Jersey Military Tours

19/04/2024

A talk I am giving on Wednesday 8th May at 1pm at Société Jersiaise members room. Grosnez Castle is probably the most well-known Jersey landmark about which so little is known - until now! Free entry, booking on Eventbrite

“Grosnez Castle – a Medieval whodunnit” presented by Marc Yates

27/05/2023

Rollo, the first Duc de Normandie

Rollo was a well-known Viking leader who lived between the 9th and 10th centuries AD. He is best-known for becoming the ruler of Normandy and is therefore sometimes referred to as the first Duke of Normandy.

28/03/2022

05/02/2022

We have been looking through my mother's photos over the last few days. I can across this photo which I don't think I had seen before. Bottom left is my grandfather Josue (Joe) Dorey who enlisted in the 27th Battalion (City of Winnipeg) Canadian Infantry in August 1914. Having emigrated from Jersey as a teenager (a younger son of a farming family looking to seek his fortune in the world), he had claimed that he had 2 years Jersey Militia service, which may have assisted in him getting his Lance corporal stripe as they arrived in England in early 1915. Whether he actually had done militia service when as far as we know, he was in Canada, is another thing - but it would have been typical of him to have embellished his experience!
Photo is almost certainly taken at Shorncliffe where the Canadian 2nd Division were camped whilst training before embarcation to France in the summer of 1915.

10/04/2021

Personnel bunker at Batterie Lothringen, Jersey - a Kriegsmarine coastal battery of four turreted 15cm guns which had originally been mounted on a battleship.
Notwithstanding its military purpose, the crews took time to decorate the interior of the bunker in an apparent attempt to make it a little more "homely". There are a number of other bunkers with similar decorative artwork and in some quite elaborate pictures were painted onto the concrete walls.
This battery and its complex of bunkers are open to the public (either with permanent open access or on open days of the Channel Islands Occupation Society for those bunkers which have been restored and/or preserved.)

22/03/2021

Gorey Castle - medieval fortress or German WW2 Strongpoint? See post below for answer

22/03/2021

Sunset behind Noirmont Tower this evening

12/02/2021

The difference between victor and vanquished - the leaders of the opposing sides in the Battle of Jersey on 6th January 1781 both died as a result of wounds received in the battle. Major Francis Peirson (photo 2), the senior officer commanding British and Jersey Militia forces was killed on the point of victory as his troops stormed the French troops who had been surrounded in the centre of St Helier.
As hero of the day and the man who saved the Island from the French, his grave is in the nave of the Town Church of St Helier. He also has a large memorial close to the side chapel altar.
Baron de Rullecourt (photo4), the leader of the French forces, who today might be called a soldier of fortune having taken French financial support but without official French military resources unless the expedition to capture Jersey was successful, was severely wounded in the fighting and he died shortly afterwards.
His grave was outside of the church in the churchyard, marked with a simple stone with his name and date of death.

11/02/2021

Write up written by Daily Mirror travel editor Nigel Thompson on his trip to Jersey last September. I provided a tour for him when he was here.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/travel/uk-ireland/jersey-should-top-your-wishlist-23434811

If you have not been to Jersey before you should put this Channel Islands gem on your holiday wishlist as soon as we can travel again

10/02/2021

A WW2 German artillery observation and range finding tower which is now used as holiday accommodation has new furniture delivered by an unusual method!

REDECORATING a historic property can be a tricky business...

08/02/2021

Found this short video that I make a while ago and had forgotten that I had done so!

Watch this video I made on animoto.com

05/02/2021

For all us battlefield guides, the ongoing archaeological work on Hill 80 in Wijtschate is a new interpretation method I think. Examination of the location small arms cartridge cases discovered on the dig and comparing that to War Diaries to see actual evidence of where fighting took place. I was lucky to spend a week on the dig and my contribution was to expose the remains of duckboards and trench revetments in a German fighting trench, apart from finding a few bits of unexploded ordnance!

07/01/2021

Moving across the 16 miles which separates Jersey from Normandy, the latter is the obvious place to combine / extend any military themed tour from Jersey.
Here we have a structure which actually dates back to WW1 - it is an French Naval airship hangar, the interior of which is architecturally spectacular!
In WW2 it was used by German occupying forces and indeed there was an action fought between US forces and German forces who had prepared defensive positions around it.
It was then used as a holding pen for German prisoners of war, whose graffiti is still evident on the interior walls.
The white object bottom right is a small airship which one can apparently fly around the hangar!

06/01/2021

Just love these photos from a series I took 4 years ago. No commemoration today with Covid restrictions.
Exactly 240 years ago in 1781, the last pitched battle within the British Isles was fought in Jersey between British and Jersey Militia troops and opposing French forces, who had landed in the early hours of the morning. The Battle of Jersey consisted of two separate engagements - the main one in the centre of the Island's capital St Helier and another near the landing point of the French. Both were victories over the invading forces.
Each year, the 1781 Jersey Militia living history group normally commemorate the battle, and here they are in Grouville Churchyard, where 7 Grenadiers were buried.

29/12/2020

I am very chuffed that my 86 year old father spent considerable time and care in mounting his Grandfather's collection of WW1 badges and then gave them to me for Christmas. My great grandfather was a Sergeant in the Royal Garrison Artillery and was at the Western from from 1915 to 1918 and no doubt like many soldiers at the time swapped badges with men from other units that they met.

21/12/2020

Have finally got around to sorting out my Instagram page!
https://www.instagram.com/jerseymilitarytours/
Please feel free to visit and Follow my photographs

29/11/2020

Out for a walk with friends yesterday when I was surprised to be shown three WW2 Era German anti aircraft gun mounts in a field not 500 yards of where I used to live for about 6 years! Even clearly visible from the road so amazed I hadn't seen them before! We also had some onlookers!

18/11/2020

FOCUS: Jersey and the 'Great Escape'

I often take my groups to the Scheidhauer Memorial and most are really surprised with the connection between Jersey and the Great Escape.

78 years ago today, a Royal Air Force Spitfire crash-landed in a Jersey field, which triggered a series of exploits, resulting in the pilot being immortalised in the Film, ‘The Great Escape’.

17/11/2020

ITV Channel TV

Thought to have been a mine which has sat on the seabed for more than 75 years outside of Guernsey's main harbour

See the moment the Royal Navy detonated a World War II bomb near the Refee Buoy outside the QE2 marina earlier today.

Read More: https://bit.ly/36MdLLk

07/11/2020

With particular relevance to the upcoming anniversary of Armistice Day.

07/11/2020

Repost from a recce three years ago

06/11/2020

3 years ago on the one hundredth anniversary of the capture of Passchendaele by Canadian forces when my grandfather led his platoon from the jumping off point just outside the village.

A hundred years ago today, my grandfather went into action with the 27th Battalion Canadian Infantry at Passchendaele. I had promised myself that I had to be there hundred years later.
Read more http://www.historyalive.je/2017/11/06/one-hundred-years-passchendaele-zero-hour/

05/11/2020

Working with Jersey Heritage this morning at MP3, a WW2 German observation and rangefinding tower at Corbière on the south-western corner of Jersey, to produce a podcast to advertise the "heritage" holiday accommodation which has been created there.
A beautiful sunny November day and the views from the living room on what is now the top floor are absolutely stunning.
First time that I had been in this tower and I am impressed by the way in which it has been converted to a provide a use to be enjoyed by many!

28/10/2020

Hopefully we'll be out battlefield touring again soon!

07/10/2020

Short-Lived & Largely Forgotten Westland Whirlwind

The often forgotten British fighter of WW2. Two were shot down on 7th December 1942 off the south coast of Jersey by German occupying forces and both pilots were killed. Their bodies were not recovered.
Here is an extract of 263 Squadron diary:
December 7th. Roadsteead No. 45 proved an operation of triumph and tragedy for the squadron. A convoy was located off the South-west coast of Jersey and four ships were sunk or seriously damaged by the squadron's bombs. But W/O Don McPhail was seen to fly
through a heavy flak burst and to dive straight into the sea. He is Missing, Presumed Killed in Action. And S/Ldr R.S. Woodward, DFC, was seen to be hit by flak and make what looked like a prepared “ditching” it is hoped that he may have become a prisoner-of-war.

Many years later, a propeller from one of the aircraft was recovered by local divers and is on display at the CIOS Jersey site at Batterie Moltke .
There is a memorial to the pilots at Noirmont Point overlooking the area of the engagement.

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.warhistoryonline.com%2Finstant-articles%2Fwestland-whirlwind.html&h=AT23QLUMS_3e2Svft8GbOpg0hTgJ_SV1JLJIsv-lAHLVMornt4v5Kw2w308s2fGopLvI5Ot3ztlimp8e_xY37twintJM-NwlobLJm6A3EdnelgeRnSVwk34rdTt5CYfbCCwZ&s=1

If you were asked to name a cannon-armed, twin-engine heavy fighter in service with one of the combatant nations during the Battle of Britain, you would

02/10/2020

Another fascinating piece of Jersey's military history! It is likely that many of these men "retired" to Jersey on their half pay pension and made Jersey their home. St Saviour being the parish where Government House is and on the outskirts of Town was a fashionable place to live, and the Church cemetery next door to the Lieutenant Governor's residence was the place to be buried!

Following the discovery of over 100 Revolutionary and Napoleonic War soldiers in our churchyard, a memorial plaque has been placed in the church which lists the names of the 58 soldiers who are buried in the churchyard who fought with Wellington in the Peninsular War (1808-1814) and at the Battle of Waterloo (1815).

10/09/2020

History Alive Jersey historyalive.je

Part of the ancient medieval fortress Gorey Castle, whose construction was first ordered to be started by King John (or Duc Jean de Normandie) after he lost continental Normandy to King Philippe of France in 1204 and was forced to leave his capital (Rouen) and take up residence in England! The Castle was built on the site of a promontory iron age fort, which is quite likely to have been built on an earlier neolithic site. Effectively last used for military purposes by the British in the early 19th century, it was later to become part of Strongpoint Gorey under German occupation in WW2 (having evicted my grandparents and my mother who lived there at the time!)

Castle Green at Gorey Castle has in the past been called "La Garenne du Château" or "The King's Warren" and would have supplied rabbit meat for the Crown. It probably extended all the way up the hill (Mont Nicholas) opposite before that land was alienated by the Crown.
The rabbits seem to have re-colonised what is left of the ancient Warren! At about 7 o'clock this evening.

30/08/2020

It isn't just military stuff that we see on our tours. We often see some fantastic bird life, particularly birds of prey.
Today however it was three Choughs flying above Grosnez Castle clearly enjoying themselves making their characteristic Chee-ow calls. (I didn't have a camera on me so photo is courtesy of Michael Dryden off the Jersey National Trust page)