Conclusion: Contemporary Context and Postwar Legacy

Abstract

Compared with the Normandy coast that was subject to Allied assault on D-Day, 6 June 1944, the Channel Islands were even more intensively fortified. A similar amphibious and/or aerial assault on the Islands would also have proved very costly in terms of casualties. Compared with the British fortress of Gibraltar at the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, the Islands are very different in size, geology and strategic position. However, similarities in the wartime use of geology and geologists (to guide assessment of potable groundwater resources, and assist tunnelling and quarrying) indicate problems common to the construction of fortified outposts, irrespective of place or nationality. Compared with use of geologists by British forces in general, the British (initially fighting defensively on their own or Allied terrain) made far less use of military geologists than the Germans, who were organized for attack and occupation. British use increased only from 1943, mostly for terrain analysis, as Allied forces moved increasingly from defence to counter-attack. Compared with the use of geologists by the armed forces of the USA, between 1942 and 1945 American forces overall used significantly more geologists than the British, albeit still far fewer than the Germans. However, American military geologists were mostly (although not exclusively) civilians who generated maps and reports for terrain analysis from a centre in the USA, in Washington DC, remote from the theatres of operation. The Channel Islands thus provide a detailed case history illustrating the typically more intensive use of military geologists in wartime by German forces relative to those of the Allies. Lessons learnt by the opposing sides in World War II were to provide the basis for developments in military geology postwar, and wide international recognition of the continuing significance of ‘military geoscience’.