Happy birthday Bob! Occupation hero celebrates 100th birthday

Monday 05 October 2020

Islanders and Occupation experts have been wishing a happy 100th birthday to a local hero, who saved the lives of numerous escaped Russian prisoners during the Occupation.

Bob Le Sueur MBE celebrated the milestone birthday on Saturday.

He was only a 19-year-old insurance clerk when the Germans first arrived on the island in 1940, and continued to spend his early 20s working in the profession.

In a remarkable act of bravery and selflessness, Mr Le Sueur helped a number of Russian prisoners of war who had been brought to the island as labour, assisting them in evading capture and sheltering.

CLICK to enlarge: The hero's Occupation registration card. (Jersey Heritage)

His ethos was captured on a plaque in York Street in 2006.

"Nazi racists ranked their Russian slave workers as sub-human. Any racial prejudices we personally may harbour are first steps on that same viciously slippery slope."

He was royally recognised for his lifesaving efforts in 2013, when he was listed in the Queen’s Honours List and made an MBE by Prince Charles.

Pictured: Mr Le Sueur is quoted on a plaque on York Street.

Mr Le Sueur has also been a passionate supporter of the French language on the island, having been given a ‘Chevalier’ award in 2018 for his efforts as both a founding member of the Les Amitiés Franco-Britanniques de Jersey organisation and as an occasional translator for Durrell. 

Express’ resident Occupation historian Colin Isherwood gave his “best wishes” to the “cheerful, optimistic and very humorous” Mr Le Sueur on his milestone birthday, remarking that his help in sheltering Russian workers was “a wonderful act of humanity.”

The Channel Islands Occupation Society and its President, Tony Pike, also sent best wishes to their “good friend and supporter Bob Le Sueur”, stating that “he certainly made the difference to the lives of some slave and forced workers in the island, who managed to escape from labour camps that were around the island.”

Pictured: Mr Le Sueur - appearing here with the Lieutenant Governor and then-Bailiff - was also given a 'Chevalier' award for helping to promote the French language in the Jersey community.

They continued: “Bob managed to find temporary accommodation for some of those workers, thanks to many contacts he made during his work as an Acting Manager of the Pearl Insurance company in Hill Street. 

“Bob had to travel all over the island visiting clients on his bike - which was by all accounts a very poor one - utilising hosepipes for tyres because the rubber ones that we all take for granted today were not available as those long occupation years wore on. 

“When you speak to Bob about the Occupation, it is like going back in a time machine as his memories are so clear. One can see in your mind’s eye what he describes so vividly, it is truly marvellous."

Pictured: Mr Le Sueur helped shelter and save Russian prisoners in Jersey during the Occupation. 

The Vice President of the Society and owner of the Channel Island Military Museum, Damien Horn, added that what Mr Le Sueur “did during the occupation will never be forgotten locally; he is that sort of hero that stayed and did above and beyond his duty.”

Chris Stone, the writer and historian who composed Mr Le Sueur’s recent book of memoirs, ‘Growing Up Fast', which was released this year, also paid tribute to Mr Le Sueur.

He shared a very special story encapsulating the islander's kindness and spirit with Express...

“Bob Le Sueur can be summed up for me by a story about chocolate. 

“As he, like most islanders, starved in the winter of 1944, he kept on his bedroom shelf a block of Menier cooking chocolate, a reward he’d been given in the summer for donating blood at the General Hospital.  

“Even while he and his family were reduced to eating raw vegetables, and limpets prised from the rocks opposite their house at First Tower, he kept his block of chocolate and somehow resisted what must have been an overwhelming urge to rip it open and eat it at once.  

“He took it off the shelf and looked at it every evening as rations were cut further, but still he held out.

“Finally, on Christmas Day 1944, he and his friends gathered together to wish each other well. There was virtually nothing to eat or drink, but they held a strong bond of friendship born of shared danger and hardship over four and a half long years. 

“As he stood in the doorway, his fingers traced the outline of the cubes of chocolate still in their wrapper. There were just enough for one each...

“A man of honour, a man of principle, he does not suffer fools gladly but is exceptionally generous to those in need, often to the detriment of his own welfare. 

“I was privileged to have written his memoirs, which we wrote together fuelled by Chocolate Buttons. He slowly savoured every single one.”