As part of the Occupation Vs Liberation side of our project we were given the opportunity to interview and photograph two occupation survivors. Friends, Hinault and Joyce De Le Haye came in and told us some personal stories of their experience of the occupation. While Joyce came off as rather shy, Hinault had no problem telling us about the time he tricked a German soldier into drinking too much cider.
‘I got a German soldier drunk.’
Hinault left school on his birthday when he was 14 years old to work as a Heard’s man on his father’s farm. It was his job to look after 20-25 cattle, only receiving help from his parents to milk them.
Once the occupation began farmers were forces to grow several ‘Vergies’ (areas of land) of wheat. During September the wheat would be harvested. At the time Hinault was too young to lift the harvested sacks of wheat so he was tasked to fill up jouts (2 gallons) with cider to give to the farmers. Everyday one German soldier would stand guard. One day a ‘young soldier with a nice personality’ stood guard. The soldier would always smile at Hinault when he walked past.
‘I wondered if I could roll this one over. I never distinguished if it was brave or foolish.’
The soldier, not used to drinking cider, kept accepting Hinault’s offers of more to drink. Before long the soldier was ‘flat on the floor’. Hinault went to tell father what he done immediately. However, Hinault’s father didn’t believe him, so Hinault took him to see his work. Upon, seeing that his son was telling the truth, he exclaimed in Jerais (Jersey-French), “The kid has got the Jerry drunk!” There was still a few hours until until the sacks of wheat were to be collected so the farmers took this as an opportunity to steal some to keep for themselves.