We'll be celebrating the 81st anniversary of D-Day, the historic Allied landings in Normandy, soon. On this occasion we are offering exclusive discounts on all our available tours until June 6, 2025. The tour price is refundable up until 90 days before departure.
• 15% off if you pay in full for 2025.
• 25% off if you pay in full for 2026.
• 35% off if you pay in full for 2027.
Please note: This offer is valid only for new bookings and cannot be combined with any other promotions.
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Did you know there was a „secret wedding” on the Channel Islands during World War II?
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German sailor Willi Joanknecht and Guernsey local Dolly Edward on a date during World War II
(Photo: COLLECT)
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Relations between occupying soldiers and girls of the occupied land have been around for as long as war itself. One of many such stories unfolded in Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, the only part of the British Isles to be captured by Germany in World War II (The Channel Islands in World War II) – and it involved a secret wedding at the Little Chapel, one of Guernsey’s charming attractions.
Dorothy “Dolly” Edwards was 14 when German forces overran and occupied the Channel Islands. Her father was serving in the military, and her mother and siblings were evacuated to Britain, but she missed the last evacuation boat and was stuck, living with her aunt and uncle. Many of the occupiers were fit young men who loved sunbathing on the beach. One of them, Willi Joanknecht, always smiled at Dolly when they met; the teenage girl would then stick out her tongue at him and run away.
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Dolly Edwards
(Photo: COLLECT)
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Food supplies were running dangerously low three years into the occupation, and one day the authorities charged Dolly with stealing bread from the shop she was working at. (Other sources claim she was helping her uncle, later revealed to be a black marketeer, in moving goods. Either way, it’s quite possible she was innocent.) Dolly was sentenced to four months in a French prison.
Dolly was initially proud of her sentence, thinking herself as a resistance heroine. On the way to prison in France, she was escorted by a friendly German gendarme who invited her to lunch at a nice restaurant since their train was only leaving in the evening, and got dead drunk so Dolly had to wait for him to sober up.
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Willi Joanknecht
(Photo: COLLECT)
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Dolly had to make her own way home to Guernsey after her release, and she secured passage on a ship carrying forced laborers to the islands. She felt scared in their company down in the hold, but fate had an unlikely reunion in store for her. One of the crewmen aboard was Willi from Guernsey, who took her up on the deck and kept her safe.
The two struck up a relationship after the serendipitous meeting, and got unofficially married at the Little Chapel (The Little Chapel), using a curtain ring as a wedding ring. However, they could not be together for long: Guernsey was liberated on May 9, 1945, and the German occupiers were shipped off to prisoner of war camps in Britain. Dolly had just given birth recently, and had barely enough time to rush to the harbor and show the baby to Willi as the prisoner transport pulled out of dock.
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A plaque commemorating the couple’s wedding in the Little Chapel in Guernsey
(Photo: Author’s own)
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Dolly later moved to England in search of Willi, but had no idea how to find him. Fate intervened: through sheer luck, she eventually found work at a country house that was right next to the fields where Willi was doing forced labor. Having reunited, they were given permission to marry in August 1947, with Willi attending the wedding in his prison uniform, as he was still a POW. The governor of Guernsey did not allow the couple to return, so they settled down in England and raised four children.
Willi and Dolly died in 2015 and 2017, respectively. Their ashes were scattered in Guernsey in a spot they often met when dating.
Join us on our Normandy-Channel Islands Tour to visit the Little Chapel in Guernsey and to learn more about the German occupation of the archipelago.
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A romantic moment between Dolly and Willi
(Photo: COLLECT)
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