Bob Le Sueur visited us at Hautlieu School on the 16.09.2019, 10 days before he turns 99 years of age. Bob was 19 years old when the Germans arrived to occupy Jersey, and 24 when the island was liberated.
Bob Le Sueur – Younger Portrait 
Bob Le Sueur – Present Day
‘Humour was psychologically heaven sent’
– Bob Le Sueur
Bob described to us the day that the Germans arrived in Jersey and the reaction of the islanders and the atmosphere between everyone.
On the 28th June 1940 there was an air raid in Jersey. Lots of people were killed and there was huge damage across Jersey. Bob lived along Victoria Avenue and was woken by the planes, he recognised the planes as German bombers. He saw two, what at the time, he thought were ‘parachutes’ dropping and thought that they were German troops, but they were cylinders containing messaged to the commander to inform him that the island couldn’t be protected because it wasn’t of value. At 6am the following morning there was a bombing in Luxembourg without any warning before. One of the German troops met the Duchess of Luxembourg and said ‘I’m so sorry, we’re coming through’ before the Germans proceeded to go through to Northern France.
The messaged contained thread that was a warning giving 24 hours to surrender. If not, then the island would endure ‘carpet bombing’ which would have been fatal on a tiny island, such as Jersey. The messages were delivered to the bailiff who then summoned an emergency states sitting. Bob described the atmosphere in Jersey at this time revolving heavily around propaganda.
‘‘Leave honesty at home’
– Bob Le Sueur
Bob told us about the time that he asked on of the Germans ‘Whats going on?’ when there was people crowded around in the Royal Square, St. Helier, and the German responded by saying ‘I’m not allowed to tell you, mate’. Bob then overheard two women in front of him, one of them turned to the other and she said ‘When this is all over we must hurry back home and barricade the doors, there are going to be a lot of woman raped before nightfall’, this told us a lot in itself about how woman were treated in such a different era.
‘It was all VERY tense!’
– Bob Le Sueur
Forced labor was brought in and a lot of them were Spanish. 700,000 crossed from Spain to France and were put into camps. France were told to produce an X amount of men for human labor. France handed over all able bodied Spanish men to build fortifications in Jersey with additional workers from Holland. Bob then told us about the racism at the time and that some were called part of the ‘Slav Race’ which meant that they would be taken as slaves due to their race, they were referred to as ‘sub-human’.
‘People in EVERY part of the world are extraordinarily alike. The world is full of wonderful people’
– Bob Le Sueur