LETTER: Father helped build tank defences
The article in County Times of June 13 concerning the anti-tank defences and pill-boxes along the coast at Worthing was most interesting.
As the 11-year-old son of the War Department appointed contractor A Cruttenden & Sons of Brighton, I saw and heard the difficulties that my father Vic Cruttenden had to overcome to build these defences along a considerable stretch of the South Coast including those at Worthing.
Amongst the difficulties were the shortage of petrol for concrete mixers, the difficulty in obtaining reinforcing steel for the pill-box roofs and the fact that most of the workmen left that had not been called up were by no means young!
Worthing were very eager to get rid of these eye-sores immediately peace was restored as your article discusses.
Leo Cruttenden
Springfield Road, Horsham