大象传媒

My story is told as a 10 year old child in the early days of 1943. I have a vivid memory of a tragic railway accident which took place during the occupation of our Island of Guernsey and I believe only my late father and I witnessed the incident.
The German railway line routed directly through our property in the Route Militaire, across the road and through the fields towards the West Coast. The trains carried building materials; sand and cement and also forced foreign labour, of mixed nationalities, who were required to work on the massive fortifications around the Island.
This particular day, I remember that my father and I had decided to collect our goats early in the afternoon, from the field close to the railway line and bring them back along the line to our stables (to make sure they were locked up well before curfew). We were about thirty feet away from the railway line which crossed Route Militaire, when we heard the hoot of the train as it approached. It was, as usual, pushing the open trucks ahead of the engine.
Simultaneously and moving quite quickly was a German lorry packed with railway lines. The lorry did not hear the train approaching, nor, it appeared did the train driver see the oncoming lorry. The lorry and the train collided. The first two trucks at the front of the train were loaded with the poor foreign labourers. They were stood upright, packed like sardines. On impact they were strewn all over the road. I will never forget the screams of those poor men. Many appeared dead and many more injured. The lorry, on crashing with the train had shifted its load of railway lines over the lorry cabin, the roof collapsing and killing both the German driver and his mate.
My father told me to run back home as he was going to see if he could help, but I just stood there so stunned by what I had just witnessed. Then the German train driver and a callous Todt guard ran up the track to see what had happened. They told my father to go home immediately. We slowly turned back and watched as they pulled the two dead Germans out of their crushed cab, literally throwing their bodies over the wall of my fathers' field. They were left there all day only being picked up later that evening. As for the dead and injured foreign labourers, we never knew what happened to them as my father and I had been forced back out of sight while the Germans cleaned up the debris.

As a child of only ten years, this incident gave me many bad dreams and sleepless nights.

Nancy Allen nee Goubert 1943 - 2005

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