Herm

Herm is one of the Channel Islands and part of the Parish of St Peter Port in the Bailiwick of Guernsey.  It is a 20 minute ferry crossing from Peter Port.  There are no roads or cars just the odd tractor to ferry items from the ferry. Herm was first discovered in the Mesolithic period and the first settlers arrived in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Many tombs from that period remain today, the majority in the north of the island. The island was annexed to the Duchy of Normandy in 933 but returned to the English Crown with the division of Normandy in 1204.

It was occupied by Germany in the Second World War and the scene of Operation Huckaback but due to bad weather it was abandoned. The Operation had been a planned by the British No 62 Commando unit  also known as the Small Scale Raiding Force SSRF and was to be put into action over the night 9/10 February in 1943 they were set to go but it was cancelled because of bad weather.  This raid was to be simultaneous with raids on Jethou and Breqhou.  On the night 27/28 February  ten men from SSRF under Captain Patrick Anthony Porteous VC landed 200 yard to the north west of Selle Rocque on a shingle beach  from MTB 344.  After three unsuccessful attempts to scale the cliff, Porteous finally managed to climb up the bed of a stream and pulled the others up, using toggle ropes. They reached Belvoir house but it had been broken into and abandoned and the Old Tower of Herm and the Chateau are deserted. They did not find any evidence of the German occupation troop.

Herm is currently managed by Herm Island Ltd formed by Starboard Settlement who acquired Herm in 2008 as it was feared the sale of the island would threaten the  'identity' of the island.  We caught the 10:30 ferry and returned on the last one of the day at 16:30.  The tide was low so we had to make our way further up the island where the ferry could dock. Just before we left there was a sudden burst of magic light trough the clouds.