Marcie's Big Adventure - Day 12/Guernsey

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Hi Everyone,

Today my excursion was on Guernsey. Guernsey is a tender port, meaning they put you on one of their life boats and take you over to the port as the ship is too big to dock there. It was a gorgeous sunny day and got up to about 55 degrees. They have their own monetary system but they are one of England's Channel islands. The main business, by a huge percentage, is banking and finances. Guernsey was demilitarized in June, 1939. On June 28, 1939, the farmers were all taking their tomatoes in huge carts in like a walking caravan to a ship to have them taken to the England. Apparently the Germans didn't get the word that the island had no army and their fighting planes passed over them and saw the long line of people moving lots of carts toward the port. Thinking they were moving ammunition, the Germans killed all 28 farmers in their strife. The next day, the Germans took over Guernsey and used the towns people as slaves while they occupied the island from 1939-1945. Somehow they got Chinese prisoners working to build the tunnels, but I don't know how that happened. Germans took over their homes and started building over 1 1/2 miles of underground tunnels and an underground hospital as it was expected that as many as 800 injured Germans would get their health services there. We toured this underground German hospital and it was dank and dreary. At several points, it is 75 feet underground. We toured those underground tunnels way more than we needed to. It wasn't necessary to understand the bad conditions that the slaves had to work under to build the hospital and tunnels. This was supposedly built for the Germans to send their wounded there from all over. Apparently, no more than a couple handful of soldiers were ever there at any one time. They also stored munitions there. The roads are extremely narrow and cars are allowed to drive on the sidewalks - and they take full advantage of that or cars going in opposite directions would never be able to pass each other. Poor pedestrians! It was a very pretty island. Back to the ship around 5:30. Met up with my solo buddies for drinks and dinner. Tonight, we turn our clocks ahead 1 hour. That means we will be 6 hours ahead of Eastern time. Hope you all are great! Hugs

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