Enemy within the gates
The RAF stalled Hitler’ s Operation Sealion plan to invade England in 1940, but Jersey was a much easier target. Philip Josse’ s uncle recalls childhood memories of life on an island under a brutal army of occupation
His eyes twinkle slightly behind his thick glasses, reflecting dimly perceived memories of a childhood shaped by the winds of war.
The year was 1940, the month June, on just another sunny day. But these were the Channel Islands, and the closest of the British Isles to a continent under the jackboots of the Nazi legions.
Maurice Josse was barely 12 months old when Hitler’ s stormtroopers arrived on Jersey. And he was to spend the next five years, as he recalls mischievously, giving the invaders the runaround.
“ They were building a tunnel up from the hill where I used to live,” he remembers with a smile.
“ There were these mining carts where you pull the handle to make them roll along the track.
“ I jumped on one cart and started tearing off down the hill. And the German troops saw what I was doing and opened fire!”
Most people would have been petrified at the thought of provoking the invaders in this way. But for Maurice Josse, the fearless bravado of youth trumped everything.
Even today, the memories are as vivid as yesterday, though it all happened more than 70 years ago.
We are sitting in his small flat in St Lawrence sharing memories that refuse to die. He has lived on the island all his life, his trips away few and far between.
He still cuts a sprightly figure at 76, and his only regret is that his wife is longer with him to share the passing of the years, and he has lived alone ever since.
After the war, Maurice became a baker, working to feed the local population which had seen so much deprivation during the occupation, especially in the harsh winter of 1944.
“ You weren’ t allowed to grow more food than you needed for your own use, and if you did, you had to hand it over to the occupiers,” recalls Maurice.“ You weren’ t allowed local newspapers, and radios were banned.”
The Germans were very specific in their orders to the island’ s population. And instructions came with threats.
“ They dropped pamphlets the day of their arrival on 30th June 1940, saying that every dwelling in Jersey should have a white flag flying from the chimney. Or else they would be bombed,” says Maurice.
The intention of the invaders was to dominate the population as swiftly as possible.“ My parents seemed to live on the very edge because my dad had a radio. It was very dangerous, listening to the London news, the BBC telling you what you ought to know,” said Maurice.
“ The Germans didn’ t want you to know what was going on, there was nothing to be gained by having a radio, and yet there were quite a few people who did.”
As Maurice tells it, there was very little resistance, but his father was part of it.“ We had some big trees in the garden, and he hid food in the trees, tobacco, sugar beet, and things like vegetables and potatoes,” he recalls.
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