The military occupation of the Channel Islands by Nazi Germany lasted for most of the Second World War, from 30 June 1940 until liberation on 9 May 1945. The Bailiwick of Jersey and Bailiwick of Guern
As part of the Atlantic Wall, between 1940 and 1945 the occupying German forces and the Organisation Todt constructed fortifications around the coasts of the Channel Islands such as this observation tower at Battery Moltke.
Memorial in Saint Peter Port: "This plaque commemorates the evacuation of children and adults ahead of the occupation of the island by German forces in June 1940. Four-fifths of the children and altogether almost half the population of Guernsey were transported to England so that scarcely a family was undivided. À la perchoine."
1940: A group of girls evacuated from the Channel Islands to Marple, on mainland Britain, try on clothes and shoes donated by the United States.
German soldiers in Jersey
During the German occupation of the Channel Islands, there was limited resistance. The islands had a very high number of German soldiers compared to the civilian population, one soldier for every 2-3
Plaque: "During the period of the German occupation of Jersey, from 1 July 1940 to 9 May 1945, many inhabitants were imprisoned for acts of protest and defiance against the Occupation Forces in H.M. Prison, Gloucester Street which stood on this site. Others were deported and held in camps in Germany and elsewhere from which some did not return."
Plaque at Gorey: "Captain Ed Clark, Lieutenant George Haas escaped on 19 January 1945. This tablet was unveiled on the 50th anniversary of this event by Sir Peter Crill KBE, Bailiff of Jersey."
During the German occupation of Jersey, a stonemason repairing the paving of the Royal Square incorporated a V for victory under the noses of the occupiers. This was later amended to refer to the Red Cross ship Vega. The addition of the date 1945 and a more recent frame has transformed it into a monument.
Plaque on war memorial, Saint Ouen, Jersey, to Louisa Mary Gould, victim of Nazi concentration camp Ravensbrück: Louisa Mary Gould, née Le Druillenec, mise à mort en 1945 au camp de concentration de Ravensbrück en Allemagne. Louisa Gould hid a wireless set and sheltered an escaped Soviet prisoner. Betrayed by an informer at the end of 1943, she was arrested and sentenced on 22 June 1944. In August 1944 she was transported to Ravensbrück where she died on 13 February 1945.