JERSEY HISTORY

First passenger aeroplane arrived.

(1934)

In 1934 the first passenger aeroplane arrived in the island, using St. Aubins Beach as a landing strip. The current airport, in St Peter, didn't open until 1937 and for the three intervening years passenger flights were scheduled to fit in with tide times.

German Occupation

(1940)

In June of 1940 a message was sent to the Bailiffs of Jersey and Guernsey to say that armed forces were being removed from the Channel Islands. People in their thousands fled the island in panic on any available transport, cattle were abandoned and 5,000 cats and dogs were destroyed.

On 1st July, German planes flew low over the island, dropping leaflets demanding that white crosses be painted in the centre of the airport and the harbour, and white flags of surrender be flown from all houses. The German occupation had begun.

Strict rationing of food was introduced and a curfew imposed. It was forbidden to listen to any wireless transmitting stations except those controlled by Germans, and those found to be listening to forbidden British radio broadcasts were deported to German concentration camps. A total of 2,600 residents were imprisoned for offences against the occupying forces.

Thousands of workers, mainly Russians, were shipped into the island and forced to help turn the island into a huge fortress and to work on the German Underground Hospital in St. Peter's Valley. The treatment of the Russian captives was brutal - they were badly beaten and kept continually hungry.

By 1943 Jersey had changed from a beautiful holiday island into a military camp and fortress. As time went on rations were cut further and further until they were only just above starvation level. All essential foods like potatoes, bread and milk were in very short supply.

The Jersey authorities were expected to pay the expenses of the occupying army - which varied in number from 10,000 to 16,000 troops. These costs were met by raising local income tax to 20 per cent in September of 1940 - the rate at which it remains today. It is estimated that the occupation of the island cost the Jersey authorities in excess of £4 million by the end of the war.

By the final year of occupation life in the island was grim and it is probably only due to the arrival of the Red Cross ship SS Vega on 30th December 1944 that many did not starve to death.