Fond farewell to the Occupation's last surviving forced worker

Tuesday 13 January 2015

“A wonderful, really caring family man who absolutely adored all of his family” - that’s how the daughter of the Occupation’s last surviving forced worker describes her father who died just over a week ago at the age of 95.

Rita Hockley says there was nothing Emile Boydens wouldn’t have done for his eight children who he had with the Jersey girl he fell in love with during the Second World War.

Emile Boydens who was a member of the Belgium Army was brought over by the Germans in 1941 and was one of many forced to work fortifying the Island.

Mrs Hockley said: “He was treated really badly during the War, they were forced to work on all the fortifications – the German Underground Hospital, the sea wall at Corbiere and La Pulente in appalling conditions – a good 13/14 hour day.”

He was later sent to a camp in the North of France to work making rocket launchers but escaped to come back to the Island to be with Rita’s mother, Mabel who he married at 6 am on 16 June 1944.

The man who had started a career as a professional cyclist in Belgium forged a new career as a stonemason on the Island although Rita says he always loved cycling and was “mad on the Tour de France”.

He regularly attended the Westmount Memorial with his family on Liberation Day to remember the thousands of slave and forced workers who like him, were forced to turn the Channel Islands into fortresses as part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall.

Emile’s funeral takes place tomorrow at 12 o’clock at St Brelade’s Bay Church.

(picture courtesy of Rita Hockley shows Emile Boydens and his wife Mabel on their last wedding anniversary together in the Isle of Wight on their 57th anniversary, 17 June 2001)