Festung Guernsey

A short video entitled “Festung Guernsey” (Fortress Guernsey) showing a restored battery on the south coast of Guernsey. Guernsey and the Channel Islands was very much a part of Hitler’s Atlantic wall, his attempt to fortify the coast of Europe from Norway to Spain against allied invasion.

The Channel Islands were the most heavily fortified part of the wall, particularly Alderney & Guernsey as the oulying islands in the channel. Nearly 10% of all concrete used in this vast defence system was used in the Channel Islands, because of the propaganda value of controlling British territory. After D-Day on June 6th 1944 the Allies bypassed the islands and did not try to liberate them when they invaded Normandy. The islands’ German garrisons did not surrender until 9 May 1945 – one day after the German armed forces on the mainland. The German garrison on Alderney did not surrender until 16 May.



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