Hastings history: When Hastings was targeted by flying bombs

He writes: The Second World War came to an end (almost) in Hastings in November 1944, eighty years ago, when the last bomb alert sounded throughout the town.

But luckily this was a false alarm, and in fact the last bomb to hit the town was a ‘doodlebug’ – a V1 flying bomb – that was shot down at the bottom of Wishing Tree Road on 4 August 1944. The doodlebugs were self-propelled rocket bombs, the first of which to hit the borough was brought down in Bexhill Road near Glyne Gap by anti-aircraft gunfire on 15 June 1944.

Before then, all the bombs that had hit the town had been dropped by aircraft, the first coming down on 26 July 1940 and the last on 27 March 1944. These caused extensive damage throughout the town, some of which can still be seen today (including in my house, which still has the temporary ceilings put up following a bombing raid in 1943!).

Hitler’s V1 high-powered doodlebugs were mainly aimed at London, with many passing over Hastings en route to their target. So five large batteries of heavy anti-aircraft guns were set up in Hastings to shoot them down: on the East and West Hills, at West Marina Gardens, on the Oval and at Fairlight Head. Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s daughter Mary was in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, and she helped run the West Hill gun site. Their operational HQ was the ladies’ toilet at the top of Wellington Road (now gone).

Fortunately, only 15 doodlebugs actually fell in the borough, but the countryside inland suffered much more severely, with no fewer than 374 brought down in what was then called Battle Rural District. One landed in Westfield, killing a woman and causing much damage.

However, the Hollington area suffered very severely on Sunday 16 July when an Allied fighter plane shot down a doodlebug. It crashed into small houses in Old Church Road and Hollington Old Lane, killing three people and injuring 47, twelve of them seriously. Two houses were demolished and many others extensively damaged over a wide area.

The last person to die in Hastings as a result of enemy action was Ethel Barnes, killed on 20 July 1944 when one of these flying bombs landed in a field near her home, Shearbarn Farm. The damaged farmhouse was later demolished. The remains of a doodlebug are on permanent display in the Fishermen’s Museum in Rock-a-Nore Road.