Discourse and Defiance Under Nazi Occupation: Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1940-1945 (55 page)

As quickly as it appeared, the V-campaign apparently died away. Some maintain that the Germans were successful in draining the V of meaning, but that seems not to have been the case. Other clever V-campaign versions persisted, such as the notice in a St. Martin's window: “VVanted
R
abbits
A
nd
F
owls.”
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“V” and “RAF” were written on the car of a German doctor near the Victoria Hospital.
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Ken Lewis heard of drawings that were pinned up overnight at one signpost showing a British Tommy holding a flag with a plain V on it. Underneath it read, “We don't want laurel leaves.” A second drawing showed a Spitfire chasing a Messerschmitt. In the background was another Messerschmitt going down in flames, with the pilot of the plane saying, “Mein Gott, another
VIKTORIA
for the German Luftwasse!”
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Undoubtedly, the Islanders did not lack for comebacks or the wherewithal to make the V-campaign their own. However, the impetus for the campaign came from the outside and was not their own creation; thus, it was easy to lose interest.
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In a sense, Guernseymen and women were a step ahead of Saul Alinsky, anticipating his Rule Seven in
Rules for Radicals
: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
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By the time Colonel Britton was calling for a “flood of V's,” Jack Sauvary had proclaimed the V-sign “so silly,”
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and Winifred Harvey found it “no longer funny or amusing.”
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One version of the V-campaign was truly the work of Guernseymen and persisted for many years. In a 2003 interview, Alf Williams told me of the day in 1942 when he was walking up the street with his friend Roy Machon. Just outside the La Quinta Hotel, they came across a “little Belgian fellow” (Guy Guillard)
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who had been sent to Guernsey to do some work. The men stopped and chatted, and in the midst of the conversation, Guillard showed Alf and Roy an English penny crudely cut out in a V. “So, we said we can do better than that,” Alf told me. “So we went home and we done better.” Alf and Roy decided to do a finer version of the design, cutting out the King's head over a V and making a brooch or badge (by attaching a safety pin to the back) that could be worn. Roy, it seems, was the better craftsman, and as the projectionist of the Regal Cinema, he often made his V-badges during the running of the films, with the Germans seated in the theater below him. Alf worked on his badges in the dairy of his family's farm and initially had some trouble with getting the King's head cut out properly. “You've got to be careful,” he explained. “The King always had a quiff on top of his head. And you cut that off and the whole thing is ruined.” It may have taken some time to master the use of tin snips and files, but the badges that are still in existence are nicely done, with the profile of George VI seeming to rise triumphantly from the cut-out V in which he is centered.
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The residents of Guernsey became aware of these badges very quickly, and they were soon in demand—for some as a patriotic keepsake, and for many as a means of expressing defiance on the town streets. They were generally worn under the lapel and could be flashed quickly to a friend in passing. Roy and Alf charged an Occupation reichsmark for the work (not to mention the danger) of producing the badge, and the purchaser needed to provide the English coin from which the badge would be cut. These details were widely known, and the badges were very popular. Rev. Ord knew that “brooches are being sold for a mark” and that the German police were on the watch for the wearers and those who were making them. If they could catch a civilian with a badge, they could “use third degree methods to track down the maker.”
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The danger of this symbolic campaign to Roy and Alf seems apparent and may be sensed in Violet Carey's diary entry. She wrote:

I met Mabel Kinnersly who gave me my ‘Kings Head.’ She knows a mysterious boy who cuts out the King's head in an English shilling and also cuts out a beautiful “V” under the King's head and mounts a pin on it. He does it with a fretsaw. It is lovely; I wear my marquisite crown and G.R. on top of it. We have to provide the shilling and pay him a mark. We all wear them under our coats. Mabel wears hers openly, but it is rather silly because if the Gestapo spot it they will take it from her.
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It sounds from this description of the fretsaw that Violet's badge may have been produced by Alf Williams. The naiveté of the entry is notable, because Mabel's wearing of her badge openly was more than “silly,” it was extremely dangerous, not just for herself but for the maker. The Field Police would not be content to merely take the offending brooch away from her, as a number of wearers discovered.

By June of the next year, Rev. Ord was aware that people were being arrested for “wearing patriotic insignia particularly the “V”-sign brooches, the wearing of red, white and blue colours—even in dress.”
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At the same time, Ambrose Robin noted that several people had “been locked up for wearing Victory brooches and badges made out of 1/-s and 6ds.”
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It was not merely that the Germans had arrested those wearing the brooches, but they had also managed to snag one of the makers. Alf recounted how Roy was caught: “Two of our mates [Roy Machon and Jack Perrot]
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were walking up the Town and they were showing the V sign on their lapel and down comes the German police and ‘What have you got there, let's have a look at that,’ saw what it was, put him in prison and bashed him up a bit.”
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Roy was given six months in Germany and served the rest of the war in a civilian prisoner-of-war camp. Notably, despite the third degree, he did not give Alf away, who carried on making hundreds of V-badges throughout the Occupation.

How Alf was not caught out is quite remarkable because he had the heedless bravery of a young man. For example, he made one for a German that he met only a half mile from Alf's home. Alf showed him one of the V-badges, and the German asked him to make one, which Alf did out of an English penny. Just like the Islanders, this German wore the V-badge under his lapel. I asked Alf how he could trust this German not to betray him, and he replied, “How could you trust anybody?” Alf seemed to have come to the same policy of differentiation that Rev. Ord practiced, separating the ardent Nazis (“They were ‘nice’ people,” Alf said sardonically) from the common German soldier, many of whom were apolitical or even anti-Nazi (“They didn't want to go to war. It was only these fanatical Nazis and I met quite a few of them”).
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This local version of the V-campaign fit far better with the nature of resistance in the Channel Islands than did the showy, but externally inspired chalking of V's on buildings and signposts. It fulfilled the need for symbolic patriotism and communal identity, while passing for as long as possible beneath the radar of German surveillance.

NEWS VIA THE UNDERGROUND

The importance of their wireless sets to the Guernsey civilians can be gauged by Bill Warry's response when the sets were permanently confiscated in June 1942. In an entry scrawled with many underlinings on the side of the news articles in his scrapbook, he wrote, “Today, we had a shock. Our wireless sets are
all to be taken away
, German orders…It's a terrible affair
not to know how the war is going on at all or what is happening to our & other people.” As if addressing readers from another, later era, Bill sought understanding of the magnitude of the blow: “Just figure it out for yourselves, to be cut off in these times.” That day, a German who spoke French entered their shop and Mrs. Warry had “tackled him” about the reasoning behind the taking of all wireless sets. This particular German believed that it was to prevent England sending out news to those in occupied countries that might coordinate acts of sabotage. That reason seemed logical to Bill, although he also thought that it might be retaliation for the recent massive bombing of Cologne.
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Others believed that the war must be turning in the Allies' favor and the Germans simply did not wish this information to be widely known.

Whatever the reason for the confiscation, which seemed to come from out of the blue as far as the Islanders were concerned, it was truly like the loss of a family member. Bill Warry treated it as saying goodbye to a buddy, writing mournfully of his “last day with our good old Radio ‘Murphy,’” and describing how he planned to put a label with “a bit of poetry” on the set in protest.
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Ord treated this second confiscation much as he had the first loss of wireless in 1940, returning to a metaphor he had used at that time. In 1940, he wrote of how his source for the BBC news had “dried up,” but that he expected that “the stream will burst forth in another place,” because so many had retained their wireless sets.
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Now that the sets were gone, apparently for the duration, Ord returned to this watery concept with his assurance that “news will leak out somehow.”
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Little could Rev. Ord have anticipated just how quickly the British news would make the rounds despite the wireless ban. By August 1943, he was forced to switch metaphors, as news continued to circulate “hot from secret sets, and spreads like a prairie fire” across Guernsey.
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It is clear that the very act of the Germans denying news access to civilians turned information into a scarce and valuable commodity. Ord was aware of the same effect occurring among the German forces. When Bödeker brought Reinhold Zachmann to visit Ord for the first time, before the civilian wireless sets were taken, both men had begged to listen to the German transmission from London to hear an accurate account of the raid on Rostock. Knowing personally this hunger for accurate war news among anti-Party Germans, Ord gave credence to a story making the rounds now that wireless sets were confiscated. According to this tale, a German officer called requesting to see Madame and asked to see her wireless set. Taken aback, she quickly replied that all the wireless sets had been called in several months before. He replied, “Madame, I know you kept yours, and I can tell you where you keep it—it is in that coal box. But I shall not give you away. All I wish for is an opportunity to listen to London myself.
I MUST HAVE THE TRUTH
!”
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Whether or not this story was based in fact, it bolstered the concept that truth resided with British transmissions, and that the taking of the wireless sets was designed by Germans to keep Islanders from that truth. With such a view, circumventing the German ban became an important aspect of resistance to German control.

Ord had proof very quickly that the ban on wireless would fail to result in a dearth of news transmission. In early January 1943, barely six months into the ban, Ord had some workmen installing a new fireplace in his lounge (one of the last of the new fireplaces available in Guernsey) when one of the workmen gave him the latest news in his own style: “They ‘aven't ‘arf given ‘Itler a wipe in Russia—twenty more places was took yesterday!” Whatever Ord could make of this somewhat garbled version of the BBC news, he could add that “It is fine to meditate on the banning of the wireless and at the same time on the free circulation of news!”
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The more exciting the news, the more energy and meaning seemed to be attached to its transmission. The capitulation of Italy in September 1943 was one event, for example, that fired up the underground information exchange. Bert Williams declared it “wonderful” how the news traveled across the Island “in record time.”
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Ken Lewis heard the news of Italy at Mr. Taylor's, and believed that this event would spur the liberation of the Channel Islands. In all eagerness he headed for home, wanting to be the first to share the news with his father. Yet, Uncle Wils, who had heard the same news at Mr. Le Caer's, beat him to the punch and had the pleasure of making the announcement to the family. Despite Ken's disappointment, he “did not grumble as it was such good news.”
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To Ken and to many others, news from the outside world (especially war news) was treated as a gift, inherently valuable in itself and purchased through the willingness of Islanders to risk severe penalties for listening to illegal sets.

Guernsey may have been efficient in the rapid dissemination of news, but speed often came at the cost of clarity. As in the game “Telephone,” where a phrase whispered around a circle becomes increasingly mangled as it travels, the wireless news that passed orally from Islander to Islander was prone to unavoidable distortion.
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Ord found this process rather comical, as when a Guernseyman provided quotes to him from the speech made by Churchill the previous evening. Supposedly, the prime minister had described Britain as on the eve of “the biggest
ambiguous
ventures in history.”
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Equally amusing was his milkman's report at the time of the new “doodle-bug” weapon: “Gerry's got a second secret weapon. It's a sort of box affair. It goes up
BUT IT DON
'
T DO NOTHING
!” Ord considered this report and pondered, “What can he have heard?”
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The need for direct information and the desire to hear the BBC for oneself made resisters of even the most upright civilians. Ord spent considerable time “tucking away” his set in August 1944 until he felt that “sheer hard luck” would be the only way for it to be detected. He had actually had the set for some time, having bought it with a check made out to the fourth man removed from the maker.
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By 1944, many people had the small crystal sets that were being secretly made and distributed widely. Ken Lewis, who had previously gone to a variety of relatives' houses to hear the news, now lavished great care on his own crystal set. Uncle Ed came over to adjust the set and put in a new holder for the Cat's Whisker, the thin vertical wire that made contact with the crystal and allowed reception of the radio signal. The Cat's Whisker was notoriously sensitive to vibration, and Ken had difficulty getting more than a faint signal. With a little fiddling with aerials, Ken finally achieved a clear signal and even had an extra pair of headphones attached for shared listening.
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