Gordon Moss with HMS Bulldog memorabilia at Castle Cornet. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 0806550)
A SAILOR who was serving on HMS Bulldog when the occupying forces signed the surrender, yesterday set foot on Guernsey for the first time.
Able Seaman Gordon Moss, who was 19 at the time, was treated to a surprise visit to mark his 84th birthday.
‘I have never had a birthday like it,’ said Mr Moss, from West Yorkshire.
‘I’m pleased I had such a part to play in the Liberation as it’s the only real milestone in my naval history.’
Mr Moss, who was in the Royal Navy from 1943 to 1946, was involved in the D-Day landings and in protecting Russian convoys.
He joined HMS Bulldog in Plymouth before it sailed for Guernsey with 90 members of the Royal Pioneer Corps who were travelling to the island to carry out civil engineering work.
‘Most were seasick and we ended up having to help them off,’ he said.
On the evening of 8 May 1945, HMS Bulldog initially anchored some distance off Guernsey and the Germans dispatched Oberleutnant Zimmerman in a rubber boat to speak to Brigadier Snow.
Zimmerman did not have the authority to sign an unconditional surrender.
‘The Germans had not been told officially that the war was over, but the islanders knew because of their secret radios,’ said Mr Moss.
Under instruction from the German Bailiwick commandant, Friedrich Huffmeier, Zimmerman warned that the occupying forces might fire on HMS Bulldog.
‘Brigadier Snow said that if they did they would be treated as war criminals because of the Germans’ capitulation in Europe.’
The following day at 7.45am, Major General Heine boarded HMS Bulldog, by now moored in St Peter Port Harbour, and the surrender was signed.
Mr Moss said he did not see the surrender signed as he had to stay on U-boat watch on the bridge as the enemy was still considered a threat.
He recalled jubilant Guernsey people lining the quay on their first day of freedom for almost five years.
He was handed a first edition issue of the Guernsey Evening Press Liberation issue by one local, which he said he still had, though it
had now become somewhat ‘battered’.
In the middle of the afternoon HMS Bulldog left Guernsey to return to Plymouth where the crew had to continue painting the vessel.
Mr Moss’s daughter, Linda Price, said her father had spoken often of the occasion and she decided to bring him to Guernsey, where he had not disembarked.
‘I mailed the Information Centre and asked if anyone would be interested in his story and they put me in touch with the Channel Islands Occupation Society,’ she said.
CIOS president Phil Martin said it had been a special moment.
‘There are few people left who were involved in the Occupation who can tell their story,’ he said.
Mr Moss said he would be forever grateful for the hospitality shown to him and his daughter.
As another birthday surprise, he was invited to fire the noonday gun when he visited Castle Cornet yesterday to look at HMS Bulldog memorabilia in the museum.
Article posted on 15th July, 2009 - 2.29pm
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