Islanders have the day off to remember those who came back from England to find their homes ransacked and island turned into a concrete and steel fortress by the occupying force.

Homecoming Day is 15 December but when it falls on a Sunday, as it does in 2024, then the Monday before is the official bank holiday in Alderney.

Homecoming really began with the hurried evacuation of civilians in June 1940 after German troops had overrun the neighbouring Cotentin peninsula.

People has just hours to pack a small bag of belongings and get to the harbour. Pets were abandoned or put down.

At the end of the war British troops landed on Alderney and the German garrison was used to clear mines and other dangerous defences. But the island was so ravaged by the occupiers that it was not until 15 December 1945 that Alderney's population sailed home.

The president of the States of Alderney, William Tate, says it was a mess:

"Every piece of wood that could be burnt had been burnt. And what they noticed was there was no bird song, because all of the trees had been cut down."

"I'm not sure if I'd been faced with the total devastation of the island that met them in 1945 that I would have had the strength of character to rebuild this."

A Homecoming celebration will take place on Sunday 15 December. Mr Tate says around 100 people, not all in Alderney, were there on Homecoming Day in 1945.

"The flame is never extinguished, It always has to be, going forward, the most important date in our calendar."