The Channel Islands At War (25 page)

'Bill' Bertram and his family, deserve pride of place among unsung heroes and heroines of the Island escape routes. He was a former corporal in the Canadian army who had settled at East Lynne Farm with other members of the family: his brother Charles, his nephew John, and his cousin Thomas who lived nearby with his family. They helped at least eight separate escapes, including the two American airmen who successfully got away in 1945. Their bravery in risking death was all the more surprising considering their farm was not in an isolated part of the Island, but on Grouville Bay where the beach was swept by the light from Fort Henry. However, there was a lucky gap in the mines at this point which was of benefit to the escapers. The Feldpolizei visited the farm on several occasions, once nearly catching them listening to the wireless, but happily they remained undetected to the end.

Precise totals of escape
rs are not easy to come by. In the case of Jersey it was not until the liberation of France that escape became possible on any extensive scale, and then Gladden, McKinstry and the Bertrams played a part which had no parallel in neighbouring Guernsey. Richard Mayne has listed some 80 escapers including Dutch and French workers. Between 8 September 1944 and 22 February 1945, 71 tried to escape from Jersey, and of the 68 Channel Islanders, 47 were successful. Of the 21 that failed to make it, Douglas Le Marchand was shot, six were drowned, and fourteen were captured, although three of these escaped and one made a second successful escape attempt. Many of those involved were teenagers or young men, but there were brave women too, including Barbara Hutchings and Rose Perrin who escaped successfully, Barbara Turner who was captured, and Madelaine Bisson drowned with her husband Ronald in an escape attempt soon after their wedding.

Escapes from Guernsey have been chronicled by David
Kre
ckeler, and in the main took place in the first few weeks after occupation when Islanders took advantage of the considerable number of abandoned boats, and the absence of a large garrison to make good their escape. 78 people
are
recorded as having escaped from Guernsey, and 63 of these did so between 1 July and 6 September 1940. To these figures of escapers by boat from the two main Islands should be added two who managed to escape from Alderney. and two from the purchasing mission at Granville. There was also at least one Frenchman, Dennis Le Cuirot who escaped in disguise on a Todt workers ship.

Although some parties of escapers from Jersey were completely successful including no less than nine on one night (9 October 1944)', tragically others did not succeed. Perhaps the saddest of these was the death of the newly married Bissons, and their two young companion
s, Andre Gorval and Roy Lucienne
s who set out from Rozel on 12 November 1944. Their engine failed and they drifted helplessly till they struck a rock off La Saline Bay two hundred yards from the shore. Though they shouted for help in full view of some German soldiers, nothing was done, and permission was refused for the lifeboat to put out. Only a few days later another attempt failed. Peter Noel was captured and imprisoned, while John and Bernard Larbarlastier were drowned.

A few individuals escaped by themselves. Dennis Vibert made his first attempt in November 1940. On reaching outlying rocks 20 miles west of Corbiere, a storm blew up and lasted for four days. He tried to return, but h
is boat struck a rock off St Bre
lade's Bay and sank although he managed to get ashore undetected. Later he found an eight-foot dinghy, and managed to fit two outboard motors - the boat can still be seen in La Hougue Bie Museum, Jersey. It was hidden at his father's house, and in a garage between the main road and the beach at Be
l Royal. In September 1941, Vibe
rt set off again, and rowed for four miles before he dared switch on a motor. An E-boat passed nearby almost swamping him. A storm blew up once more, one motor failed, and the other broke away. For three days and nights without supplies he rowed across the Channel, and on the third night was picked up by a destroyer a few miles off Portland.

Frank le
Sueur was another individualist. His first attempt to escape in September 1944 failed, and he was sentenced to eighteen months. Le Sueur was determined to escape, and the first step was to get out of prison. This he did by an ingenious ruse. He pretended to be sorry for his misdeed, and was soon on friendly terms with the German off
icer in charge of the prison. Le
Sueur suggested they should go fishing, and this was too tempting an offer for a German to refuse in days of dire food shortages. As a local man Le Sueur promised him a good day's sport, but said he would have to collect his tackle first. The officer was locked in a shed and Le Sueur went into hiding for a few weeks. He escaped with four others helped by Bill Bertram on the night of 11 November 1944.

Usually, ho
wever, e
scapers went in groups. There was comfort in numbers both at the planning stage, and in handling unseaworthy craft in dangerous waters. This was certainly true of the Guernsey escapes in 1940. The
Dauntless
left Perelle Bay on 1 July with seven people including two wo
men and landed at Budleigh Salte
rton after 16 hours at sea. The
Dodo II
sailed to Plymouth the same day with two crew, while the
Florida III
ended its successful voyage at Falmouth with a party of twelve. The fourth vessel to leave that same day was the
Mayflower,
which was the most substantial boat to leave the Island during the war. She was owned by Clifford Falla who had canvassed for anyone who wanted to escape, and received a big response. In the end, 28 people joined the escape voyage which began at eleven at n
ight from Grand Havre Bay. The e
scapers made land at Start Point not far from Dartmouth.

The last escapes from Guernsey that year took place in September, and were responsible for the German threats and Island government proclamations directed against escapers. Frederick Hockey and six men moored a small boat at Hommet Benest, an islet off Bordeaux Harbour, in which they rowed out to
Tim,
a motor boat.
Tim
was rowed to a point north of t
he Platte Fouge
re before the engine was started up for a voyage lasting 19 hours which eventually ended at Brixham. At this stage the British government clearly approved of escapers. The story was published in the papers, and details included in an RAF leaflet dropped on the Islands, presumably to encourage others.

Clearly escapes from Guernsey were more hazardous as there was no alternative to a lengthy voyage across the wartime Channel, but there were some. On 14 August 1943, four men and three women escaped in an 18 foot dinghy, the
Kate.
Like others they had decided it was a good idea to move their boat first to near Bordeaux Harbour. The engine broke down on the way across, but after a voyage of 14 hours they entered Dartmouth harbour. They were closely questioned on conditions in the Islands.

A smaller party of four escaped from St Sampson's on 15 September 1942. The two men involved in taking out the
Whynot
fishing boat were her skipper William Lawrence and his partner, Herbert Bichard. They took the boat north and picked up two French girls, Mile Broche and Mile Raymonde who were hidden under a tarpaulin while under observation from the shore. Bad weather lashed the craft for over 50 hours, and they had to work hard at baling out much of the way. Two days later the
Whynot
was sighted off Portland. The escapers were luckily taken on board a patrol boat because they had strayed into the West Bay Bombing practice area.

Two events during 1941 added a new dimension to Island escaping. In June Russia became Britain's ally and in October the first Organization Todt workers arrived. Islanders helped the Todt workers when they had escaped, although in the past both ROA forces and Todt workers had been among those looting and stealing Island property. It is estimated that 20 were hidden on Jersey and in August 1944 the Germans admitted 13 were still missing, although three were caught at St John'
s soon afterwards. Richard Mayne
's father, and the Vaynors were among those who sheltered escapers. Gold watches were presented to some Islanders by the Russians who as late as 1965 honoured one of the Islanders who had helped escapers.

Mrs Louisa Gould ran a grocer's store, and had two sons, one of whom was killed in the Royal Navy in action. Soon after she heard of this, a starving Todt worker, Feodor Bourriy, presented himself at her shop, and she took pity on him. McKinstry provided false papers. He was taught to read and speak English and even joined Boots Library in St Helier and obtained a job. The Gould family were convinced Bourriy
was informed on by a woman fraternize
r, and although he managed to escape the Feldpolizei raid in June 1944, Mrs Gould was taken, and a Russian dictionary found in the house was enough to convict her. Her sister, Mrs Ivy Foster, and her brother Harold Le Druillenec were arrested as well, and each had an illegal wireless in their house. Mrs Foster got a five-month sentence to be served on the Island, but the others embarked on two journeys of horror that were to end in concentration camps. Mrs Gould perished in Ravensbr
ü
ck in February 1945, and Le Druillenec, after a nightmare life in six different penal instituti
ons, ended by nearly dying at Be
lsen. Among others punished for helping Todt workers were Edward and Nan Ross, and Miss Pitolet.

From Alderney there was little chance of escape and the only successful escapes took place in transit a
way from the island. T. Misiewie
z arrested, aged 14, in Poland found
himself in Norderne
y Camp in June 1942, and escaped in December 1943. 'A transport of Russian prisoners were being sent back to the Continent and 1 got among them. Prisoners were helping each other and some of the Russians whispered to me that when the roll was called that I was to answer to the name of Sokolov ... So I was Sokolov and walked onto the ship and disembarked at St Malo.' Misicwicz was soon recaptured after escaping from the depot at St Malo, and it was only after two more attempts that he finally reached London and was able to join the Free Polish Army.

Details of escapes from one of the death trains which originated in Alderney have emerged from SS records because the commandant of Sylt Cam
p, Maximilian List, and Kurt Kle
beck in charge of the guard detail on one of the trains, were subject to a disciplinary hearing at Berlin in November 1943 following the escapes. The transport concerned was originally planned to have 200 sick prisoners, but 50 died before arrangements could be completed. List described what happened at the SS hearing. "When this transport was put together on
Alderney
the one hundred and fifty prisoners were specifically asked if they would rather work or die. I recall that they answered to this that they would rather die. When we walked back to our quarters there was quite a bit of laughter about this.'

List said that he feared tuberculosis among the prisoners might spread throughout Sylt, and therefore the sick prisoners should be sent
away 'for extermination' at Neue
ngamme. During the enquiry Klebeck added that the prisoners were unable to work due to festering sores and dysentery, and confirmed 50 died between making up the transport and its sailing from Braye Harbour on 5 June 1943. On arrival at Cherbourg the prisoners were herded inside three of the wagons.

During the night the train had been in complete darkness because they had no batteries for the lights. Next morning the Germans found the ill prisoners had made a hole in the floor of one wagon through which ten escaped, and two more did so during the confusion of its discovery. A partially made hole in another wagon was also found and shored up. The guards herded the prisoners into two
wagons for the journey on to Ne
uengamme where they arrived on 15 July. By then, another seven had died.

Other escapes of Alderney camp inmates took place in the summer of 1944 when the camps were closed. For instance, 280 prisoners were loaded on the
Gerfried
and arrived at St Malo on 1 July after an appalling voyage. One train took them north towards Kortemark in Belgium where they were to work on manufacturing Vis although they had been reassigned eventually to Buchenwald. A Czech political prisoner who had been on Alderney since February 1943, Robert Prokop, has described what happened on that journey. Some 200 arrived at Kortemark, and on 4 September attempted a mass break out. It seems this was betrayed and over 30 prisoners were shot. Only a few like Prokop succeeded in escaping. He took with him a Slovak guard who had been employed by the SS, but had become his friend at Sylt Camp.

William Wernegau was a German leftist who had been captured by the Vichy French in Algiers, and handed over to the Ger
mans who put him in Sachsenhause
n before transferring him to
Alderney
. He was among those evacuated in June 1944. On this particular train, the SS adopted the unusual measure of putting guards inside wagons with the prisoners, and as there were a good many Russians on the train murder was soon committed. At one station while there was a raid some ten Russians escaped after killing a guard. The Germans warned the prisoners that any further deaths would lead to reprisals. A day or so later two SS guards were strangled, and a further escape took place. 'The SS stood on both sides and wildly shot long bursts with their machine-guns into the train, killing many. Then they simply threw the bodies out of the train and left them there. This last incident occurred near Toul on the night of 26-27th July 1944 where a memorial stands today bearing the inscription "Here
are
buried seventeen victims of Nazi brutality".' The train continued into Germany with wounded on board. Wernegau himself managed to escape with a Pole, and reach American lines.