Diary extract reveals soaked Nazi's rocky night

Friday 21 December 2018

A sodden German officer and his crew had to spend all the night trapped at Corbière with only jokes for company when their boat got stuck in the rocks amid a surprise change of weather, a previously unseen Nazi diary extract has revealed.

To some, it might sound like the start of a joke at the expense of the island's enemy occupiers, but it's a real life scenario that played out on this day 74 years ago during fog so thick it was barely possible to see one foot ahead.

In this year's final wartime story on what's the shortest day of the year, Jersey War Tunnels historians unleashed the nearly three-quarters-of-a-century-old tale from the so-called 'Occupation Diary' of Baron von Aufsess, and shared it with Express...

"The German Officer set off back to Jersey on a sunny afternoon. It was 21 December 1944, the shortest day of the year, but what he thought would be a short journey turned out to be much longer.

Baron von Aufsess wrote about the crossing in his diary. He said it had started in glorious weather and was at first a sheer delight. "The sea was calm with only a slight swell. The sun, low in the sky, appeared like a golden ball and made a luminous path across the sea," he wrote.

But as the crew approached Jersey, banks of dense fog suddenly rolled up. "We soon lost all sense of direction and had to steer by compass," the Baron recalled. "There were only three of us on board and we stood around the helmsman straining our eyes for the rocks which surround Corbière."

Pictured: Dense fog prevented the party from seeing the rocks around Corbière. 

Suddenly they heard the foghorn of the lighthouse booming out right before then. This was followed almost immediately by a terrifying crash. "We had run onto rocks, our ship undamaged, but stuck absolutely fast," the diary entry says.

"The rising tide swamped the boat and the heavy swell swept over it, so we were soaked to the skin, and had to climb out and take refuge on the highest point of the reef."

In the dark, visibility was reduced to less than a yard. The tide at last began to turn, but it was only 19:00 so the party had to sit on the rock in their wringing wet clothes all night. "Fortunately, it was comparatively mild and windless. We passed the time in an exchange of grim jokes," the Baron said.

Pictured: The Baron and his crew spent all night on a rock, in wet clothing.

When dawn came, the fog had completely disappeared. Boats had already left St. Helier to look for the crew, and they were soon picked up and returned to the harbour, where two of the Baron's colleagues met him.

Despite the long night in not so ideal conditions, the crew stayed in high spirits. "Then the funny side struck us and we all burst out laughing," the Baron said. "In my borrowed sailor’s uniform, which was much too small for me, and a bit unsteady on my feet after all the schnapps I had taken to keep out the cold, I must have seemed a comic figure. "

"In fact, I did not even get a cold in the head after my 14 hours soaking in sea water," he concluded."