White sheets waving from the windows,

Empty streets for we must stay indoors,

Shamed by our surrender to the Fürer,

We sit in shock and fear awaiting German Laws;

And slowly realise our little World, is changed for ever.

 

No welcome for those green and grey smart uniforms

When we emerge to face their Nazi rules,

To find as if by magic the Islanders are united,

No fraternising or collaborating, are now our only tools;

And our cold war with the enemy now begins.

 

We find the years that follow pass so slowly,

The evil treatment of slave workers oft displayed,

So heart breaking is the bestiality of our enemies

The good and worst of people so often portrayed;

We learn to improvise, all things in short supply.

 

When shortages of food are getting desperate,

All manner of survival is contrived,

Then Manna from Heaven, Red Cross parcels,

To the Channel Islands have arrived;

These Red Cross gifts will save so many lives.

 

France is liberated months before us,

This makes these last months seem so long,

In one thing we are united, despite the Nazi’s long sojourn,

One day our King with the Allied Forces,

To our Island’s thankfully will return.

 

Came the day of liberation when freed Islanders went insane,

In the weeks that followed came the joy of families re-united,

Collaborators, their files of bad behaviour we will retain.

Freedom to talk, to write, to listen and to travel, we are excited;

For us the joy of re-gained freedom forever will remain.