Blue plaque to honour Occupation news agents

A blue plaque will be unveiled to remember people who "risked their lives" and distributed "uncensored news" during World War Two.

It has been awarded to the Guernsey Active Secret Press by the Blue Plaque Panel commemorating agents who listened to broadcasts outside of the island and shared the news with islanders during the Occupation.

Tour guide Amanda Johns said the unveiling of the plaque was fitting as it aligned with the 80th anniversary of Liberation Day.

The plaque will be unveiled on 6 May at 10:30 BST at 34 St George's Esplanade.

Ms Johns, who has been working on the recognition for two years, said in 1942 radios were confiscated by the German occupying forces.

"Ludovic E. Bertrand, the editor of GASP, started to listen to radios and crystal sets and write down the news from the UK," she said.

"It was so important to get uncensored news out to local people. It helped give them a feel that they were not forgotten."

The States of Guernsey said GASP started as a one person operation before expanding to three, then 12 before the network widened across the island.

Ms Johns said all of the agents involved were "risking their lives", especially knowing what happened to Guernsey Underground News Service (GUNS), another resistance network also distributing news.

She said their names were given to the German forces and they were deported off the island and put in camps in Europe.

"The GASP agents knew it could easily happen to them at any point," she said.

From June 1942 to May 1945, GASP was producing weekly and monthly newsletters.

The threat of arrest was real – many islanders were prosecuted for possessing radio sets.

Mr Bertrand was one of those who took the risk and he wrote the news based on what he had listened to.

The newspapers were then typed up by the members of GASP above what was then the T. G. Moullin and Sons cycle shop, now China Red, where the plaque will be placed.

Ms Johns said: "They would be typing up the newspapers upstairs, repairing bicycles downstairs making lots of noise so if a German soldier came into the shop, they wouldn't hear the typewriters upstairs.

"There was a number of trusted agents... everybody was putting their lives at risk."

Ms Johns said the unveiling of the plaque would be "special".

"It's such an untold story and we want people to understand exactly what went on."

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