When Hitler Invaded Britain In WWII: The Secrets Of Guernsey | Timeline

Scraps of land in the ever-changing waters of the Channel. Guernsey and its neighbouring islands have a unique distinction which sets them apart from the rest of the British Isles. The islands of Guernsey, together with the rest of the Channel Islands, the only part of the British Isles to fall to Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The only place where the Union flag gave way to the Nazi swastika. I'm here to find out about the unique wartime experience of these islands and the people who lived on them. We remember the marauding quietly. It was a big adventure for us as kids. I'm travelling across these islands to explore the extraordinary wartime relics above and below the ground. And watch as the remnants of the Second World War are once again brought to the surface. What a place. Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm make up the Bailiwick of Guernsey, an archipelago off the coast of France. These islands of Guernsey are subject to the British Crown but are run by independent governments. They are small in area but have played an outsized part in history. During the Second World War they were transformed into fortresses as they became integral parts of Hitler's Atlantic War, his defence against invasion from the Western Allies. I'm arriving in St Peterport, the capital of Guernsey. Strategically positioned, overlooking the harbour and with a clear sight of the other Bailiwick Islands, towers, castle corners. For centuries it's been the key to controlling Guernsey. In the 13th century the castle was built on a rocky promontory that still forms its foundations. This castle changed hands many times through its history and one of those occupations has left an enduring mark on the fabric of this castle and that is the German occupation because in June 1940 German troops landed on Guernsey and the island remained occupied till the very last days of the Second World War. They instantly realised that this was a hugely strategic point allowing them to control St Peterport and therefore the island of Guernsey and so they set about reinforcing its already powerful defences with 20th century technology. Hitler was very proud of having taken British territory so weapons, artillery and hardware poured into these islands on an unimaginable scale. When the Germans left all of that stayed behind and much of it still exists. This is an artillery platform built on the orders of Henry VIII. Now when the Germans arrived here they quickly realised this castle was built with the wisdom of the ages so rather than replicate it or replace it they decided to reinforce it which is why uniquely in the British Isles this is the only place you can see Henry VIII's defences enhanced by Hitler. I'm meeting Sean from Festung Guernsey a local collective of enthusiasts dedicated to making the vast number of German structures on the island available to the public. The group take their name from the publication Festung Guernsey a German blueprint for turning the entire island of Guernsey into a fortress. This is so great. Was this a machine gun position or what was... This was a mortar position. A mortar. When you came to work at the castle no one knew this was here. They knew it was here but it'd been filled in with bricks sometime in the 80s. So to all intents and purposes this had been lost. Yeah and I grew up playing in this so one of the first thing I asked was could I open it and my boss said yes. We removed we estimate in excess of 80 tons of brick rubble. It must be very exciting for you to sort of reveal the extent of this little network of World War II fortifications. It's always exciting to come back into somewhere because obviously after 30 odd years I'd forgotten exactly what it was and being able to with my knowledge from now as to when I was a child being able to understand what it is it was perhaps very fascinating. In the years ahead do you think Festung Guernsey and your group and other enthusiasts and historians are going to find yet more German wartime archaeology here? There's lots that we don't know. Although we know where the main structures are from the book Festung Guernsey we're discovering new things every time we start looking. When we reopened this bunker we found small bits of German coins or decontamination bottles, maybe a bayonet occasionally or something like that, ammunition. So there's gonna be plenty more digging for you in the years to come? I think digging is a passion of Festung's if there's concrete involved so we won't stop. Sean remembers well what it was like as a child to be playing in the German fortifications and speaks about it with a certain sense of excitement. When he was a child the occupation had ended and the bunkers were abandoned. Some people on the islands however remember the occupation itself when there was a very different atmosphere. Molly, Roy and Diana all stayed on the island with their families as the German troops arrived and they think back on that time with mixed emotions. I was almost nine when the Germans came. Fourteen when it finished the operation. Marcia's gone on. We were too old and we would have had to go with school children and teachers and my mother didn't want to separate us because we were different schools at the time. The three times we walked down to the harbour being crushed, panicking, people crying. It was awful. And then we came back with our little bags and my father said like, I never have to stay, look after my grandfather, don't stay. We remember them arriving quietly. It was only my mother that showed a lot of worry when the Germans arrived. She was so frightened. During the time my mother and father felt that we should have gone away, you know, it would have been better. But at the end we were still together, still a close family and she was very pleased we did stay. You know when I think back, I was only what, six years old. They were just ordinary kids of their own back in Germany. They didn't want to be here. So they weren't frightened in that way at all. And I mean, you know, it was a big adventure for us as kids. I mean, it was a bad time for our parents and what have you. You know, struggling to keep things going. But I mean, as youngsters you didn't worry about that. In the fields opposite where we were living, the Germans would go on like manoeuvres and you'd see them all rushing across the field. To a bank and put fire and blanks over the field and, you know, that was all exciting to watch. There were quite a few of us left who'd been at school together. We were really having quite a lovely holiday along with nice weather. We picked up sort of certain amount of apprehension from my mother. We lived in a very old Guernsey farmhouse. It had outside stone stairs and there was a wall space where we could look over into the road, but they couldn't see us. So we used to chuck things at them. And I think we were quite abusive actually. Straight away we didn't like them. They were quite nice to children. I don't think we came across many who weren't friendly. It was quite a unique experience to be brought up in an occupied territory. I'm not going to say that it was enjoyable, but it was exciting. The German occupation left a vast legacy, not just concrete and steel. Guernsey local historian Richard Hume has spent his life collecting and today the German Occupation Museum is filled to the brim, an absolute treasure trove. I have come to see some of the more unusual items in Richard's collection. This is one of the objects from your excellent museum that caught my eye. It's not that normal, is it? It's rather romantic. I must admit I don't show the album to many people. You are privileged to see the full album. So this is a photograph album belonging to a young Guernsey woman. Yes, her maiden name was Frieda Oliver. She seemed to have spent quite a bit of time with a particular German under-officer, a Paul Schlimbach. I think he sketched her. Yes, he sketched her. And he also had a camera. Being a German, we civilians couldn't have a camera, but the Germans could. And he's kept a record of their love affair in Guernsey. He was a very handsome, good-looking man and she was a very attractive lady. I love you forever. They were very passionate. That's rather beautiful. Darling, I love you more than ever. Do you think it was acceptable to the people of Guernsey that she was dating? There were so many Germans and so few local girls. They offered gifts and nylons and chocolates and flowers. A sparkling conversation. Yes. And you must remember, in 1940-41, the world was really at Germany's feet. We thought it was a German domination forever. It's easy in those years, this dates from 1942, for a local girl to fall in love. I mean, if you didn't know there was a war on, you'd think this is very romantic. This is romantic. And it was a love affair which lasted. They married. So these two ended up getting married? Yes, they got married. They got married in England as prisoners of war, when he was a prisoner of war, went to Germany, then came back, resettled here, worked here and married here. So he became a Guernsey man? Yes, yes. I mean, this is 1943. He could have been on the Russian front fighting in one of the most appalling conflicts the world has ever seen. Instead, look, they're having a lovely time. It looks like they're having a very nice time in Guernsey. Do you think the German garrison were thrilled to be here? I think they were very lucky. Some of the garrison were shipped off from here in 1943 to the Russian front. And that was a fear they had. While they were here, they were okay. But to be sent to the Russian front was almost a death penalty. When we think about the Second World War, we think of this image of German troops as barbaric, involved in the Holocaust, extraordinary mass murder, particularly on the eastern front. What was the reality of the German occupation here in Guernsey? In Guernsey, it was quite different. They felt they'd come on holiday. They really were happy here. They were able to relax. They could go on the beach. They could even go home or leave right back to Germany until June 1944. And of course, they had the privilege of meeting Guernsey people, Guernsey girls. They were just human beings. And some of them ended up coming back here after the war and settling with their girlfriends. Now, I must ask you, this caught my eye. What on earth are these? I have never seen this in all of my travels. Well, what do you think it is then? No idea. These cones go up the nostrils of a horse. A horse? Yes, it's a horse's gas mask. What? This is a horse's gas mask? And those are the goggles which go with it. That is something else. Now, would the horse tolerate putting those up its nose? No, no. There was one or two instances of the horses bolting, but they did have to try it. The Germans had a fear of gas in the Second World War. And they thought, well, they need to protect not only their men with gas masks, they need to protect their animals. So this was provided. Each horse had its own gas mask. Well, I've never seen one of those before. You have got an extraordinary museum here. Thank you very much for showing me around. Great pleasure, Dan. The museum shows the wealth of unique objects the Germans left behind. It's a fascinating picture of what life in the Third Reich was like. But not everything is neatly preserved in the museum. I'm on my way into the Rouge Rue tunnels. These tunnels were used to store abandoned German military vehicles. They were raided for scrap in the years after the war, but they've been sealed off ever since. I can't wait to see what might be in there. There's just so much wartime detritus left in here. I mean, look at this little collection here. Forks, cutlery, glass bottles. It's the base of a German radar. In the Second World War, radar was one of the most rapidly evolving and top secret fields of scientific research that are now. It's just a rotting piece of junk. A whole tunnel packed with what look like, well, wheeled vehicles. It looks like they all seem to be the same kind of type. I think they all look like soup kitchens, mobile field kitchens, just backed up in here. There must be 20 at least. I don't think I've ever seen so many big pieces of German war material left over in one place ever before. Here you go, here's some quite well preserved ones. You can see these huge big round spaces in the centre where they would have had a giant pot cooking all the food required for a unit out in the field. You know, there are dozens of these mobile field kitchens here and it just drives home the amount of German troops that were stationed on this tiny island. The scale of the Second World War, this is just one scrap of territory on the very far flung edge of Hitler's empire and yet the amount of hardware required to keep the men fed, it just, the scale of what was of course the largest, most destructive war. The presence of history on Guernsey is almost overwhelming. People here have a strong attachment to the island's past and a dedication for preserving that heritage and making it accessible to everyone, locals and visitors alike. While the tunnels are still far off from being open to the public, an incredible amount of work has gone into the next place I'm visiting. More than a thousand tonnes of earth and spoil had to be shifted to restore it. I don't think I've ever been anywhere that gives a better impression of the gigantic scale of building that occurred in Hitler's Third Reich. Just the amount of concrete and steel you see in this structure makes you think that he didn't just do it on this island but in fact he turned giant stretches of the European coastline and huge parts of the continent itself into massive fortifications and defensive structures. And in so many other parts of Europe, these have been buried or filled in or dismantled but here in Guernsey, thanks to organisations like Festung Guernsey, they remain. It's not just the scale of the materials that were used but the millions of people that were caught up with the building and the servicing of these structures. The crew of this particular place alone was about 15 young men all to perform one very important task. All the men were stationed here to ensure the smooth operation of that enormous gun. This was French. It had been captured after the Germans defeated the French in 1940. It was First World War era. Capable of firing around about six inches wide, 22 kilometres out to sea. There were four of them in this one German battery alone. This was the weapon with which Hitler was confident he could take on the giant Allied landing force when it appeared on the horizon. Today, the gun here at Battery Dolman is the last of its kind in Europe. As you walk around these giant gun emplacements, you come up thinking how futile the whole thing was. They were never used in the way their architects intended. An Allied amphibious fleet never did try and seize back the Channel Islands from determined German defenders. But that's not to say the Allies never landed here because they did. The British were determined to learn what was happening on their occupied islands. They sent over commando raids to gather intelligence on the islands, their people and their ever-growing defences. There were six commando raids on Guernsey and Sark during the Second World War. The most mysterious of them occurred here at Pettibow Bay on the 1st of February 1944. It appears that two commandos landed here. They made their way up these cliffs and went a couple of hundred metres inland. No one knows what their target was. There was a radio beacon up there designed for allowing German aircraft to find the airstrip in bad weather or at night, but they never made it that far. Instead, they came across a German patrol. They overpowered some of the German soldiers and then fled back down to the beach and disappeared, leaving their boat here on this beach. No one knows what the true target of this raid was or if it was just a training mission. This mysterious raid might be lost to history. There's no mention of it in the official accounts, were it not for local historians piecing together diary extracts from people living here at the time. I love the story because it shows that, despite all the work that's been done on the Second World War here, there are still so many mysteries that remain. I'm meeting Major Marco Sciotti, who studied the raids on the islands of Guernsey to see if he can dispel some of the uncertainty surrounding. Marco, you're a serviceman and you've made a study of some of the raids that took place here in Guernsey and Sark. Were the British landing more on the Channel Islands because of their fellow British subjects here or were they doing this all along the French coast as well? It wasn't exclusively the Channel Islands. There was the Normandy coast as well, although there was quite a focus on the Channel Islands. I think probably Churchill was keen to find out what the German strengths here were and it probably rankled a bit as well that part of the British Isles was occupied. What are their objectives? Just to find out what's going on or are they specific objectives? It was to find out as far as they could what was going on and, if possible, to take prisoners to take back for interrogation. They were interrogated by a special unit in London. Tell us about the one you think is most remarkable. The one that really caught my eye to start with, Dan, was Operation Basalt which took place in Sark overnight the 3rd 4th of October 1942. That particular raid was led by a man called Major Geoffrey Appleyard. It was the second attempt to land on the island. They were trying to take prisoners of war. Very modest aims really, just intelligence gathering, facts finding, but it went on to influence special forces operations throughout the rest of the Second World War. Following the trail of Geoffrey Appleyard leads me to another of the islands of Guernsey. Only a short boat ride away, and at just two square miles, the island of Sark feels like it's a world away. With cars prohibited, the island's unspoilt landscape makes me feel like I've stepped back in time and, climbing up the hogsback in broad daylight, I can only imagine what it must have been like to covertly reach the island shore in the dark. Late in the evening of the 3rd of October 1942, Geoffrey Appleyard and 11 other commandos scaled these cliffs, leaving their boat just out to sea. They headed inland and they stopped at that house just there. In it, they found the formidable Mrs Pittard, who didn't seem at all concerned by the fact that all these armed men had suddenly turned up in the middle of the night. She furnished them with her useful intelligence and she told them where the Germans were sleeping. They headed a bit further inland and snatched some German prisoners, but then the alarm was raised. A firefight broke out. Germans were killed, but they did manage to bring one German soldier, an engineer, back down here, down the cliff and out to the waiting boat before they went full speed back to Britain. Appleyard's raid on Sark certainly didn't go as planned and he and his commandos were very lucky to make it out alive. The death of the German captives was controversial and would be argued about for years to come and it also sparked a far-reaching and instant reaction from Germany. This raid drove Hitler mad with rage. It prompted him to issue his now infamous Commando Order. In it, he said that commandos were criminals, bandits and they should not be subject to the Geneva Conventions. The German army was to shoot them on sight. This order marked an escalation in the German army's progress towards fighting a war of barbarism and criminality. A small raid with big repercussions for the course of the war. Appleyard's legacy lives on to this day in the form of a famous fictional character. During his time in active service, he worked alongside an officer in naval intelligence. This officer was a budding novelist. He was so impressed with Appleyard that it's said that he modelled his new fictional hero on him. The officer's name was Ian Fleming. His hero was one James Bond. As for brave Mrs Pittard, who opened her door in the middle of the night and gave valuable intelligence to the commandos, helping to make it one of the most successful raids on the Channel Islands during the war, she was arrested by the Germans and deported to a camp in Germany itself. Thankfully, she survived. She returned here to Sark where she died and is buried here in the cemetery. Each of the islands of Guernsey had a very different experience during the war. In Alderney, everyone was evacuated. In Guernsey, many were evacuated, but about half the population stayed on the island and lived through the occupation. Here in Sark, no one was evacuated and life went on pretty much as normal. That came down in large part to a very remarkable woman who lived here, Dame Sybil Hathaway, Seigneur of Sark, hereditary ruler until she died in 1976. She spoke fluent German and she had an inherent understanding of the deference, the respect for hierarchy shown by German military officers. She insisted that the German commandant bowed and kissed her hand and she helped to ensure that life went on here pretty much as normal for the islanders and the island's only Jewish inhabitant was able to live here unmolested for the whole of the course of the war. Although conditions worsened throughout the war and the strictures became tighter, the regime on Sark was notably less ruthless than on the other islands of Guernsey. The occupation here on Sark was gentler than on some of the other channel lines, as one episode really sums up that story for me. As the war went on, the German authorities did become more nervous about the local population. A German order went out that people here were to hand in their radios. They didn't want them having access to independent news sources and finding out that the war had turned against the Germans, but many people didn't hand in their radios and on this tree, mysteriously, a list appeared, an anonymous list of inhabitants who hadn't handed in their radios. This was taken to the German commander who tore it up, said it was the act of a traitor and from then on this tree has been known as Traitor's Tree. As I make my way back to Guernsey, I pass by Herm, one of the smaller islands of the archipelago. Tucked away in the middle of the Bailiwick, it experienced a very different war. The Germans claimed Herm along with the rest of the islands but never undertook any real building there. Occasionally German soldiers would come over to hunt rabbits or practice with landing craft but Herm was left almost entirely untouched by the occupation. I've come back to the coast of Guernsey now and I've come to see a bunker that was part of this coastal defence network. The group Festung Guernsey are restoring. The plan is to open it to the public but before they do I'm going to have a sneak preview because in it there's some fascinating wartime features. Northern steel, look at this steel door. Behind that big steel door there's an anti-room here where they've got the rifle rack, the Mauser K98s here ready for the infantrymen to come out of their barracks and go and take on the Allies landing on the beaches. Gas masks into the main accommodation here. These are their sleeping quarters and it is astonishing this has been reconstructed. And what's so special about this bunker, the reason they decided to reconstruct this one is because it has the original murals from the soldiers that were stationed here. Look at this, there's something quite beautiful about this sword. It says, comrades remember be brave and then someone's done some wiring over it and written some slightly more prosaic instructions. Here are the bunks suspended off these chains on ceilings. There would have been 12 men stationed here some of them would have been on duty around the clock the others would have taken turns to have a rest in these bunks. You get a sense here, you don't get elsewhere of the humanity of the people that would have been posted here. Writing letters, thinking about home, thinking about the other fronts, how the war was going and they were drawn, they were making, as humans do they're trying to make their surroundings just a little bit more enjoyable. Incredible mural of a pot of flowers there. Then the pride, the song of the infantry. People here were infantrymen, they were the ones at the tip of the spear they were the ones going to do the fighting and there was a great pride to that. Here they are, great camaraderie. Amazing how they would have seen themselves as a tight unit singing away, fighting together, singing together crossed bayonets or knives with leaves. A funny mix of military, of camaraderie and of, well, abstract arts and flowers. But this is the really chilling bit over here. This is an area which we know from other bunkers and we have the evidence here was reserved for pictures of senior political and military figures. This essentially says, in German, loyalty is the mark of honour. So the importance of loyalty. And in this border here, sheathed in oak leaves we know that it would have been a picture of Adolf Hitler and subordinate commanders in these ones. The picture of Hitler here in a demand for absolute loyalty these men would have known that meant they were supposed to fight for last. I've visited so many sites in the Channel Islands but what really strikes me about this one is for the first time I feel connected with the individual Germans who served here in the garrison. It's too easy to think of the German occupation here as being a time of war crimes out of covering this landscape in concrete. But in this room you just get a glimpse of a different kind of German occupation of thousands of young men far away from home worrying about the course of the war and their fates and trying to make their little corner of the German empire just that little bit more pleasant. For the German soldiers and bunkers like that guarding this coast for most of the war their main enemy would have been Borden. But that all changed after D-Day in 1944 as Allied troops crossed the Channel and swept through northern France Hitler refused to evacuate the garrison here so Churchill just let them rot. 30,000 Germans isolated in the Channel Islands and with the onset of winter the food supply began to run out and there was the risk of famine. There was really I think very little food coming in at all and the Germans of course were getting very very hungry by then. We had a big garden and we grew a lot of vegetables. If they came round begging my mother would give them something to eat you know the food was scarce and I can remember being hungry then. My grandmother used to make a parsnip cake out of parsnips and carrot cake and one particular day she made a cake. I don't know to this day what she used to make it but it was something new and this particular night we were having our bath and we couldn't wait to get out the bath and try this new cake. You know it was so exciting and when we did it was the most horrible tasting thing. It was so bitter. What she'd used I've no idea but she'd make another one. We children used to go scrounging and when the Guernsey boys used to unload the lorries of potatoes if the Germans weren't looking they'd tip it to us and we'd go under the Germans to help. He'd hold his bellies and before it went in the gutter he'd get a potato or two but there was one day I think I was showing off perhaps I was a bit older maybe and I was on the stepboard of a lorry this lorry full of potatoes I was filling my basket and with that I heard the steps of the Germans coming down and shouting I started running and he started running and caught me at the bottom and he kicked me and I went home but we went back the next day. We had to. I don't know how my mother managed but it was queuing really for a half a swede or a parsnip but if the Germans were there they'd be served first of course priority wherever they went. I don't think about it too often because she was so brave really and she did so much. It was kindness. People were trying to help each other. We used to take a big enameled bowl with potatoes if you had potatoes and veg what have you and not that far away from where we were living there was a bakehouse and they used to accept all these and put them in the ovens where they baked the bread and you'd go at six o'clock in the evening to collect the evening meal and my eldest brother had a pair of roller skates and we had an old pram and I'd sit in the pram and he'd roller skate we'd go down and fetch the dinner and this particular night we picked up the dinner and we had to come up over a hill down the other side and right hand turn into the lane to get home and we came down over the hill and he was going a bit too fast and we couldn't make the turn and the pram tipped up and there was all the dinner and the potatoes there was rolling down the road I thought oh my god it's Harry's dinner meal my father will kill us so he scooped up all the veg and the potatoes put it in a bowl and carried on and he could never make out why there was no gravy it was bone dry Not all memories from that time bring a smile to Roy's face Well my father was he was in charge of a large batch of greenhouses two or three times he caught Germans in the greenhouses they were so badly off for food themselves that they were killing cats and dogs we felt sorry for them really you could pick them out easily they just had nothing you could never imagine people treating other people that way it was shocking really As the war progressed the occupation became harder for the people of Guernsey In the winter of 1944-45 the food supplies on the island had reached a critical level and the prospect of making it through the winter looked bleak but help came in the form of a slightly delayed Christmas miracle On December the 27th the Red Cross ship Vega reached Guernsey loaded with food parcels tonnes of salt and soap medical supplies and even chocolate We went six weeks without bread until the Red Cross ship brought in flour there was this lovely condensed milk in the parcels and oh a spoonful that was lovely and my mother said right liberation when we're liberated you can have a tin each it's a liberation day she put three tins on the table and after about two spoonfuls we felt sick as dogs that's as far as we got it was so rich and our stomachs weren't used to food like that that we couldn't manage it anymore When I think back it was a dreadful thing that I did we went to collect our Red Cross parcels brought them home and I can remember my mother saying you must all be responsible for your own Red Cross parcels because by then people were breaking in at night either the slave workers who were starving to death or the Germans were very hungry by then I took my Red Cross parcel to bed and my brother who was nearly two years older than me brought his up and put his into his bedroom and then went downstairs because he didn't go to bed at the same time as I did and by the time he came upstairs I had gone into his parcel taken his chocolate and eaten it all so he nearly killed me and my mother came up and said well you know that was a wicked thing to do and when the next parcel comes you will give all your chocolate to Tony so I thought she'll forget about that but of course she didn't and when the next parcel came I had to hand it all over which was quite improper so I never pinched anything out of his parcel The arrival of the Red Cross parcels marked a turning point for the people of Guernsey Although they'd been saved from starvation the occupation continued Things were very different on the neighbouring island of Alderney the final stop on my trip around the islands of Guernsey Challenging weather conditions mean the only way I can get there today is by air On the short flight across I'm passing over the Cascades a group of rocks just off the coast of Alderney site of another commando raid of the Second World War Whilst the jagged rocks look stunning from above they're incredibly treacherous for ships and I have to say I'm glad I don't have to navigate around them in these gales Second in size after Guernsey Alderney measures only three miles in length by one and a half miles in width Nevertheless, the small area is jam-packed with history Alderney's story is a little bit different than the other Channel Islands during the Second World War First of all, when the Germans landed here they discovered the population had fled so it was empty a blank slate, they could do what they wanted It was also strategically positioned quite close to the coast of France and so they turned it into one massive integrated fortress of concrete and steel But because there were no civilians around to record what was going on there's an air of mystery about what happened here in Alderney during the war and what remained On the 20th of June 1940 the entire island of Alderney was evacuated The number of people left on the island was in single figures Beda is one of the local residents who fled before the German troops arrived Only 12 years old when she was evacuated She remembers those days and her return to the island like it was yesterday We were at war but I didn't understand what it meant It wasn't until we were actually being evacuated that we knew, you know, something was up I was 12 in the march and we left in the June So when did you realise that you had to leave? We were sent home and told to come back, I think it was at two o'clock but by the time we got home mum had packed our cases the last words my mother said look after your little sister, never apart, never be apart and I kept my word What was it like as a young girl saying goodbye to your mum? Were you scared? No they wouldn't come down We said goodbye at the door, on the steps but the worst part was Uncle Archie standing on some crates waving goodbye when they were singing, um, called Anxiety and I can't stand that bloody song to this day From the day we were there, we were coming back There was never any, any doubt We went to Blackpool on a week's holiday We went to the fortune teller She said when you go back you'll have information I'm sure that when we opened the door there was a letter on the floor with the thing, do you want to go back to Alderney and when and my father put on the first available boat and we set sail at half past eleven We were in a gale and then somebody said oh there's the lighthouse and then one of the young crewmen came up and said do you realise we're going over a minefield and I thought surely not you know we've come all this way and then we won't make it so for the rest of the journey I was there looking over the side there for mines but of course they'd all been cleared now, I didn't know He pulled a fast one on me Well as soon as we got on the shore I looked up and I just said And what did Alderney look like? Terrible Very depressing Bleak Well we were glad to be home but there's plenty of barbed wire around and all over the place And presumably also it was covered in all this concrete and steel My grandfather, after we'd been home a few days he came back laughing one day Mum said what's up pa? He said I never thought there'd come a day I'm Alderney when I'd be lost and he'd been out there with all the German bunkers he's like in a maze he couldn't find his way out for some time Were you happy to be back? It was a mixed feeling Some of them turned around and went back They couldn't face it So we were all glad to be back At least our family were in the house Listening to Beda makes me wonder what happened to all the equipment the Germans left behind On Monday the 8th of May 1945 Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced the end of the war in Europe and the Channel Islands would be freed the following day Every year since then Guernsey celebrates Liberation Day on May the 9th with 2020 marking the 75th anniversary since the end of the war As the occupation ended here on Alderney the island was not only covered in barbed wire, steel and concrete but also full of guns, vehicles and other hardware Some has been found but a lot remains undiscovered to this day Historian Trevor Davenport has spent decades investigating where remnants might have been hidden on this small island Trevor, why did the Germans put so much war material so many fortifications on this tiny little island? Well it's one of these questions that's been asked since the war Alderney is so heavily fortified because one, it was small two, the population had basically left and so he could do what he wanted and they basically fortified the whole island and you could stand from one position and almost fire a catapult shot to the next one they were that close within hundreds of meters of each other less than hundreds of meters of each other When people came back after the war what on earth did they do with all the military material that was here? Alderney surrounded a week after Jersey and Guernsey on the 16th and within a week most of the prisoners of war were sent away to become prisoners of war mostly in the UK but they kept about a thousand Germans left and the main reason they were used was to tidy the island up and of course get rid of the minefields because there was this mass of hardware that was left here it was an impossibility for the people to come back The period from the 16th of April through to the return of the islanders the engineers were over here with German prisoners cleaning up the island but they really never cleaned it up fully Recently the focus has turned to a local quarry which might hold some of the answers Why did you start investigating the quarry? When everybody came back they built a new power station and the water in the quarry was used for cooling the electricity generators but when the engineers were over cleaning up the island they had been dumping stuff in there you could see it and there were for instance you can see barbed wire you can see some tank traps and it was then suggested that perhaps there was a lot of other stuff so in the big scrap drive in the 50s the Guernsey company came over and supposedly at great expense pumped the quarry out and what was dumped in that quarry we didn't know but it was always suspected that a lot of stuff had been dumped in there So there's lots of stories lots of rumours do we have any hard evidence about what might be down there? Well this photograph was taken in the 1950s and where the quarry had been pumped out and plain as a pike staff I can see four FT-17 tanks there There's an FT-17 on its side There is an upside down it looks like an FT-17 I don't know because we can only see the tracks There is one upside down there's its turret there's the tracks there's another one on its side and that's possibly another one The story goes that they were possibly taken out but other stories say they were left in there There is just a huge mound of wartime detritus there it's extraordinary If some of that stuff is still there now guns, war material, tanks this would be an unprecedented haul of Second World War archaeology Absolutely What do you think might be down there? We just do not know but my guess is there's a lot more than a single K18 gun in there Spurred by these rumours Simon Livesey decided to dive into the quarry He couldn't believe his eyes I'm dying to find out what might be hidden beneath the water So this is the quarry This is, here you are Trevor showed me the picture of this when there was no water This was a straight quarry So you guys think the British, just overwhelmed by all the stuff there they just pushed it on to here Yeah I think that's what's happened So they chucked it all in the quarry they filled the quarry up and it's been like that ever since Yep, full of fresh water You think the stuff down there won't have been corroded too badly? It's not as corroded as badly as it might be if it was in seawater Definitely not So you have been diving the channel lines you've been recovering Second World War weapons and objects Have you ever seen anything like this before? No, it's just absolutely extraordinary what's down there There's just so much Why do you think no one went in there for all these decades and why did you decide to investigate it? I think there was a bit of diving early on in the 50s for the brass because there was a lot of empty shell cases and things and they went after those for the metal but apart from that no one's really been in there for a very long time and there's all sorts of rumours about various things but until we actually get in there and see we just don't know And when you went down for the first time did what you saw exceed your expectations? It's mad, it's incredible You've seen all that stuff and you've only been nine metres down How deep is it? It's 25 metres deep What? At the deepest point which I think is sort of in the central area here So you haven't been halfway? No, no and it's not easy diving If you've seen things like shell cases and tank tracks on that top level dare we dream about what might lie at the absolute bottom they might have put the heaviest equipment in first, right? There is a theory that maybe a lot of the drawn or wheeled guns on the island may be in there as well so that's quite exciting and we've heard rumours there's a half track that they use to get rid of the equipment at the end of the war the British army We've got pictures of it so we know that exists Who knows what's in there? If there are artillery pieces and if there are mechanised vehicles down there it will be surely the greatest haul of Second World War archaeology in Western Europe I can't think of anywhere else where there's that much stuff in one place There's a lot in there so there's a lot to be done Right, I can't wait to get in Oh yeah, we'll get you in there and you'll see what I mean I find it absolutely astonishing to think that right here in the middle of this small island there might be a huge find of Second World War archaeology almost entirely untouched I've been so lucky to see such an array of Second World War archaeology since I've been on Guernsey and its islands but I think today's going to be the highlight because we've just got the go-ahead for the dive I'm heading into that quarry I can't wait to see what's down there I'm heading back to the quarry and this time I'm going in Right, see you on the other side At first all I could see is murky water Green Algae all around me But as my eyes start adjusting to the environment and as I dive deeper into the quarry suddenly I can make out shapes in front of me and I cannot believe my eyes Here in the depth of the quarry I find myself surrounded by German military hardware as far as the eye can see which admittedly isn't very far But everywhere I turn something new emerges from the murk Then from out of the darkness appears what looks like the barrel of a huge gun Floating right next to it, unlike anything I've experienced before I could spend hours down here if it wasn't for the small issue of oxygen Reluctantly I make my way to the surface but I'll be back It's pretty amazing There was quite limited visibility but we got right down on a huge German artillery piece German gun You can see the wheels, the barrel stretch off into the murk And there's just, I think, a huge stack of equipment from the Second World War I've never seen anything like it Just piled one on top of the other From guns to ventilation ducts to shell cases And that's just a tiny, tiny little part of this quarry that we could see and try and investigate Goodness knows what's in the rest of it We didn't even get to halfway down What a place As with so much else on these islands the wartime past is still lurking just below the surface Well that dive was extraordinary I don't think I've ever done anything like it really As I went down through the murky layers of that quarry I just realized that all around me there was a mound of military equipment from the Second World War I cannot wait to come back I can't wait to dive it again Hopefully retrieve some of that stuff And Alderney, like all the islands of Guernsey is just full of history, full of archaeology There is a lot left for me to explore here I'm going to be coming back