Richard Weithley, who died last week, was 14 when the Occupation began, and wrote a book about his experiences called So It Was: One Man’s Story of the German Occupation of Jersey from Boyhood to Manhood.
In the book, Mr Weithley describes how he and friends raided various German bunkers in the Island.
Following a successful raid, Mr Weithley would often share his spoils, leaving excess chocolate he had taken at the doorsteps of children, and giving stolen German boots to those who needed them.
Leo Harris, whose brother Francis raided the bunkers with Mr Weithley, remembers how ‘Dickie’ gave him a pair of German gloves to which he attached fur so the Germans wouldn’t notice their military green.
Mr Weithley wasn’t arrested by the Germans for his raids until 1944, when soldiers searched his house and found rifles and ammunition he had stolen.
During his time in the old Newgate Street prison, which was where the Hospital is now, Mr Weithley spent most of his days trapped within his damp cell, sometimes being allowed a 30-minute walk during the day. Breaks from his 23-hour blocks of isolation occasionally came in the form of interrogations at the hands of the German officer who arrested him.
Even in prison Mr Weithley continued to listen to crystal radios from his cell – sending out messages to the outside world.
Along with two others, including Mr Harris’s brother, Mr Weithley managed to escape from the prison, but broke his ankle jumping from the prison roof and was caught not long after, eventually being freed when British soldiers arrived to liberate the Island.
Mr Harris said that Mr Weithley was ‘so brave in many things’ and during the Occupation he was ‘anxious to do anything he could’ to fight back against the Germans.
Mr Harris said that Mr Weithley and Francis were ‘always scheming things up’, and once paddled on small wooden catamarans to a sunken German supply ship, where they took advantage of the supply of Cointreau and oranges they found.
Mr Harris added: ‘Looking back, I have to smile.’
Not long after the Liberation, Mr Weithley joined the RAF, spending most of his time with them stationed in India. In 1950 he moved to London where he joined a quantity-surveying practice, which allowed him to travel all around the world.
In 1990, Mr Weithley spent several months as a hostage of Saddam Hussein and was one of hundreds trapped in Mansour Melia Hotel in Baghdad following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Mr Weithley was visiting the country in August on what was supposed to be a two-week business trip, but was not allowed to leave the country until December.
Mr Weithley is survived by his wife, Marigold, children Simon and Charlotte, and grandchildren Sammy and Ethan, to whom the JEP extends its sympathy.
