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The St John Ambulance Transport Division, which later became Ambulance and Rescue, was still in its infancy at the outbreak of World War Two, having only been established by Reg Blanchford in 1936. At the start of the Occupation there were three full-time paid professional staff. The voluntary St John Ambulance Brigade (SJAB) was only a few years older, but both parts of the organisation played an important role during the Occupation of Guernsey.
In June 1940 St John was heavily involved in transporting the sick and frail from private houses, nursing homes and the hospitals to the harbour ahead of the evacuation. However not everyone wanted to leave, so St John also had the role of caring for those who stayed behind.
On 28th June 1940, a few days before the Geman Occupation began, the Luftwaffe bombed the White Rock in St Peter Port, mistaking tomato lorries at the harbour for munitions trucks. Ambulance driver Joe Way was killed in the air raid and several St John men were injured, some seriously. One ambulance was destroyed and another suffered serious damage, with shrapnel hitting the door. The injured were taken by St John to the Country Hospital and SJAB members worked through the night, assisting doctors in the operating theatres.
Although the occupying forces initially wanted to run the ambulance service, Reg Blanchford persuaded the German Commandant to allow St John to continue to operate, providing medical care and transport for the sick and injured. While much of this work was routine, there were added complexities such as the night-time curfew, which resulted in additional strain on the ambulance service, particularly when it came to maternity cases.
In the early part of the Occupation the ambulance service received a call from members of the public who had found some injured allied airmen washed up in a dingy on the west coast. St John members took a risk in responding to the call and transporting the men to the Emergency Hospital, rather than alerting the German authorities. This resulted in the questioning of Reg Blanchford, but no further action was taken.
As well as calls to come to the aid of sick and injured islanders, the ambulance service was also called upon to treat and transport German soldiers. During this period the service also responded to a number of serious road traffic collisions, with vehicles driving on the wrong side of the road.
In 1942, St John was responsible for the evacuation of Les Cotils nursing home and conveying the residents to Blanchelande, after the Germans decided to commandeer the building.
1943 saw another major operation, with the moving of patients from the Town Hospital, now the police station, to the Country Hospital, during artillery range finding practice over St Peter Port.
Many of these activities were secretly photographed by Reg Blanchford. Although cameras were banned, Reg captured hundreds of images during the Occupation on his camera, sometimes hidden under his coat or under a duster on the dashboard of an ambulance. He also defied the German authorities by listening to news broadcasts on a hidden radio set at his home.
Later in the war, there were several cases of islanders being injured, and in some cases killed, after straying into mine fields along the coastline. One case in 1943 required the new cliff rescue team to reach the injured on the Torteval cliffs.
The ambulance service worked under some difficult and challenging circumstances. Perhaps one of the most challenging was in November 1943, when members of the St John Ambulance Brigade and the Transport Division were called upon to recover the bodies of sailors washed up on the Guernsey coastline following the sinking of HMS Charybdis and HMS Limbourne.
Initially St John members were allowed to wear their uniform, however this was later banned and ambulance crews wore white overalls, with a red cross arm band stamped by the German authorities. This restriction was lifted towards the end of the Occupation when uniforms were permitted again.
After D-Day when supply routes from Europe were cut off, the island faced a period of increased hardship, with a lack of food supplies, medical equipment and fuel. This led to the conversion of an ambulance to run on carbon and later the introduction of horse drawn ambulances. The first saw an old ambulance with its engine removed, redesigned to be pulled by two horses; however, this was too heavy and St John turned to local carriage builders to purpose build a horse drawn ambulance based on plans from the 1800s.
In December 1944, when many islanders were starving, the SS Vega visited the island carrying food parcels from the International Red Cross and the Order of St John. It was the job of St John to transport the food parcels to St George’s Hall where they were to be stored and guard them around the clock, before they were distributed around the island.
As the end of the war drew near allied air raids targeted German infrastructure on the island. Sadly this resulted in injuries and fatalities to several islanders, all of which were attended by St John.
Despite the restrictions and the challenges, St John continued to provide care, compassion and transport for the sick an injured, and no call went unanswered. As well as the St John Ambulance Brigade and Transport Division, the women of the Nursing Division played an important role in serving the island during the war.
On 9th May 1945, Liberation Day, St John members put on their uniforms and went on duty among the large crowds in St Peter Port as islanders cheered the arrival of the liberating forces and celebrated their freedom. Reg Blanchford celebrated by uncovering a sports car which he had kept hidden under building material at the Rohais and driving it into St Peter Port.
After the Liberation one of the tasks for St John was to gather together all of the medical supplies and drugs left behind by the Germans.
This article is based on material from the book Guernsey’s Occupation Ambulance Service and interviews with the book’s author Gary Blanchford, the son of Reg Blanchford. The photographs are from the Reg Blanchford collection. The photos may not be reproduced without permission.
