Liberation and Beyond

Abstract

The ordeal was over, and the Islanders experienced their first thrill of freedom with a level of poignancy and elation that clearly reflected the stark contrast of this moment with the levels of privation and oppression which had been their reality for so long. In Guernsey, the reception for the first landing party was much the same as reported in Jersey, and Surgeon Captain Ron McDonald and Lieutenant David Milln described the scene as follows:

People … were throwing fireworks … We went up the [jetty] steps to an enormous reception … They were the happiest lot of people I have ever seen … we were … manhandled by the crowd, it was marvellous … [But] if anything, the Islanders were bemused … and … slightly stunned. If you actually … asked what had been going on they couldn’t tell you, they couldn’t describe it. They were free and you had this feeling that if you gave them a tot of whisky they would do an eightsome reel.²

I was in the advance party … [which] came off Jersey at about 1600 hours on Wednesday 9 May, 1945 … The stone piers were packed with cheering people … Eventually … [we] landed … and it took perhaps a quarter of an hour or more to get through the crowds to the waiting cars. Our backs were beaten and our hands wrung … and the women kissed us again and again.

Letter home from Lieutenant-Colonel James Taylor, 18 May 1945¹