From Barrie Bertram.
JOHN Boothman’s analysis (JEP, 11 March) of the demilitarisation of the Channel Islands prior to the years of Occupation is spot on. However, to go a stage further in that analysis, I would suggest that the pre-war British defence policy for the Islands consisted of two elements.

First, it was one that placed great reliance on Belgian and French policies which themselves placed considerable emphasis on static defence at the expense of mobile forces, the French in particular having drawn the wrong conclusions from the Great War.

Had there been greater use made of tanks, as all too briefly was done at Arras, supported by aircraft, there might have been a different outcome. But in effect, Jersey’s sole line of defence was, by default, the Maginot Line and Fort Eben-Emael.

Second, it was one where the geography determined the nature of the British Expeditionary Force’s deployment and the logistics. The BEF entered France via the shortest routes to the eastern French ports and their supplies came in that way. When pressed back, they unsurprisingly went back the same way to Dunkirk and Calais.

With British formations withdrawing through northern France, some as far as St Nazaire, the logistic position worsened with longer shipping times and limited air cover as evidenced by the loss of the Lancastria.
Demilitarisation was the correct decision regardless of how unpalatable it appeared at the time and since. The alternative would have been another Rotterdam or Warsaw. And for what purpose?
22 Hornby Road,
Caton,
Lancs.