Latest news with #ChannelIslandsOccupationSociety
BBC News
02-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Man's "lifelong obsession" to restore Jersey's German bunkers
A charity has worked to preserve Jersey's unique wartime the Germans left Jersey following their surrender in 1945, they left behind countless bunkers and other fortifications which for decades lay the 1960s and 1970s, members of the Channel Islands Occupation Society (CIOS) decided to reopen these fortifications again. Malcolm Amy, from CIOS, has worked to restore the bunkers on the headland at Corbiere and the tunnel that joins them. The CIOS said it is a "voluntary charity dedicated to protecting and preserving all aspects of the island's unique Second World War heritage." The team members spend hours cleaning, restoring and researching the bunkers. "I've been obsessed with the occupation since I was a child," Mr Amy scrubbing away the rust, mouldy concrete and other detritus that filled the rooms in the bunker, they lined them with wood panelling, repainted and filled them with the military equipment and sleeping arrangements that had been there during World War were able to be very accurate because of a chance encounter in 2006 when the former commander of the bunker Hoppe described how the bunker looked, and a little about the men who served crew room is where they slept and ate, and has been furnished with wooden wardrobes, mesh bunk beds and blankets, and mannequins representing the soldiers garrisoned in the bunker. The main bunker is linked by a tunnel to another one further up the hill. Mr Amy said after they dried the damp concrete they found scratches and pencil marks made by the engineers who oversaw the original said the reason he was driven to it was because he wanted to show people today "how the other side lived", and that the Germans were individuals and human Amy said he believed it was essential today's generation learned about what happened in the island during the occupation, from every perspective."For me, it's just to ensure that part of the island's heritage is viewed now and is passed on to future generations, which is why most of the team do it," he said. "It's important to educate people about what happened here and present it in a truthful way."
BBC News
28-04-2025
- General
- BBC News
Model of Red Cross ship SS Vega made for Guernsey Liberation Day
A large model replica of the SS Vega, a Red Cross Ship, will be used in Guernsey's Liberation Day celebrations. The Channel Islands Occupation Society worked with the States Prison and the Prisoner charity CLIP to build it. SS Vega brought Red Cross food parcels for the civilians in the islands after the occupying German forces were cut off from the continent following new model ship will be towed in the Liberation 80 cavalcade on 9 May. 'A lifeline' The Red Cross SS Vega first visited the island in December supplied more than 119,000 standard food parcels during the first visit and continued to visit the islands throughout the German Occupation and after liberation in May De Carteret, prison governor, said he thought it was really exciting. He said: "For me personally what the Vega signifies... it basically was a lifeline."My family were directly affected by that because they were here during the occupation and I think it's a great thing for us to get involved in."Prisoner Anthony Hamon said he painted the signage and red crosses. "It's reliving our history so that's the main thing about it really, reliving it and celebrating the past." Adrian Dilcock, committee member of th Channel Islands Occupation Society, said: "This is really a massive part of our heritage."This symbolises really, the keeping people alive and also the suffering by people that were evacuated and by people that stayed here."He added he hoped there would be somewhere for the model to be stored or displayed after Liberation Ozanne, founder of CLIP, said the scheme aimed to help prisoners build up skills that could help them find employment once they have served their sentence."The workshop is sophisticated, it's got a lot of equipment, and people here in Guernsey are learning to become carpenters or learning skills," he said.
