​​Joe was later held in custody and fined for taking part in the demonstrations against the deportation of British-born Islanders in September 1942.

​In November 1944 he was arrested again on the more serious charge of being in possession of a weapon. Joe was repeatedly interrogated and beaten by the German Secret Field Police at Silvertide, Havre-des-Pas, and by the German Navy Harbour Police at the Pomme D’Or Hotel. He was later sentenced to 18 months in Jersey’s prison but was released on 7 May 1945.

​After the war, Joe joined the Army, from which he was demobbed in 1948. It was then that he began his lifetime’s work of researching and collating the stories of Occupation folk. He wrote:

​‘Friends and people of the Occupation were very kind to me, always ready to tell me their war history and give me their photographs…they were only too pleased that someone was recording the history…As the years went by, I added to the collection…the hours and days and years spent interviewing people seemed to never end. It was a labour of love and a great satisfaction to me which was my only reward…By the time that I started work at the German Military Underground Hospital as a Deputy Curator in 1976, the collection was quite large.’

​Joe retired in 1991, but by no means relented from his cause of raising awareness of the plight of civilians imprisoned during the Occupation for disobedience and defiance. Eventually, a memorial stone was inaugurated by Sir Philip Bailhache on the 50th anniversary of the Liberation in Gloucester Street, which was the location of the Newgate Street Prison.

Joe was the subject of the 2003 Jersey Heritage People’s Portrait, which was painted by Andrew Tift. The portrait shows Joe seated against the backdrop of one of the long concrete-lined tunnels of the Underground Hospital, surrounded by portraits, including those of family members, fellow Islanders who got into trouble with the Occupiers, and RAF airmen who were buried in Jersey during the war.

​Joe’s magnum opus, ‘Never to be Forgotten’, was published in 2004. He passed away two years later.​