9 May 1945. The end of five years of German Occupation. During those five years many Guernsey families were separated as thousands of islanders, especially children, were evacuated in 1940. Those five years also saw the Island itself physically transformed, with fortifications that formed a major part of Hitler’s Atlantic wall built all along Guernsey’s coastline.

”Victory in Europe” was officially confirmed on 8 May, and announced by Prime Minister Winston Churchill on BBC radio that afternoon. The next morning, at 7.50am the occupying forces in Guernsey signed the surrender documents and then British troops landed in St Peter Port, welcomed by crowds of cheering Islanders. Guernsey was finally liberated.

Photography of that historic day and the days that followed has been collected by local military historian Simon Hamon and photographer Marco Tersigni and published by Blue Ormer in ‘Liberated Guernsey Past and Present’, the most recent book in the ‘Guernsey Past and Present’ series. It shows the historic scenes alongside contemporary photos taken from the same location, comparing then and now.

On this trail you will make your way to some of those key locations, stand in the very spot where the photographers of 80 years ago were stood and the see what happened there in 1945.