25th August 1945
Jersey’s military government is dissolved
The Channel Islands’ political recovery from the Occupation of the Second World War was swift, even if the physical scars of the Germans’ extended visit remain. After 90 days of direct British military rule, the interim military governments handed control back to the people, and civil service staff resumed the roles they had held before the start of the war.
Lieutenant Governors return
Sir Arthur Edward Grasett was sworn in as Lieutenant Governor, while on Guernsey, Major-General Philip Neame VC, who had travelled from the mainland on the destroyer, Brocklesbye, arrived with his family at St Peter Port just before noon to assume the same role.
Grasett, a Canadian by birth, had been been posted to Hong Kong at the start of the war, and was head of the European Allied Contacts in the expeditionary force that invaded France in 1944. In the week before his arrival in Jersey, he had enjoyed an audience with the King at Buckingham Palace, during which he was appointed to his new role, knighted and invested with the KBE.
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Other events that occured in August
The first Battle of Flowers takes place
- Jersey staged its first ever Battle of Flowers in 1902, to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandria.
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Plane is washed into the sea during Jersey take-off
- Passengers on a plane heading for London were saved by bathers when the aircraft was caught by the rising tide at West Park Beach.
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Parliament debates Jersey’s treatment of prisoners of war
- A Conservative MP in London was concerned that Jersey might have been treating German PoWs too leniently during the First World War.
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Soldier kills colleague with a scrubbing brush
- When a fight broke out at a Jersey barracks, one of the two men involved ended up being killed, in part by a scrubbing brush.
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