Liberation Sculpture (Monument to Freedom)

The story

Philip Jackson's bronze group of seven figures in 1940s clothing, holding a Union Jack up between them, unveiled on Liberation Square on 9 May 1995 — fifty years to the day after the island was liberated. An early version of the design, altered by committee, had the figures releasing doves of peace instead; the island objected that the square commemorates liberation rather than peace, and that anyone who had lived through the hunger of 1945 knew what would have become of a dove. The flag replaced the doves, the women were moved to the centre of the group, and the sculpture was set at pavement level so that people can walk among it. The rearmost figure is a serviceman in battledress and boots. Twelve fountains surround it, one for each parish.