Channel Islands Occupation/Raid/Dieppe alternative/etc..

I'm reading James Goodson and he said he wrote a letter through his CO (to who unknown) to suggest that the raid on Dieppe in August 42 should be switched to the Channel Islands. He said they could have taken the Islands and held them. Good for morale, training and a good base for the real invasion.
Being no expert I'd thought I would put it on here and see what you think.

James Goodson

James A. Goodson - WWII Ace

 

Good post Craig,

By all acounts the Channel Islands had a fair amount of concrete poured on them (Don't know how much by 1942) and I think there was 38,000 (I started a thread about them being released for Rommel and the defence of Normandy) Germans based on there prior to Normandy in 1944.

I'm not so sure they would have been able to take them and the problem of re-supply for the rest of the war. They are quite away from the UK and very close to France. Interesting theory though that surely would have been considered.

Hopfully this should create some interesting posts.

Andy

 

Good post Craig,

By all acounts the Channel Islands had a fair amount of concrete poured on them (Don't know how much by 1942) and I think there was 38,000 (I started a thread about them being released for Rommel and the defence of Normandy) Germans based on there prior to Normandy in 1944.

I'm not so sure they would have been able to take them and the problem of re-supply for the rest of the war. They are quite away from the UK and very close to France. Interesting theory though that surely would have been considered.

Hopfully this should create some interesting posts.

Andy

Good point on the resupply option, Andy.

 

I do believe the American Airborne eliment of Overlord flew near/over the Channel Islands on their way to the Carentan area. It does make one wonder how easier that element could have been if it was feasable to set that aspect of Overlord from there.

 

One of the Overlord options was to seize the Cotentin Peninsula. That was ruled out because of fears that the Germans could and would seal it off very quickly. How much easier it would have been for the Germans to seal off the CI by mining and strengthening the nearby coastlines (most of which are rather rugged, I believe).

Even if an assault from the CI was a reasonable prospect, using them as a stepping stone would just telegraph the punch. That might have been a plausible feint, except for the fact it would have drawn forces towards Normandy, not away from it.

Think how much of the English coastline was used to launch and support NEPTUNE (Devon-Suffolk at least). The CI couldn't have hosted enough forces to make enough of a dent on the mainland, even without interference.

 

The Channel Islands were declared to have no strategic value in 1940 and that is reason that they were abandoned.The same logic applied during the planning to re-enter Europe.It would have been ideal, from a civilian morale point of view to reclaim them but from a prerequirement for the liberation of Europe,it would have been flawed planning and a waist of resources.If this had happened,can you imagine the assessment by historians of such a campaign?

Hitler turned the Channel Islands into part of the Atlantic Wall against an enemy who would never come, at a great investment cost and also utilisation and cost of a division of manpower who like the rest of the inhabitants were on the point of starvation in May 1945.

An Allied policy of letting the Channel Islands "wither on the vine" has to my knowledge, never been critised by military historians and is a policy decision which cannot be adversely commented on.

 

Fighting to take them would still have meant losses and using them as a springboard to invade the French mainland would have presented limited and telegraphed opportunities.

 

And killed British-ish civilians instead of French ones; I suspect that was a political consideration.

 

I'm no sure how much of a problem actual resupply would have been, that would take some REALLY in-depth study of the German experience....for during the OCCUPATION the Islands were still a net exporter of foodstuffs to the mainland for the Wehrmacht The islanders were close to starvation because the Germans were extracting every calorie they could out of the agriculture there.

Potentially the resupply of military stores would be the REAL problem, but I would assume the initial landings would take a considerable amount with them especially against the well-foreseen resupply problems

Historically we took and held worse enclaves - First Tobruk, for instance...and Crete for the several weeks BEFORE the Germans followed the retreating Commonwealth forces across the Aegean; despite being WELL under the German air umbrella with their frequent attacks - the "Morning Hate" - the RAF did manage to keep up aerial operations when they had the aircraft.

A good air defence, standing CAP, and REALLY good AA would help keep the LW at bay...

THAT would be one of the main USES of a British enclave in the Channel islands - it grabs and focuses German attention mightily! It forces them to shift about resources....from NA or the Eastern front? It would attrit LW assets in France, and of course be the focus of a pretty nasty and prolonged "small ships" naval battle - one the RN couldn't help but eventually win, severly attriting the KM, simply from weight of numbers :p

Okay - the defenders would of course take heavy casualties too - but look at the Malta example; it would be a MOST effective "thorn in the side" of the enemy...

...and of course would eventually have made a GREAT adjunct to FORTITUDE!

As far as actually TAKING the islands in 1942 - I think the British stood a pretty good chance. It's been years since I looked at anything to do with the German defences, but IIRC what forces they DID have were recycled FRENCH tanks and light German armour. I have a cousin working there, managing the Thornton's branch on Jersey, and her landlord was alive during the Occupation; one thing he was able to tell me a while back was - you know the famous pic of two old French Char B's sitting on the harbour??? Apparently they sat there for MONTHS....because there was no spare petrol to move them!

 

and Churchill was eventually overtly hostile to early liberation.

IIRC he was opposed to British civilians who had actually lived under occupation being..."re-integrated"?...while the war was on...

 

it does seem he was disappointed by the lack of resistance to occupation (alongside other military factors)


The islanders WERE under a remarkably draconian regime...when it came to food production. Someone stealing A spud could for example be transported to a concentration camp on the mainland - and in a worst case, at the top of the scale was of course execution :mellow: I'll need to check, but IIRC there were quite a lot of the islanders "transported" for various offences during the war...

To me its always been reminiscent of the old interwar USSR criminal codes, where theft was a "political" crime, a crime against the State...because after all, all property belonged to the State, so if you stole something you were stealing from the State! Here....if you stole A Spud, you were in effect stealing it out of the mouths of the German Army so of course there were strict regulations!

 

Some of you may remember that I was having trouble a while back finding the 1st guards bde war diaries at TNA; the forum was very helpful but while I was searching the archives I came across the following:

"Operation Blazing: movements of the 1st guards bde."

Operations Blazing and Concubine were plans for attacks on Alderney and Jersey. The third operation of the trio (the only one conducted) was Jubilee, which is a little better known because it was the raid on Dieppe.

Blazing was in the advanced stages of planning, and the guards were to be shipped off to the isle of white for training (I'm not sure if they ever arrived yet, i'll need to check the war diaries more, I think they were); however at the last minute blazing was called off because, according to the document i revewed (mentioned above), it was impractical, not because of the loss of man power, but the loss of air power, which at that particular stage of the war was considered more vital. The RAF apparently could not afford the losses from all three operations and theres a quote in the file saying as much; a key plan was to use the RAF to defeat the coastal instalations and without the RAF: Blazing could not be conducted.

It made very interesting reading, the plans were so advanced permission to use the guards had already been given. Everything it appears, was ready to go.

 

So are we saying going for the CIs would have been a waste of lives? Like Dieppe?

 

I'd say 'probably', but with Dieppe there was at least the 'reconnaissance in force' argument, where many hard but useful lessons were learnt about massed attacks on French beaches.
I'm not so sure the Channel Islands would have taught the same lessons given the local geography and concentration of fortifications on such small Islands (not entirely sure how fortified they were in late '42 when Dieppe went in? ), though they could just as easily have cost the same amount of lives?

I know it's a bit of a b*****d question but Would 'Overlord' still have had the same level of success without Dieppe?

 

Some chap saw me reading my Dunkirk book at work today while I was waiting for a job and asked me if I was interested in the war. After a short internal chuckle to myself I told him I had been to the area quite a lot in recent times.

He then went on to tell me that Dieppe was nothing to do with D-Day but the raid was all about getting info on German Radar and some Brit chap expert went over to Dieppe with ten Canadian bodyguards with orders to shoot him if it looked like he was going to be captured.

Knowing next to nothing about Dieppe I decided not to say there was a fair few more than ten Canadians who went to France that day and opted for a gentle nodding of the head as if in agreement with him

 

Churchill recorded that the Dieppe operation was a success and detailed that it pointed out what landing craft and equipment the Allies had to obtain to make an effective landing in France.

The other conclusion, surely, was that the Allies could not depend on taking a port to build up a bridgehead. Hence the plans put in place for the Mulberry harbours.

As regarding invading the Channel Isles as a foothold in Europe,its akin to the Germans planning to invade the Isle of Wight for a foothold on to the British mainland. Potential flawed military operations without doubt.