoint very efficiently to give a detailed and thoroughly researched talk on how the islanders had coped with the years of German occupation from 1940 until 1945. The British Government had demilitarised the Channel Islands at the start of the war. He told of the regulations and the shortages under the occupation, and also the threats and indeed the fate which might befall those who crossed the occupiers. It was common for those people to be shipped off to camps in Germany where many died. Women and children had largely been evacuated in June 1940, along with able bodied men. Those left were therefore largely older but there did remain an element of resistance, seen through news-sheets such as GUNS (Guernsey Underground News Service) and GASP (Guernsey Active Secret Press). The absence of able bodied workers led to the invaders importing thousands of slave labourers from the Continent to construct the hundred of fortifications which were built to line the coast, as part of Hitler's 'Atlantic Wall'.

The relief, or liberation, of the Channel Islands began in June 1944 with D-Day when Britain effectively regained control of the English Channel but was not completed until May 1945 when the German commanders of the islands were forced to surrender. There had been reluctance to attack the islands in these final months of occupation in case it provoked the German garrison into savage retribution on the islanders.

George was warmly thanked for his excellent talk. He has spoken to the Rotarians before on his renowned horticultural career, which had been encouraged and facilitated by his initial posting to Guernsey on police business, as well as by his much respected father Jock.