1 April 1944 Part 2

1 April 1944 Part 2 Full inspection report on Jersey Guernsey and Alderney

Date note: 1 April 1944 report on the visit of 24 to 29 March 1944.

Major Johannes of the General Staff

Ia No. 71/44 Secret

Army headquarters, 1 April 1944

Secret

Report on the Chief of the General Staff’s visit to the Channel Islands from 24 to 29 March 1944

I Jersey

A General

With a total area of 116 square kilometres, Jersey is the largest of the English Channel Islands.

Whereas the west coast favours enemy landing operations from the sea because of its favourable water and beach conditions—a broad, flat, sandy beach—the island’s other coastal sectors, owing to their natural obstacles such as cliffs and rocky reefs, appear to make enemy landings scarcely possible.

For this reason the tactical reserves are concentrated in the western part of the island, ensuring rapid intervention at places vulnerable to landings.

The terrain around the airfield in the southwest of the island is particularly suitable for enemy airborne operations. Parachute troops could also be dropped on the island’s relatively numerous areas of farmland and meadow.

The island garrison totals approximately 8,000 personnel of all branches of the armed forces, of whom about 5,800 are employed in coastal protection and 2,300 are held in reserve.

[The approximate total and component figures are reproduced as stated.]

B Details

[Original page 2]

1. The state of completion of permanent and field fortifications can be described as good. Camouflage still needs improvement at some installations and battery positions. It is absolutely necessary to obstruct terrain suitable for enemy airborne landings with iron rails, stakes and mines wherever it is unnecessary to preserve cultivated land important for supplying the island with agricultural produce.

2. Only 200 Organisation Todt construction workers now remain on the island, compared with a former strength of 4,000. The construction equipment needed for fortification work has likewise been greatly reduced.

3. Timber and iron rails are the principal materials lacking for construction of foreshore obstacles.

4. There are 13 artillery batteries in all. Apart from the harbour-blocking battery, they are not enclosed in casemates; nor is such enclosure envisaged under the construction programme.

5. Luftwaffe anti-aircraft strength comprises six 8.8-cm batteries, one 3.7-cm battery and three 2-cm batteries. Considering the opportunities for enemy airborne operations, the number of 2-cm batteries must be regarded as insufficient.

6. The island’s allocation of heavy anti-tank guns is also insufficient: only four 7.5-cm anti-tank guns are currently available.

[Original page 3]

7. The fortress signals network is sufficiently complete to ensure command of the forces deployed on the island. Installation of the fortress cable to permanent-fortification standards has not yet been carried out everywhere.

8. Local reserves are made mobile chiefly by bicycles. [The source appears to repeat the number 9 here.]

9. The island’s water supply is assured even for a prolonged period. For electricity supply, besides a power station also serving the civilian population, there is another power station in the west of the island serving military purposes exclusively.

10. Of the ammunition stored on the island—eight basic loads in all, three of them with the troops—two-thirds are under concrete in very well-developed tunnels. Fuzes are still lacking for the shells intended for use as mines.

C Comments of the Chief of the General Staff

1. The airfield and the former golf course, the firing position of Battery Hindenburg, in the southwest of the island must be regarded as particularly vulnerable to airborne landings. A large minefield is therefore essential there.

Likewise, the La Rocque peninsula in southeast Jersey, which is suitable for airborne landings, must be better protected by subsidiary and dummy minefields and by driven stakes.

2. The engineer company of Machine-Gun Battalion 16 is to be employed principally in laying mines.

[Original page 4]

3. The anti-aircraft batteries, hitherto installed only in field positions, must gradually be given reinforced field positions as construction materials and labour become available.

4. Fire-control exercises are absolutely essential. The anti-aircraft artillery must not confine itself to firing at aerial targets, but must equally be available for ground-target fire. Observed fire is to take precedence over map fire. Observers can be trained at the Army artillery school; at present only one is available.

II Guernsey

A General

With an area of 66 square kilometres, Guernsey is the most densely populated island and, with a total strength of approximately 10,000 personnel, also the most heavily garrisoned. While 8,000 are deployed in coastal protection, approximately 2,200 are in reserve.

[The approximate total and component figures are reproduced as stated.]

The places most vulnerable to enemy seaborne landings, viewed purely geographically, lie on the northwest coast. Owing to the good state of permanent fortifications and the strong complement of personnel and weapons, however, even these places present no acute danger.

Here too, the airfield in the south of the island and the terrain immediately around it are particularly suitable for airborne landing operations. Otherwise, conditions for airborne landings on Guernsey, in marked contrast to Jersey, are substantially less favourable because of the different terrain and dense settlement, including numerous greenhouses.

B Details

[Original page 5]

1. The strong forces already mentioned permit the second line to be permanently manned. Each local battalion reserve is approximately one company strong, about 200 men. Regimental and divisional reserves are additional. The latter amount to one grenadier battalion less one company, elements of the mobile battalion, and one company of Panzer Battalion 213 with 18 Renault tanks.

The reserves are made mobile by bicycles wherever possible. Motor transport has not proved satisfactory on roads and lanes that are in places very narrow.

2. The landward front of St Peter Port harbour is secured by a line running along the western edge of the town and incorporating the command posts situated there.

3. No batteries enclosed in permanent casemates exist on the island, nor are any planned. Only two batteries are enclosed in field-type casemates.

8th Battery, Artillery Regiment 319, has been installed by the troops in a reinforced field position. The battery is intended for mobile employment. Sufficient British Bedford lorries are available as towing vehicles.

15th Battery, Artillery Regiment 1265, at the southwest corner of the island, is housed only provisionally. As personnel bunkers are lacking, the gun crews live in the ammunition bunkers, while the ammunition has had to be stored together with the ignition materials. An allocation of concrete is required for further development of the battery position.

4. The signals network has not yet been developed to permanent-fortification standards. Only the terminal sections, extending up to 200 metres from the coast, have been laid two metres deep as prescribed. Elsewhere extensive use is made of the British signals network, laid 0.40 metres deep.

[Original page 6]

5. Water supply presents no difficulties. The island has many wells, up to 36 metres deep.

6. Of the 12,000 tonnes of ammunition available, one-third has so far been accommodated in tunnels protected against shellfire and bombing. Detonators and fuzes are lacking for captured mines.

7. The shortage of fuel and wood for gas-generator vehicles has extremely adverse effects. Because of the fuel shortage, not every unit has yet been able to carry out the ordered training in close-range anti-tank combat and in allowing tanks to pass over men in anti-tank foxholes.

C Comments of the Chief of the General Staff

1. Corps headquarters must make available to the division the concrete still required for small structures.

2. As part of the all-round defence of firing positions and similar installations, mines must also be laid to the rear of Battery Mirus.

3. Organisation Todt must not continue dismantling and removing the light railway previously built in the northeast of the island for construction purposes. Rails and sleepers are to be used to obstruct areas vulnerable to airborne landings.

III Alderney

A General

With an area of eight square kilometres, Alderney is the smallest of the three principal islands and, because of its geographical position, is particularly important for the defence of the northwestern tip of the Cotentin peninsula.

[Original page 7]

The island differs from Jersey and Guernsey, among other respects, in that its entire island population has been evacuated.

There are virtually no opportunities for landing from the sea. Strong currents and numerous rocky reefs make a landing by large ships, and even by larger landing craft, practically impossible. The predominantly steep coast forms the best natural obstacle.

The airfield is again terrain vulnerable to airborne landings. It can, however, be completely obstructed, as the Luftwaffe no longer attaches importance to this airfield.

The total strength of the island garrison is 2,800 men, of whom 2,500 are deployed in coastal defence and 300 are held in reserve.

B Details

1. Construction of permanent fortifications is well advanced. Since the construction programme began two years ago, 82,000 cubic metres of concrete have been placed. Older fortifications, such as forts, have been incorporated effectively into the defence system.

2. The island’s small size makes only weak tactical reserves necessary. The bulk of the garrison can be employed in coastal defence from the outset. The reserves are made mobile by bicycles, but only 100 are available.

3. The fields of fire of batteries deployed in the harbour area, including the Josefsburg promontory, do not overlap completely. There is a blind spot at one point.

[Original page 8]

4. The proposed construction of a new harbour-protection battery intended solely for this purpose requires the allocation of better construction labour, preferably Russians. The 800–900 Jews on the island working for Organisation Todt are by no means to be regarded as fully effective workers. It would be expedient to assign construction personnel who, by virtue of their personnel and equipment, could also be used in combat, for example an Eastern Battalion.

[The preceding assessment and terminology are those of the German report.]

5. Naval Battery Elsass, 17-cm, is installed in an old fort. Reinforcing the casemates with an additional metre of concrete requires an allocation of about 1,000 cubic metres of concrete.

The battery has an authorised strength of 140 men, of whom 43 are around or over 50 years old. Given the island’s exposed position, replacing these soldiers with younger personnel appears absolutely essential.

6. Naval Battery Annes does not have a favourable firing position. There is a very large blind sector when firing at sea targets. The minimum range is about 3,000 metres. For the same reason only one ground-target point is provided. The Fortress Artillery Commander has been instructed to examine how this can be remedied.

The battery’s camouflage is still inadequate. The battery has no current gunnery proficiency, having not fired for half a year.

7. Army Coastal Battery Blücher has a very good field position and exemplary camouflage. Its observation post, a wooden tower, is inadequately protected. Concrete protection is urgently required.

[Original page 9]

8. The 319th Infantry Division intends to detail a forward observer with a radio permanently to Alderney, so that observed fire from the mainland batteries 4th Battery, Artillery Regiment 1709, and E 685 can be directed at any time.

9. The signals network is cabled to fortress standards. Telephone connections between the island and the mainland, and to Guernsey, are very poor. Laying a new submarine cable between Guernsey and Alderney will be completed in about fourteen days.

10. The island’s water supply is fully assured in all circumstances.

C Comments of the Chief of the General Staff

1. Alderney is the foremost line. Enemy attacks from sea and air are more likely against this island than against Guernsey and Jersey, not least because the native population is absent. The island must be regarded as cover for the mainland, Cotentin.

The battle on the island can be conducted only in close connection with events on Cotentin.

It is particularly important to obstruct the whole island with minefields, stake obstacles and so forth. There is no need here to take account of preserving agricultural land.

2. If the requested allocation of a new harbour-protection battery proves impossible, Battery Blücher will have to be enclosed in casemates. The engineer staff officer estimated a working period of about four to five months because of the difficult rocky ground. Labour for this would become available in about three weeks.

[Original page 10]

3. Harbour defence must be in one hand, if only to ensure unified concentration of fire. Fragmentation of command authority is inappropriate.

4. Reinforcement of the harbour’s anti-aircraft protection is to be sought.

5. The tanks on the island are not to be dispersed, but kept together, particularly for defence against airborne landings.

IV Comments of the Chief of the General Staff applying to all islands

1. Experience in Africa and Italy has shown that laying minefields according to a rigid pattern is wrong. Fixed minefields must be surrounded by irregularly laid mines, using scattered mining. This makes the enemy uncertain from the moment of landing and compels great caution.

2. Battalion reserves are to be particularly well supplied with bicycles, the most suitable means of transport on the islands.

3. Because of the great shortage of optical equipment, consideration should be given to removing the sights and similar equipment of heavy weapons at night, rather than exposing them unnecessarily to enemy fire.

V Summary of the defensive readiness of the Channel Islands

Jersey and Guernsey can already be regarded as impregnable; Alderney can be so regarded in about four weeks.

[Original page 11]

The favourable terrain, the reinforcement of natural obstacles—cliffs, reefs and sea currents—by artificial fortifications, and the strength of the garrisons, particularly pronounced on Guernsey, appear to justify the foregoing conclusion.

The continued presence of the civilian population on Jersey and Guernsey works more positively than negatively for us when English mentality is taken into account. It is not to be expected that the English will decide upon major operations against strongpoints where members of their own people are present. On the other hand, assistance to enemy airborne troops by the civilian population constitutes a danger that must not be underestimated.

At present the attitude of the population can be described as correct and not unfriendly, in some cases even friendly.

[Signature or initials not confidently deciphered. These assessments are those of the contemporary German author.]

German Seventh Army Headquarters (AOK 7), NARA T-312 Roll 1565. Roll 1565 Jersey and Channel Islands English translations.docx, reference 19. Scan extracts: img029_10_18596_20681.jpg, img029_11_20681_22748.jpg, img029_12_22748_25054.jpg, img030_01_0_2092.jpg, img030_02_2092_4162.jpg, img030_03_4162_6223.jpg, img030_04_6223_8290.jpg, img030_05_8290_10368.jpg, img030_06_10368_12443.jpg, img030_07_12443_14518.jpg, img030_08_14518_16587.jpg. Extract filenames identify the original image strip, section number and horizontal pixel boundaries; these are not archival frame numbers.