On 9 May 1945, Generalmajor Siegfried Heine, the German commander in Guernsey, arrived on board the B-class destroyer HMS Bulldog. After a few formalities, including having his identification papers checked, he was led to the wardroom, where he agreed to the unconditional surrender of the occupying forces. After a delegation on HMS Beagle arranged the signing of similar surrender documents in Jersey, the five-year Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands formally came to an end.
Yet even a few short hours beforehand, this victory had seemed uncertain. Just the previous day, junior naval officer Kapitänleutnant Armin Zimmermann had warned that safe passage had only been granted to British vessels to discuss armistice terms, as the agreed ceasefire didn’t begin until one minute after midnight on the 9th.
In the event,…
