Evacuation by Michael Halliwell

For the 75th Anniversary of Liberation approaching this week, another article, this time on what it was like to be evacuated before the Occupation.

Reverend Michael Halliwell, Rector of St Brelade (1971-1996) was evacuated to England with his mother. His father stayed at his post at the General Hospital as Consultant Surgeon. Michael wrote on that in his excellent book "Operating Under Occupation: The Life and Work of Arthur Clare Halliwell FRCS, Consultant Surgeon at the Jersey General Hospital During the German Occupation, 1940-1945" (which is still available to buy).

Evacuation by Michael Halliwell

As the month of June 1940 wore on, the news got increasingly bad the Germans seemed unstoppable. On June 16th. my father held a crisis meeting at the hospital where he told the staff that they would in all probability soon be occupied. He was sending his family to England, but remaining himself. he hoped they would remain at their posts. He came home and told us, we had a day to prepare, to decide what we wanted to take.

I went through my possessions made a list and showed it to him The day before we left, the sound of heavy gunfire came from the north-east Some said the Germans were raiding Cherbourg, but fifty years later, by the chance of reading a French newspaper report.. I was to learn that the French navy were shelling the German already advancing along the Cotentin peninsular Had the people of Jersey known how close the Germans really were, the panic would have been far greater than it actually was.

The evening sun was low as we drove along St Aubin's Bay to the harbour At Bel Royal. a solitary member of the newly formed Jersey Defence Volunteers looked out to sea. ready to take on the armed might of the Wehrmacht. Along Victoria Avenue. tall posts were being erected to take wires to impede the landing of gliders As we reached the harbour. our boat the "Hantonia" looked sinister in her grey wartime paint and I was glad to see she was fitted with the degaussing girdle which made us safe against the magnetic mines which the Germans were laying in the Channel.

My father kissed us goodbye and went back to celebrate his wedding anniversary in an empty house. surrounded by his children's toys and his wife's clothes. He was soon to face the biggest challenge of his career quite alone.

As we boarded, we were told to draw life-jackets from the storage boxes, we were six children (including the two children of friends) and my mother, so they made quite a pile. As we left the harbour, military vehicles were being unloaded to defend the island, and in the bay we passed a train ferry presumably also bringing more supplies.

I settled down to sleep in an empty life-jacket storage box, and was joined at Guernsey by a young girl: I never knew her name. I slept fitfully and woke with the sun: as we neared Southampton we saw numerous ships taking refuge there including some Belgian cross-channel steamers bearing the names of the luckless Belgian royal family. At Southampton, all was hustle and bustle, not to say chaos, but through the kind offices of the AA, a taxi was waiting to drive us to safety in the depths of the West Country, where we arrived after a four hour drive in the Somerset village which was to be our home for the next five years.