Invaders of the Isles Coast

This is Coast.

The wild islands of the British Isles.

Splinters of land, oceans of water.

At times the sea protects, at others, it attacks!

Rocky islets rise like sparkling jewels, ripe for the taking,

a tempting target for invaders.

From hostile incursions to the welcome influx of wildlife.

We'll reveal surprising stories of invasions around our shores.

My base of operations is on the Channel Islands,

where remarkably, some German strongholds are still unexplored.

Now I'm gearing up for an invasion of my own.

I'm breaking into a sealed Nazi bunker.

Nobody's seen this for more than 60 years.

And the team are gearing up for invasions too.

Out on the Isle of Man,

Ruth is bracing herself for a mighty seaborne assault.

The leather clad clans are gathering.

The TT is in town.

On a tiny Scottish isle,

Andy is hunting for animal invaders, little furry ones!

The amazing thing is this entire colony

are hundreds of individuals from one pregnant female.

And Tessa is flying back to the First World War

as she's blown away by aerial invaders.

Beware the Zeppelins!

Terrifying dogfights to the death, pitting biplanes against airships.

These stories tell of the Invaders of the Isles.

My island destination

sits in the firing line between England and France.

I'm heading to Guernsey.

Guernsey's the ideal place to recall both the risks

and the rewards of invasion.

Its islanders made good money from historic battles with France.

I'll be exploring how swashbuckling Guernsey sailors

ran rings around Napoleon's navy.

But in the Second World War

the people felt the full force of Hitler's invading army.

Now the heavens explode each year to mark the end of German occupation.

Guernsey is celebrating its liberty.

A night that burns bright with the memories of invasion.

In June 1940, it wasn't friendly fire that lit up the skies.

The dark hand of the Third Reich was about to grasp the Isle of Guernsey.

With invasion inevitable, islanders had a stark choice, stay or go.

I've got here a copy of the Guernsey newspaper, The Evening Press,

dated Wednesday June 19th, 1940. It reads, "Evacuation of Children.

"Parents must report this evening."

Well, these parents were being given just a few hours to decide

whether to stay or to leave the island.

The following morning, that quayside over there was packed with people

queuing up to board ships back to England.

CHILD CRIES

Seven-year-old Paulette Tapp's mother was dead

and her father was away fighting,

so her grandmother decided Paulette should be evacuated.

Is this you in this photograph?

This is my grandmother. And that was me when I was three years old.

-Did she go with you?

-No, no.

I was on my own. Completely on my own, there was nobody.

While Paulette left for an uncertain future in England,

on Guernsey, a little boy remained on the quayside.

-Very good to meet you.

-How do you do?

'Stanley Bichard was the middle one of three boys,

'who with their mum and dad were about to experience invasion.'

Just days after the evacuations Guernsey's harbour was bombed,

many were killed.

Two days later the island was occupied.

'The German invaders took their pick of the houses

'including the one next door to Stanley's family.'

-Strange neighbours.

-Yeah. And the week after,

they came and they knocked at the back door at my mum's

and said, "We'd like you to do some washing for the Germans."

So Mum said, "No, I don't do a wash for the German soldiers."

They said, "You will wash for the soldiers

"or you will vacate your premises by the end of the week."

And, of course, there's five of us in the family,

you know, where are we going?

Many island children had gone to seek safety on the mainland.

Seven-year-old Paulette, travelling alone, was evacuated to Cheshire,

to be looked after by nuns.

This homesick little girl

was about to acquire a very special guardian angel.

Remember, in this country

the gift must be based on your ability to give.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt

was coaxing American women to do their bit for the war effort.

Mrs Roosevelt sought a young pen pal,

she received a letter from a lonely girl in Cheshire.

"Dear Mrs Roosevelt, first of all,

"I hope you are well and in good health.

"Please give my best regards to President Roosevelt.

"Thank you very much for the pretty green dress. It fits me just fine

"and I love the blouse to go with it.

"Your loving foster child, Paulette."

Meanwhile, guardian angels were in short supply on Guernsey.

As the occupation wore on, rations were meagre.

Four ounces of meat a week for the family of five.

-That's nothing!

-Eggs were very hard to come by,

because everybody killed the chickens to have food for eating.

"We had a lovely supper, lemonade, cakes and biscuits.

"Then for tea we all had a bar of chocolate."

-Remember being hungry?

-Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yes, a few times.

-It must have been very difficult for your mother knowing that.

-Yeah.

Mum and Dad suffered a lot at different times.

-Yeah. How do you feed a family of five when you've got nothing?

-Yeah.

Paulette had a full stomach but an empty heart.

Her gran on occupied Guernsey couldn't get letters out.

My only person that I really loved was my grandmother,

I missed her cuddles and hugs, you know, because we didn't get many.

They were good, the nuns, but we didn't have the love.

Paulette's safe surroundings were tinged with sadness.

For young Stanley, the lush landscape of Guernsey may have been

a war zone, but it was still his playground.

A favourite prank was pelting passing cars with lumps of turf.

It was just along there somewhere,

lovely turf about as big as my hand there.

So when a car came, if the window was open,

I didn't know it was a German,

I wasn't being brave or anything like that,

but I spiffed the turf over the edge,

it went straight through the window

and hit the officer straight in the face.

And, of course, there was a squeak of the tyres and we hid.

We were petrified then.

The headmaster of the school said they were going to take hostages,

because they thought it was an act of sabotage,

it wasn't sabotage, it was a game, like, you know?

And we got away with it by writing a letter of apology

to the Commandant. They let us get away with it.

German rule ground on for nearly five years.

By the end the invaders were as much prisoners as the islanders -

both were starving.

After D-Day in Normandy there was nothing coming in at all

and also the Germans were suffering,

a lot of cats went missing during the war.

-They ate them?

-Oh, yeah. And dogs. They had my dog.

-They ate your dog?

-Oh, yeah.

But you couldn't buy anything cos nothing was coming in.

The desperate days ended on the 8th of May, 1945.

With the war over, Paulette came home,

but she's never met Stanley

to share their different experiences of invasion.

Is it better to leave home and be fed

or to stay with your family and go hungry?

I couldn't let my children go.

I'd want them with me. I would try and do everything I could.

If somebody had been able to cuddle me, you know.

-And you miss that, don't you, when you're children?

-Oh, yeah.

So in that way, I suffered more emotionally

-and you suffered more with your food.

-Oh, without a doubt.

Without a doubt.

BOTH CHUCKLE

Guernsey still counts the human cost of occupation.

But elsewhere there are invasions we're happy to see.

Migrating birds re-colonise some remote outposts each year.

Perfect perches to breed and feed.

Seabirds come and go as they please. But journey to Scotland

and you'll discover an odd group of animal invaders

trapped on the outcrop of Coreisa.

Andy Torbet is in search of creatures

living like Robinson Crusoe, castaways on a forgotten isle.

The tiny island of Coreisa is a pinprick of rock out there.

It's only five miles from the shore,

but for most, it might as well be Mars.

No scheduled boats go there,

so you have to find a local willing to take you.

I'm seeking four-legged invaders

discovered on a small isle near here in 1964 by an inquisitive explorer.

This is Gordon Corbett,

a curator of mammals at the Natural History Museum in London.

He'd heard whispers of a mysterious creature living on an island

in these waters, a colony that had no place being there.

Locals thought they might be rats, but Gordon had his own suspicions.

He travelled out to the island

to catch one and take a specimen back to London.

This is the animal he caught, he'd found a freshwater vole.

How had this shy river creature crossed miles of seawater,

how had it survived marooned on the island?

It was astonishing to discover water voles

on tiny isles off Western Scotland.

Normally they thrive in freshwater, avoiding the perils of the open seas.

So how did water voles get to this rocky outcrop, Coreisa?

Did a pregnant female find herself on a passing boat?

Or where they washed out on sea currents?

However it happened, once ashore, these invaders were quite alone.

People pass by the island,

but it's very rarely that I ever see anybody go on the island

or even looking in on it. No, it's pretty well untouched, aye.

The island of Coreisa is about the size of three football pitches.

There's little shelter and no running water.

But for the next two days... this is home.

'And I've got company.

'Scientists from Aberdeen University are studying how over generations

'the voles have adapted to this alien environment.

'Helping me get settled is biologist Matt Oliver.'

Well, interestingly the water voles here have a very different

behaviour and eco type from water voles in the Scottish mainland.

We've got very little fresh water on this island at all,

and instead the water voles have a more mole-like existence,

they live in burrows underneath the ground eating roots and shoots,

and they don't have many competitors,

so they've got more or less a free reign of the place.

And I can see just from sitting here lots of vole signs,

so you're not far away from a vole right now.

These shy creatures aren't too keen to meet us,

so team leader Stuart Piertney

is laying a trap baited with tatties and carrots.

-Put a bit of extra bedding material in.

-OK.

The door closes behind him, simple as that.

And it doesn't do the vole any harm to be trapped?

Absolutely not. These guys think of these

as little mini hotel rooms, they really like the idea

they can get a good feed. We know that

because from one day to the next, we'll be catching the same voles.

With the traps set, we work on our own survival strategy.

Good morning and good news.

The water voles have checked into the traps overnight,

so now it's rise and shine for them too.

-Right. So let's process this little guy and see what we've got.

-OK.

-So the first job is to get him out of the trap.

-Yep.

-And there he is.

-They're much bigger than I thought they'd be.

Yes. They've got hardy tails,

so you can keep hold of them with the tail

and he's as happy as Larry in the hand there.

Just grab him by the tail first,

make sure he doesn't give you a bit of a nip. There we go.

The amazing thing is this entire colony is from one pregnant female.

So, hundreds of individuals from just one.

In essence these guys are all related,

it's all brothers and uncles and aunties.

Theory would predict that with a small isolated population like this

they should have lost their genetic variation,

which should make them not very fit,

they should be prone to the effects of parasites,

but you can see that's not the case at all,

these guys are looking really healthy,

so they seem to be bucking the trend one way or another.

The researchers expected inbreeding to produce sickly animals

prone to infection, but in fact they are thriving.

The team are unravelling the genetic puzzle

of how a healthy colony may have flourished from just one female.

The findings could help preserve endangered species

that have dwindled to a few individuals.

As for the descendants of the original water vole invader,

they may have become inmates on this island,

but I can think of worse places to be marooned.

In our fights for survival,

we've created some remarkable artificial islands.

Forts that helped keep foreign aggressors at bay.

But some in the British Isles have suffered conquest in living memory.

I'm on Guernsey.

In the Second World War on the Channel Islands,

attackers soon became defenders.

The invaders of these isles left a grim legacy.

German bunkers that outlasted the Third Reich.

Some 1,000 Nazi fortifications were embedded in the rock of Guernsey,

potent symbols of the propaganda value to be gained

by occupying British Crown Territory.

Hitler wouldn't give up the Channel Islands without a fight.

Now I'm gearing up for an invasion of my own.

Many of these tombs of tyranny were sealed at the end of the last war,

but one of the bunkers is about to be re-opened

for the first time in over 60 years.

I'm going to be a Nazi tomb raider.

On a beach-side golf course,

they're excavating the entrance to the forgotten underground bunker.

To see what could lie in store, I'm visiting another site.

This gun emplacement was only re-opened in 2010.

My guide is bunker specialist Paul Bourgaize.

-Chilly and dark, isn't it?

-Just watch these steps here.

We're in a small square... room, what have we got over here?

This is actually a fortress telephone.

So this is a hand-cranked telephone?

-Yep.

-So what does this say?

"Achtung Feind host nit!" was a warning you'd find above all phones,

and it basically says, "Warning, the enemy is listening,"

so it was just, "Watch what you're saying."

-Very smooth, isn't it?

-Yeah.

It's approximately a tonne of steel that's moving there.

-Top quality German engineering.

-Yeah.

This portal cut into the concrete

was the firing position for an anti-tank gun.

Its crew were charged with repelling a possible beach invasion.

Historians on Guernsey are re-discovering

the secrets of fortifications across the island.

The digger's scoop has just revealed the top of a doorway.

Nobody's seen this for more than 60 years.

Buried for decades.

Now we're the first to enter a forgotten lair of Hitler's army.

This was once a staircase

that a six-foot man could walk down,

now... it's like a cave entrance.

Incredible! Look at this on the roof, miniature stalactites of rust.

Very nasty gunk all over the floor,

this seems to be oil more than water.

Cos this is a personnel bunker, these are the hooks for the beds

or the bunks, still original, all fixed to the wall.

-So these hooks...?

-That's where the bunks would have been.

-Hooked on there?

-There would have been a chain

hanging from the ceiling attached to those hooks.

-Oh, here?

-Yeah.

-So these are like ship's bunks. Did they fold away?

They do fold away, yes.

'Up to ten men slept in this windowless tomb -

'their job, to man the gun emplacements.'

This is smaller, what was this space for?

Yeah, this is a ventilation escape shaft as well.

Where did you escape? There's no way out.

This is the escape shaft here.

It would have been quite tricky to get out of here,

you've got a steel door, you'd have had two rows of steel girders

across there in those recesses that had to be pulled out,

you've then got a brick wall that needs to be demolished,

and then the whole escape shaft which goes right up to the surface

was filled with sand. All that had to come in

before anybody could go out.

Why did they make it so difficult to get out?

Well, they don't want people coming in either, so...

So this was a last resort if you were completely trapped down here?

A gas attack or anything like that.

-You'd dig your way out?

-Absolutely.

This up here, by the looks of it,

was some sort of newspaper or article but it's all in German.

-The second word is "Fuhrer".

-That's very exciting, that.

'It translates as, "Sworn to the Fuhrer".'

-Perhaps there was a picture.

-Of Hitler?

-Definitely a possibility.

-Yeah.

You might think the soldiers who once sheltered in these dank vaults

would want to purge the island from their memories.

But some, like Fritz Kunz, who was stationed in a bunker,

still return to Guernsey.

In 1943, aged just 17, Fritz found himself in charge of a gunnery crew.

All the other soldiers came to Russia,

and I was the only who knows the gun

and so became high commander of the gun.

-But you were lucky not to go to Russia.

-Of course.

-Yeah. The Eastern Front was a bad place to be.

-Yes.

We came here and we was thinking we came in the paradise.

-Really?

-Yes.

-You thought it was paradise?

-Yes.

What did you think when you saw the bunker being opened over there,

how did you find that?

Oh, it was... awful.

It was a horrible thing.

-Do you remember when Guernsey was liberated?

-Yes.

-What happened?

-It was... going out.

-A huge relief?

-Oh, now it is peace.

-Finished?

-Finished.

We're on a journey to explore invasions of our isles.

It's a story they know all too well on the Isle of Man.

This island has been occupied by the Norse...

the Scots...

and the English.

Today, though, it's fiercely independent.

Surprising then, that the Manx people open their arms to one race

that lays siege to their isle every year.

Ruth Goodman is bracing herself for an epic invasion.

Out there beyond the sea, the leather-clad clans are gathering.

An army is assembling from around Britain and far beyond.

They mount their two-wheeled chariots bound for the Isle of Man.

The locals, ready to do battle... for business.

Burgers, buns, beer - the TT is in town.

For two weeks in early summer, the sound of high-speed combustion

and the smell of leather cover the island...whatever the weather.

Day and night, wave after wave of boats

disgorge disciples of the most dangerous bike-fest on Earth.

TT stands for Tourist Trophy, and these days it attracts

over 30,000 tourists, who bring around 10,000 motorbikes.

So what's in it for the bikers, and how do the locals feel about

this friendly invasion of their small isle?

The hotels can't accommodate the sudden influx of bodies.

Bikers are berthed in private houses all over the island.

Everybody mucks in to keep the TT on track.

And the restaurants stock up for a briefly lived bonanza.

He's huge...!

That's the female.

It's a female. How can you tell?

And that's the male. That bit there carries the eggs.

Beautiful colour.

This is probably our busiest time.

It's a big part of the year. Eat and drink, isn't it?

-Yeah, party time.

-Party time.

As long as they eat it, we'll catch it.

Look at that, it's like one enormous giant prawn. Delicious.

Every bite, lick and chip swells the bank balance of the Isle of Man.

This is an invasion any island would welcome.

So how did this small, self-contained community

come to host the world's ultimate motorbike road race?

'I'm heading for a private viewing of some rare film that takes us

'right back to the beginning.

'This little picture palace is about as old as the TT -

'a century and counting.

'I'm meeting social historian and TT expert Matthew Richardson.'

-Hi.

-Hello.

-What's this then?

Well, this is some early footage of one of the first TT races

on the Isle of Man.

Oh, blinking 'eck!

He just picked himself up and got back on the bike.

That's a pretty low speed crash.

It's... It's all relative.

The 1911 Junior TT, the winner won at just over 40 mph.

The current lap record is just over 130 mph.

They still look like pushbikes with motors on, don't they?

Well, they were. Technology was very primitive.

The TT races began after speed regulations were imposed on

British roads in 1903, a 20mph limit was set on the mainland.

The self-governing Isle of Man had no such restrictions -

the only limits were the power of the bikes,

and the skill of the riders.

In the early days it wasn't all about speed, it was very much

a trial of reliability, one of the early riders comments that

although he won the race, he had to stop to mend a puncture.

Pushing the bikes to breaking point year after year

created the TT's global reputation for thrills and spills.

Go anywhere in the world,

people might not be sure where the Isle of Man is,

but there's a fair chance they'll have heard of the TT races.

'They say to understand someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes.'

I'd never normally wear trousers at the beach.

'Or ride a mile in their leathers.'

But then, tights and bikes don't really mix.

I'm joining the tribe that has taken over the island,

for a ride with one of the race's royals.

Sidecar passenger Rose Hanks was the queen of the TT in the '60s.

And Roy was her prince.

Roy Hanks has been TT racing since 1966 - a sidecar legend.

Now Rose has agreed to turn her husband over to me,

and she is a hard act to follow!

In 1968, Rose became the first woman ever to get on the podium.

There she is, proud moment, yeah.

Absolutely. Rose was the first.

I remember when I first met her, she impressed me then,

but when she was dressed in black leather

she was even better looking and...

Rose's skill in the sidecar made her a star in the '60s.

Today, she's happiest steering the family bike business

out of the limelight.

Cos there wasn't so many girls around doing it

you got more attention, so...

They wanted me to wear make-up.

I says "No, I don't wear make-up racing."

They were good days, they were, the best.

-That was the year she was presented to...

-Prince Philip.

-Prince Philip.

See the mop of hair, there. Not on Prince Philip, on Rose!

For riders like Rose, the glamour of the TT

goes hand-in-glove with the danger.

The infamous mountain course is considered the world's most lethal.

Over 130 riders have been killed on the road.

Sometimes I get a bit worried and concerned

how dangerous it could be and has been.

But once I'm on my bike racing...

..I'm 21 again.

Who wouldn't want to be 21 again?

I'm along for the ride, Roy's at the handlebars.

The tarmac of the TT beckons.

Whoa...!

From my sidecar seat, the future rolls out ahead.

But echoes of the past are never far behind.

Wow, what a view!

Now I can see why bikers enjoy overtaking the island each year.

-Ah, marvellous!

-SHE LAUGHS

We're exploring invaders of the isles.

Even in peacetime small islands face a threat from bigger neighbours.

The invasion of new ideas can destroy traditional lifestyles.

Historically, better prospects overseas

have stripped Scottish islands of their brightest and best.

The pain of separation is still raw to the lost community of Stroma.

People clung on here until 1962.

John Manson and his family were the last to leave Stroma.

Now John's heading back to the deserted isle.

See the ruin in the middle,

that one on the right hand side is my grandfather's house.

His past life is lost in the sea mist.

The weather today makes the island more dreich-looking.

"Dreich" meaning dilapidated and not good-looking.

Helen Adams lives on the mainland now, but she was born on Stroma.

She hasn't been back since the mid-'60s, for good reason.

Stroma is an idyllic island,

and for anyone who visits it or lives in its vicinity

I would say it's where the earth meets the sky.

It's on the edge of the world.

I feel very confident in thought

that I will never return to Stroma

because it was a wonderful island for me,

and I have this romantic bubble contained within my head,

and that bubble I don't ever wish to burst.

It feels a wee bit funny to walk on the island again

but it's lovely to be here.

Everything seems a wee bit smaller than it used to do.

The pier here...

You always think it's wider when you're younger.

I had a wonderful life on Stroma. Never, ever lonely - never, never.

A home of plenty. Mum baked and cooked and made.

Tables creaking with goodies.

This is our family home...

er, that we left in 1962.

It was the last house that anybody lived in here on the island.

That's my bedroom there, it wasn't like that in 1962.

That's... That's the table we used to eat off.

My mother and father slept in the box bed here,

and my bedroom was here.

Not a very good bedroom now.

You could look out the window, see the sea views, ships passing.

It's sad when you come and look where you lived. Aye, sad.

A lot of the islanders have died off.

They got less on the island when we were living here

and now they're getting less on the mainland through them dying away and...

that, you know.

It's sad... It's sad to speak about it, sometimes.

But you have to speak about it. You have to speak about it.

But it's sad to speak about it.

School was lovely.

Girls at this school learned to cook and the boys learned woodwork.

It's still in remarkably good nick, the building itself.

There would be about, erm, what, 20 pupils.

And we had a really good teacher.

She was a Miss Manson and she taught us a little poem -

"Good, better, best

"Never let it rest

"Until your good is better And your better's best."

And that was a motto which she wanted us to carry

for the rest of our lives.

I would leave the island in 1951 to go to the high school.

And I can still see that wistful look upon my mother's face

as she packed the case for her only child

to go to the ends of the earth.

This was another of our hobbies - watching ships passing.

The picture always changes.

Another ship...another boat, or whatever was coming.

But it was a great hobby for all the islanders -

telescope, and watching the ships passing.

People have this idea that they used to say -

particularly when I was at the high school -

oh, you know, you're cut off. You're cut off by the sea.

An islander is never cut off

because it's the very opposite the islander feels.

It's the sea which connects us with the mainland.

Islanders left, seals multiplied, birds multiplied -

wildlife use it as their home now.

Parents realised - as parents do - they want the best for their families.

And I think that was the reason why the people drifted

to the mainland and elsewhere.

When I think of Stroma...

it makes me feel young again, and it certainly restores my soul.

Fragile isles face many perils.

But some, like Guernsey, rise to the challenge.

For centuries, the islanders succeeded in turning the threat of war

into a money-making venture.

Towers like this that pepper the shore are some 200 years old -

defences against possible invasion by the French

running rampant under Napoleon.

The islanders learned that during times of war

different rules apply - rules that can be bent to your advantage.

As the threat of invasion rose, riches rolled in with the waves.

Guernsey became a "treasure island"

thanks to the ill-gotten gains of the infamous Guernsey privateers.

CANNON FIRE

Described as the Despair of France,

these private warships were fast and heavily armed with determined crews.

Guernsey was the ideal base for privateers to strike

at rich cargo vessels sailing the English Channel.

But how could these Guernsey bandits get away with plundering booty

from the big boys of Europe?

I'm searching for evidence of their exploits.

Some locals still benefit from those long lost wars.

'Peter de Sausmarez is a descendant of a famous Guernsey privateer.

'To the family, he's Grand Matthieu - Great Matthew.'

But this is the Grand Matthieu.

Centre-stage in your portrait gallery here?

Well, very important. Yes. We're all descended from him.

And, of course, he was the one who sowed the seeds

of the family recovery and fortune again.

And what evidence do you have that he was involved in privateering?

Well, I've got a few letters he wrote, and these are examples

of letter books. But these we found are of...1712.

So very early on.

-So Matthew is in at the beginning.

-Right at the beginning. Absolutely.

And here is a letter here saying, erm,

"I'm writing on behalf of Thomas de Marchant

"to offer him a privateer ship of eight guns,

"and to recruit some sailors."

You had to have weapons of inducement.

And we've got some rather fine examples here.

This is what the seamen would be using.

This is interesting because this is French. Erm...

You can see it's very basic and very simple,

but one thing that's absolutely tip-top is the blade.

-Look at that.

-So all the effort was put into this blade.

-Indeed, yes.

If you can imagine people coming aboard, and waving these. You know.

-Is that a stick...?

-Or slash, I think. Yeah.

Back in the scabbard now, do you think?

Perhaps it'd be safer there, wouldn't it? Yeah.

Very good. Erm, I think you'd make quite a good privateer.

Do you think? It would be quite fun, wouldn't it?

Strong-arm tactics soon built up fortunes.

The gains may have been ill-gotten, but these weren't pirates.

The privateers had powerful friends.

The British, worried about French invasion,

welcomed attacks on the foreign ships.

So much so, the privateers got a contract from the King.

This is a Letter of Marque -

basically, a pirate's licence to operate legally.

It's dated "the year of our Lord 1804".

At the top up here is a wonderful portrait of King George III,

and down on the bottom is the King's royal seal.

Now, this letter allows the bearer

to "lawfully apprehend, seize and take all ships, vessels and goods

"belonging to the French Republic."

This is a royal permit to plunder.

The Crown encouraged Guernsey boatmen to be a thorn in the side of the French,

and the privateers had home advantage against passing ships.

Skipper Roger Perrot has local knowledge of these treacherous seas.

What would it have been like trying to navigate through these islands

under sail, no engines, without an electronic chart-plotter

-like the one here?

-Well, just hell.

I would not like to have been sailing a really big ship around here.

In privateering time, they were brilliant sailors.

We're armchair sailors, really, aren't we?

This is a really dangerous part of the world.

We're going to go over some really rather nasty rocks, in a moment.

-Those rocks are quite close, aren't they?

-Yeah.

Fear not!

Daredevil sailors giving the French a bloody nose in the Napoleonic wars?

Is that how the islanders regarded the privateers?

In Guernsey society it was considered to be an honourable profession

until the 1820's, which is way after the end of the Napoleonic war.

So would privateers have been celebrated on shore?

Oh, yes, absolutely. And most of the ships were made in Guernsey, as well.

I suppose privateering was considered more of a middle-class occupation,

and when you became nouveau riche, and moved up an echelon,

then you went into the Navy - the Royal Navy -

where you could still make a lot of money.

Many of the islanders shared the spoils of the privateers'

plundering raids, as local historian Annette Henry knows.

They weren't exactly following the principles of fair trade, were they?

Not really, no, but in times of war you have to do what you can,

and living on an island we needed to make money.

-And was it lucrative?

-It was incredibly lucrative.

One could amass a fortune of...

Well, an instance in 1799 has a Mr LeMeseurier amassing a fortune

of £212,000 sterling then, in 1799.

Equate that to today's terms

and we're looking at a quarter of a billion pounds in one year.

It was said a fifth went to the sovereign,

two-thirds of the remainder went to the owner of the ship of war,

and the remainder went to the captain and crew.

The sovereign was very happy to issue as many Letters of Marques as possible.

The privateers played a dangerous game in their tiny boats

dodging the warring giants on both sides of the Channel.

But when peace settled on the seas, their game was up.

Victory at Waterloo in 1815 made defences against the French redundant.

Calm descended on home waters.

Our global trade thrived because the Royal Navy reigned supreme.

The British Empire was envied by foreign powers,

but our islands seemed impregnable to seaborne attack.

Then, early in the 20th century, the sky came crashing in on Great Yarmouth.

Tessa is about to relive a tale of terror from above.

In 1915, we looked across the North Sea and trembled.

The Great War was tearing the continent apart.

And here on the quiet shores of Norfolk

a terrifying new style of attack was about to be unleashed - by aerial invaders.

On the night of the 19th of January 1915,

townsfolk on the dark streets of Great Yarmouth

were transfixed by an eerie noise from the fog bank above.

An eyewitness described the sound as 20 bicycles charging down a hill,

then a brilliant flash appeared in the sky,

a searchlight from a flying machine illuminated the streets,

followed by a string of bomb blasts.

On that foggy night, many people couldn't believe their eyes.

But later, the local paper left no doubt.

A Zeppelin air raid - the first on British shores.

With that attack on Great Yarmouth,

the Germans unleashed three years of terror.

Aerial warfare was invented, as the invaders outsmarted

Britain's defenders.

Our planes were primitive, with poor communications.

How could our islands resist the Zeppelins?

Suddenly the nation's streets had become the front line.

Bombs rained down with fatal consequences.

Martha Taylor, a 72-year-old spinster, was killed here.

She died instantly.

Martha and fellow casualty Samuel Smith

were the first Britons to die in an air raid.

The night attack on Great Yarmouth woke Britain up to a new

weapon of terror.

Zeppelins were long-range killing machines

carrying over 1,000lbs of bombs.

They had hit Norfolk first, but the Germans had a bigger prize.

In the summer, they struck London.

95 died there by the year's end,

and fear spread across the land.

Historian Graham Mottram knows why we struggled

to shoot down the airships.

We were only - what? -

11 years after the Wright brothers' first flight?

So aircraft were still very limited.

We had I think it was 93 aeroplanes, something like that,

at the outbreak of the First World War, and of course

the art of anti-aircraft gunnery was still very, very primitive.

We were looking at trying to modify artillery pieces to try and...

and shoot high in the air, in the hope of bringing these things down.

The Zeppelins' night-time blitz

would strike along the length and breadth of Britain,

killing hundreds during the First World War.

We scrambled to invent air defences from scratch.

The Royal Flying Corps were fighting on the Western Front,

so early protection of home shores relied largely on Royal Navy aircraft.

They flew from coastal airstrips,

and the Navy also tried a desperate new tactic.

The aim was to intercept the airship raiders over the water,

which meant taking off from the sea.

You've got this 60ft long barge - on it there's a wooden deck,

and on that wooden deck we put a Sopwith Camel.

Towing it quickly across the North Sea into the teeth of a strong wind

meant there was enough flying wind across the deck.

-You'd get lift-off!

-You'd get lift-off.

Let go of the string that secures the aircraft at the back of the boat

and it leaps into the air.

This is, effectively, a very early aircraft carrier.

That is precisely what it is.

A lot of the Zeppelin attacks occurred at night.

What were the challenges of flying in the dark?

Enormous. We've got these little frail aeroplanes,

unreliable engines.

People got disorientated in the dark,

often flying with a torch to be able to read the instruments.

There were fatalities - it was extremely dangerous.

Even if a fighter plane could find a Zeppelin in the pitch darkness,

it was still a David and Goliath struggle to destroy an airship.

Look at its size, compared to a fighter plane of the same period.

It's dwarfed by the Zeppelin.

To lift men and bombs,

a vast quantity of lighter-than-air hydrogen gas was contained inside a massive frame.

The metal skeleton held enough gas-bags

to survive many hits from a machine gun.

But the Zeppelin's greatest fear was fire.

Their hydrogen gas was highly flammable.

Could anyone conjure up a fiery magic bullet to save Britain from the Zeppelins?

Tony Edwards knows the secret of the new incendiary ammunition.

That was filled with phosphorous, and in the side of the bullet

there was a very, very small hole filled with solder.

When the bullet was fired,

the bullet twisted up the barrel in the rifling, the solder melted,

and as the bullet left the muzzle of the gun,

it was spewing phosphorous.

Phosphorus ignites when in contact with the air, it sets light

and it leaves a smoke trail so it's burning all the way to its target.

Lethal to the Zeppelins, phosphorous is tricky stuff to handle.

Chemist Stephen Ashworth has made up a phosphorous solution.

Dip in a tissue, and when it dries out

the phosphorous comes in contact with air,

and it should spontaneously ignite.

It's like waiting for a magic trick.

Oh, yes!

-That was extraordinary! Out of nowhere.

-That's right.

As well as phosphorous shells,

by 1916 our armoury also included bullets

with an explosive nitro-glycerine core.

Now we had the chemical weapons to kill the Zeppelins.

But it would take brave men to try.

I've got a precious album that belonged to Egbert Cadbury,

a courageous Zeppelin hunter.

Cadbury was based in Great Yarmouth.

Originally, he was a Navy pilot,

but in 1918 he was co-opted into the newly formed RAF.

On the night of the 5th of August 1918,

Major Cadbury launched the last attack against the airship invaders,

when the Germans unleashed the super-Zeppelin...

..the L70 - the most advanced Zeppelin yet.

Almost 700 feet long, with seven engines,

capable of carrying 10,000lbs of bombs.

I've actually got a priceless recording of Major Cadbury

recounting his struggle against the fearsome Zeppelin

on that fateful night.

'We received warning from naval patrols at sea

'that hostile aircraft were approaching The Wash at great height.

'I immediately flew off in pursuit.'

Unbeknown to Cadbury, he wasn't only taking on the super-Zeppelin.

At the helm was this man, Commander Peter Strasser,

architect of the Zeppelin war on Britain,

desperate to prove the worth of his airships against aircraft.

Today you can't fly planes like this at night,

but we CAN relive Cadbury's hunt for the super-Zeppelin.

Despite being three times the length of a jumbo jet,

the L70 was not easy to find in pitch blackness.

'You sat in the cockpit, and had to depend upon your eyesight

'to spot the airship against a starry sky.

'It was rather like trying to find a fly in a darkened bedroom.'

The airship was almost over the coast.

To intercept it Cadbury knew he would have to push his plane

to altitudes close to its physical limit,

where the air was so thin the engine was at risk of stalling.

In an open cockpit at 17,000ft there would have been a biting wind.

The engine would have been rattling, spitting oil...

It would have been impossible to hear a Zeppelin over the racket.

But miraculously, Cadbury caught a glimpse of his prey.

'She looked simply immense -

'as indeed she was, being 300 yards long from stem to stern.'

Held aloft by 2.2 million cubic feet of flammable hydrogen.

A tiny incendiary bullet could bring the super-Zeppelin down.

Gunner Bob Leckie made ready with his machine gun.

'Suddenly the darkness was ripped open.

'Bob Leckie gave her a few bursts of fire of tracer bullets.'

A hit!

'And within a matter of seconds

'flames started to leap from her bows.

'And as I banked away,

'she went blazing down to the clouds 2,000 feet beneath us.

'We lost sight of her as she continued her downward journey

'into the North Sea, nearly three miles below.'

Strasser, the German Zeppelin commander, fell to his death.

His ambitious plans for more audacious airship raids

died with him.

It started over the Norfolk coast, and it ended there.

Sir Egbert Cadbury went on to manage his family's chocolate empire,

but he kept a souvenir.

This is a cigarette case made from lightweight aluminium taken from

the super-Zeppelin.

It actually has Cadbury's signature inscribed on it.

A small reminder of a largely forgotten first Blitz on Britain,

when events on this coast shook the nation to its core.

Our island shores bear the scars of conflicts long past.

But the dying sun hasn't quite obscured the age-old fears of invasion.

For some, the pain of conquest is a living memory

that makes freedom something to cherish.

Those who remember the long dark night of Nazi occupation

celebrate their liberty.

I'm proud to stand with them

and think of the price people paid facing the invaders of our isles.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd