Clandestine Crystal Sets - Channel Isles WW2

[Yorkie]

Along with my wife, I've just returned from a very interesting week in Jersey to learn more about the German occupation and subsequent liberation of the Channel Isles in WW2. It was an organised visit, conducted by an excellent local historian Ian Romayne, and we were able to visit German fortifications not normally open to the public. The tour was designed to dovetail in with the annual Battle of Britain Air Display, as indeed it did. It's quite an event in the Islands and many people have half a day off work to attend the display, and schoolchildren have a day of school.

Much has been written about the occupation and liberation so I won't dwell too much on that. This link has lots of information for anyone who is interested.

https://goatysnews.wordpress.com/2015/05...8z-gmtutc/

One aspect of our visit covered the various rules and regulations imposed on civilians by the Germans, including, from 1942, the confiscation of radios, (which were carefully documented and stored, then after the Germans surrendered in 1945, were returned to their rightful owners). Much was said on our visit of ''crystal sets' that were allegedly made and used by islanders to listen to BBC broadcasts, but I think that was over-played. I think it much more likely that valve radios were hidden and used. I say that because if crystal sets were so extensively used, I'd have thought that many would have been retained as family keepsakes, survived, and found their way into museums. We only saw two examples - one was in the 'War Tunnels' which during the had been and underground hospital, but is now an extensive museum - another set was in another museum.

Bearing in mind that the circumstances of the residents was very different from POWs - they would have had access to materials (which POWs would find hard to scavenge), including headphones, galena crystals from school science labs, copper wire for coils, and so on,. the two that we saw were unimpressive. The first set I've shown a couple of pics of below was discovered by the Germans acting on an anonymous tip-off by a resident who 'grassed up' the 'culprit' who was then sentenced to six months imprisonment. A copy of his prison record is in the second pic. As will be seen, tuning was by sliding a small coiled contact along the tuning coil where the turns had been bared so the inductance could be varied, obviating the need for a variable tuning capacitor. The third pic shows a very crystal set built into a Bakelite light switch.   How well they worked, (assuming that they worked at all), we'll never know.

Though at times, there was one German for every three residents, they were preoccupied with the building and manning of defensive structures of Hitler's little bit of British soil, rather than obsessed with keeping residents under control. No Gestapo, no resistance movement, no air raids or other hostilities to speak of - just people going about their business as best they could. All very different from mainland Europe. For the first three years or so the Islands were as close to a holiday camp for the Germans as could be, then when the fortunes of war turned against them from mid 1944, effectively, the Islands became the largest 'POW Camp' for German troops in the world - they couldn't get on or off the Islands, couldn't get supplies, weren't allowed to take food destined for Islanders including Red Cross parcels, and by the end, were starving, bedraggled, and only too pleased to be put on ships back to Southampton as POWs. Interesting to see the varied causes of death of Germans - often while scavenging for food - 'fell out of tree looking for birds eggs', four died from 'cooking and eating plant roots', etc. Those that were wounded or died at the hands of the Allied forces, did so at sea - not on the Islands, which were never under attack.
 
There a certain romanticism which attaches to tales of clandestine crystal sets, but I have to say that I wasn't very convinced. I'm not sure how far away 'as the crow flies', the Channel Isles were from the nearest BBC broadcasting station at the time, and whether a crystal set would be up to the task of pulling in signals. (I'd like to see a good example and build a replica, but have yet to turn one up on the net).

A bit ironic that the Islanders weren't even permitted to listen to the propaganda utterances of 'Lord Haw Haw'!

Very interesting few days.

[pwdrive]

A fair few German slaves were used in Guernsey to build the fortifications and tunnels, a lot of them were thrown into the sea or otherwise got rid of when their usefulness had expired, Jews living on the island if routed out were sent to the death camps in the east of Europe.

When I was doing green oak framing there I stayed a few times in a house on Le Canishers in Peter Port (a small back road of that name) it was run by an old dear who remembered that time well and not with any affection, my farther used to ply those waters during the war when he was in the navy, the destroyer he served on was often used as part of Operation Tunnel searching out blockade runners en route to the Uboat pens on the west coast of France with fuel and replacement Uboat crews.

Lawrence.

[Radio Fixer]

Thanks David and Lawrence. All interesting to me and I would have enjoyed the trip but not my wife. She finds it all depressing and doesn't want to remember too much, certainly not fine detail.

Gary

[Yorkie]

Thanks for reading the thread Lawrence and Gary.

Unlike other WW2 & WW1 'battlefield tours' this trip had no real harrowing aspects to it - no battlefields, no commonwealth war graves, little real deprivation, etc.  The residents had the opportunity to stay or leave, some had their children evacuated, some left, many stayed. Though the Islands were occupied and Germans were everywhere, as I said earlier, ( apart from the fact that initially, from the air, Germans mistook lorries loaded with tomatoes and potatoes for armaments), Britain decided - wisely as it happened - to leave the islands undefended. Had they decided to defend the islands they would have been turned into a battlefield with much loss of life, both military and civilian, and much deprivation. Despite the presence of the Germans in such large numbers relative to the civilian population, it was a much safer place than say Coventry, Hull or London. Kids went to school, everyone else went about their daily business, in shops, offices, on land etc.

As to 'slaves' many who worked on the defences building tunnels, bunkers, gun emplacements etc  were actually well paid - some were local craftsmen, though many young men had left to go to Britain to be in the Services. Those who fared the worst were Slav prisoner and Jews, who were considered sub-human.  The main  period during which building work took place was 1941 to 1943 and from a civil engineering point of view, really very impressive and apart from all the reinforced concrete, many of the entrances were neatly built from Jersey granite, and look as good today as when they were built, as will be seen on the attached pic  of a wall going down a slope to a bunker entrance.

Though clearly it was oppressive to have Germans everywhere, and for the last year or so food was in very short supply due to blockades, the Islanders fared far better than almost anywhere else that was occupied by Germans. Furthermore, in the later stages, the Islanders were better fed than the Germans as they got Red Cross food parcels, and the Germans were forbidden for taking food intended for the Islanders, nor did they. (Cats, dogs, or anything else that would make a meal didn't fare so well).

The most harrowing place I can bring to mind is the village of Oradour Sur Glane in SW France, where in July 1944, German troops en route to Normandy took it upon themselves to slaughter everyone in the village and destroy all the buildings. It's now known as the 'martyred village' and left as it was in 1944, with burnt our cars and so forth, and completely deserted. A new village was later built close by.

Way off the topic of clandestine crystal sets - often mentioned, but rarely seen. 

Saw plenty of examples of anonymous tip-offs - notes to the Germans in scrawly upper case writing:  'Mrs Smith has a radio hidden under the floorboards in her front bedroom' etc.  'Twas ever thus.

[pwdrive]

How did you get there David, Aeroplane, the slow boat or the vomit rocket?

Lawrence.

[Radio Fixer]

Read a "Sword and the Pen" book about Oradour Sur Glane. As you say it was a terrible atrocity but by troops that had been fighting on the Russian fronts where such practices were the norm; no excuse of course.

I don't remember them slaughtering everybody but quite some number and it makes little difference how many. The act was terrible.

Wanted to go and see it but was told there isn't a lot to see and its not very sensitively set up (and my wife would go anywhere near it of course).

Pen and the Sword books were always a good read in my opinion.

Gary

[Yorkie]

Yes indeed, Pen & Sword are excellent books Gary.

Oradour is in a peaceful part of SW France where there was no fighting going on - the troops who committed the massacre were just passing through on 10 June 1944 en route to Normandy to try to repel the Allied invasion. Many who committed the massacre were themselves killed in action days later.  642 men women and children were rounded up and slaughtered and very few villagers escaped. The women and children were marched off to the church, the children being encouraged by the soldiers to sing as they went. The men were divided into six groups and led off to different barns in the village under armed guard. When the people were all safely shut away the SS began to kill them all.

As to what there is to see, basically, it's a deserted burnt out village left just as it was on 10 June 1944. The only items left there are things that didn't burn - rusting cars, farm machinery,  bedsteads, sewing machines, babies prams  and so forth. I won't post any pics - there are lots here for anyone interested:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=oradour+sur+glane&rls=com.microsoft:en-GB:IE-Address&rlz=1I7ADRA_enGB420&tbm=isch&imgil=14wvWSK3GdrCuM%253A%253B74A4aPgqRxdp1M%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fen.wikipedia.org%25252Fwiki%25252FOradour-sur-Glane&source=iu&pf=m&fir=14wvWSK3GdrCuM%253A%252C74A4aPgqRxdp1M%252C_&biw=1440&bih=810&usg=__2y9WSfahjzesWj8RaNzbo0T01Uk%3D&ved=0CEIQyjdqFQoTCI3Q45OvgMgCFUVbFAodMOYOcA&ei=ieb7Vc3nI8W2UbDMu4AH#imgrc=14wvWSK3GdrCuM%3A&usg=__2y9WSfahjzesWj8RaNzbo0T01Uk%3D

The Oradour website is here:

http://www.oradour.info/

Few people visit Oradour and as you can imagine, few would want to. It's certainly not promoted as a tourist attraction. I first learned of it from the 'World at War' TV series where aerial views of it feature in the credits. Along ith my wife and younger son we went there in 2012 as part of a 7-day tour entitled 'S.O.E., S.A.S. & The French Resistance'. Very thought provoking and it stunned everyone into silence. What I found a bit odd was that they built a new Oradour village alongside the burnt out one, yet all but a handful of Oradour residents had perished in the massacre. We went by coach from Hull so it was a long journey via Calais down to Bordeaux ('Cockleshell Heroes') and back:

http://www.visitbattlefields.co.uk/tours.../itinerary

The Occupation & Liberation Tour of Jersey that we've just returned from was an altogether different thing - much more relaxed - not battlefields, no war graves, no destruction etc, very little loss of life, and included two free days:

http://www.leger.co.uk/Battlefields/tour...self-drive

They only do two tours there each year - one in May to coincide with the Liberation - the other is Sept to coincide with the Battle of Britain Air Display.

Sorry it's way off the topic of clandestine crystal sets, which a google search has provided little evidence of, other than so called 'foxhole sets', as allegedly developed by US POWs.

The image of lots of Channel Islanders tuning in on their clandestine homebrew crystal sets is an appealing notion, but I suspect that it's more of a romanticised urban myth than reality. Why would they want to use a feeble crystal set anyway, when the islands would have lots of valves and components to make simple TRF receivers, and the electricity to power them? The late 30s early 40s was an era when simple homebrew radios were the norm for anyone the least bit handy. 

[pwdrive]

HMS Charybdis was sunk off Guernsey while taking part in Operation Tunnel , my Dad remembered that day although his ship was somewhere else on that day, I'm sure he knew some of the crew.

Brief overview here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guernsey/content/ar...ture.shtml

For a good insight into the bungling that went on in the upper naval command a good book to read is Destroyer Captain by Capt. Roger Hill if you should come across a copy.

HMS Charybdis was known to the ratings who's base was at Plymouth (including my Dad) as "The Cherry B"

Lawrence

[colly0410]

When I built a crystal set many years ago it needed a long wire aerial & earth to work, it'd only pick up radio 2 from Droitwich on long wave & radio 3 on medium wave from Daventry . I'm wondering in the Islanders disguised the crystal set aerials? i.e. Mortared aerial wires into the wall between the bricks, hidden under roof slates, disguised as barbed wire fences, telephone wires ect. Did the Germans confiscate the normal out in the open long wire aerials as well?

[Yorkie]

I'd have thought that anyone not wishing to draw attention to themselves would have dismantled any aerials they'd had in place prior to the occupation of the Germans, and use some sort of concealed aerial as large as the could. I'm very sceptical about crystal sets being used to listed to say the BBC, given the short range capabilities of crystal sets and the distance from transmitters in England.  Jersey is only 20 miles from the coast of France, but again, I've no idea how far the nearest French station would have been, and though French domestic sets weren't confiscated, their news would have been heavily censored.

Apart from that,  few Jersey Islanders at the time could speak or understand French or even 'Jersey French', which is now almost extinct, except among a few older residents, though there are efforts to revive it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A8rriais

Of course, there didn't need to be many clandestine sets of any kind because once received, news spreads rapidly by word of mouth.

Most of the Germans were around the coast, busily  preoccupied with building and manning the extensive defensive structures so I guess that in the more rural areas there was more chance of having a valved radio and it going undiscovered, albeit there aren't any 'remote' areas on an island which measures only about 5 miles x 9 miles, so the Germans were never far away.  I didn't get the impression that Germans actively sought out clandestine radios - I think that most were discovered as a result of 'tip-offs' from people betraying neighbours etc, maybe to settle scores or to gain  'brownie points' or favours from the Germans.