50 Pence - Elizabeth II VE-Day - We shall fight on the beaches

Alderney was the only part of the British Isles occupied by German forces during World War II, a fact that gives this island's VE-Day commemoratives a different weight than equivalent issues from the mainland. The occupation lasted from July 1940 until liberation on 16 May 1945 — over a week after Germany's formal surrender — and the island's civilian population had been almost entirely evacuated before the Germans arrived.

The Churchill speech quoted in this coin's title was delivered on 4 June 1940, following Dunkirk. Alderney was abandoned to occupation less than six weeks later.