When an army of beetles descended on Jersey after World War II, threatening to devastate the island’s potato industry, an unlikely group of heroes came to the rescue.
Their challenge was not only to fight the pest but also rise to the challenges of building new lives in a foreign land…
When the Colorado beetle – a striped orange pest that threatened Jersey’s potato and tomato crops – arrived in Jersey from France, a crew of anti-beetle sprayers made up of former Polish soldiers came to the island to help tackle the little beast.
During their stay, some made links so strong that they tried to stay in their new home, with one soldier finding love and getting married to an islander.
A treasure trove of newly-released archive documents has illustrated some of the stories of the men who helped eradicate the beetles.
The archives, opened earlier this month by Jersey Heritage brought to light a number of new stories in Jersey – including that of a butler who was falsely accused of bigamy, as well as stories of the winter illnesses and poverty that troubled islanders a century ago.
Fighting an invasion of dangerous beetles
During World War Two, Poland had been occupied first by Germans and then by Russians, large swathes of the countries were annexed to the Soviet Union, and the country ended up under Communist rule.
The British government formed a Polish Resettlement Corps, which hosted Polish soldiers who had served in the British Armed Forces, in 1946.
The Polish Resettlement Corps held 150,000 Polish soldiers who didn’t want to, or couldn’t, return to a Communist Poland, and it aimed to help them get used to civilian life. It was disbanded in 1949.
In 1947, some soldiers were deployed in Jersey to combat an invasive beetle.
The island had been hit with an outbreak of Colorado beetles, a pest that can destroy tomato and potato crops, which had been blown to the Channel Islands from France.
The outbreak was so bad that Jersey had to suspend its potato exports to the UK to avoid spreading the pests.
Who were the men?
A newly-opened file held by Jersey Heritage holds not just the names of the men deployed to Jersey, but also reveals how they built ties with local families through employment or marriage.
Mr Duncan, of La Place in St Brelade, asked to take Waldislaw Yurkiecwicz into his family.
He vouched for his “excellent character”, according to Jersey Heritage, and argued that Mr Yurkiecwicz couldn’t return to Poland as he had fought Russians.
But his request was refused: the authorities’ policy was not to give labour permits to displaced persons.
Another islander, Gladys Lea, asked for Mikolaj Fiodoruk to be allowed to stay in Jersey so that the two could get married.
Pictured: Mr Fiodoruk’s registration card notes his occupation as “anti-beetle sprayer”. (Jersey Heritage)
The request was rejected as Mr Fiodoruk had to return to his unit in England.
But Miss Lea and Mr Fiodoruk got married in January 1948 in St Helier.
It still took over a year for Mr Fiodoruk to be able to work in Jersey, after he was refused a work permit in May 1948.
He was released from the Corps in December 1948.
At around this time he applied for naturalisation and was refused it, but he was allowed to work in Jersey without a permit in March 1949.
He was finally naturalised in 1963.
“Beaches along the north and east coasts are being sprayed with insecticide”
The Colorado beetle has made the trip from France to the Channel Islands several times.
In 1963, Jersey suffered a particularly dangerous infestation, because many of the insects were still alive by the time they arrived, according to the site ‘On This Day in Jersey’.
The Times reported that “beaches along the north and east coasts of Jersey are being sprayed with insecticide after some 200 Colorado beetles were found on the shores”.
Pictured: Colorado beetles have made many trips to the island in the past century.
Originally causing trouble in the American Midwest, the beetle was probably brought to Europe via vegetable imports during the late 19th century.
After big outbreaks in the postwar years, the beetles have continued to plague European agriculture – and Jersey put out its most recent warning in 2019.
It warns that warm temperatures and easterly winds “mean that the Colorado beetle, which is not established in Jersey, may be able to reach the island from France”.
The Government of Jersey notes that the island is particularly at risk of a Colorado beetle invasion when easterly winds exceed 20 knots, or when temperatures are above 20°C, or the island gets more than six hours of direct sunshine.
Other factors include an unstable climate and high beetle activity in neighbouring France.
It adds that the threat is annual, and that while the beetle isn’t established in Jersey, it has the potential to affect £22.5 million of Jersey Royal exports.
Jersey’s Polish community now
Jersey’s Polish community has grown and has established itself in the island since the 1940s, and the soldiers of the Polish Resettlement Corps weren’t the first or the last to make it their home.
Polish political exile Zenon Swietoslawski died in Jersey in 1875 and named his son Helier.
In 2023, Polish nationality made up the second non-Jersey or British nationality group in the island – with 2,480 people aged 20 or over present in the island.
But the Polish community’s size had decreased by 16% since 2017, a decrease similar to other EU nations France and Romania) that saw their numbers in Jersey reduced in the years following the Brexit vote.