MBE, Bob Le Sueur was 19 when World War II started, he came into school to talk about his stories of the occupation and how he helped escaped Russian slaves.
The first story he told us was was of the German’s arrival which took place in 1940 on July 1st. He lived on Victoria’s Avenue seafront and saw these two parachutes in the sky but there weren’t people attached to them but cylinders. Inside the cylinders were messages addressed to the bailiff, saying that Jersey had 24 hours to surrender or the Nazi’s would carpet-bomb the whole island. The British had demilitarized the channel islands leaving them weaponless, all they said was for the Islands to ‘do the best they can’.
The second story was how escaped Russians slaves were sheltered by locals. Bob once helped a Russian but this particular story was about his two mates who kept a Russian, who was labelled as a Polish to protect his identity. If you were known to the Nazi’s as a ‘Slav’ you were taken as a slave and were called sub-human. Rations were already very low so the two men bought an illegal identification card in order to gain another ration book, so all was working well. September 1944, it was announced that this was the last day the island would have a gas supply, so not more gas cooking, only open fire. These two men decided to hold a party for this occasion, so they invited people over for drinks and to have one final celebration, but it all went pair shaped when the Russian drank too much and started doing Russian dances, word got around by nothing came from it as most locals hid Russians and wouldn’t snitch.
The third story was of Liberation day and how it had been announced that Hitler had died defending his country (which we now know is fake news) and that an armistice is being written. 7:14 am the liberation of the channel Islands was signed on a British Destroyer at St.Peter’s Port Harbour. Bob went with his friends on their bicycles made from garden hoses to the pier by the bottom of Mount Bingham to see the boat come in. As they were arriving they went past two Germans holding rifles, Bob’s bike in that instant broke and let of a large gun shot sound which alerted the Germans and when he looked up thy were pointing there rifles at him. This moment was intense but the Germans retreated when they realised what had happened. Overall this story gave a message that we are all humans are the same at the end of the day and Bob was saying how the Germans could have shot him there and then but they didn’t. Bob also was reminiscing on how he regretted not shaking the Germans hands.
