| World
War 2
On 26th July 1940 a lone fighter-bomber circled Hastings and
dropped eleven high explosive bombs. Several properties where
destroyed. Attacks on a much larger scale followed and the
following day a formation of fifty planes flew up the channel
and attacked St Leonards. Numerous attacks on Hastings and
St Leonards followed and many lives where lost as homes, hotels
and boarding houses where destroyed.
The area had little in the way of aerial defence and enemy
planes often circled round machine gunning and droppping bombs
as they pleased. There were anti-aircraft guns situated around
the town and heavy guns on the West Hill as a defence against
flying bombs (V1’s) but the scale of the attacks often
made defence impossible.
By the end of the war the Nazis had dropped a total of 550
high explosive bombs and 750 incendiaries on Hastings and
an additional sixteen flying bombs or ‘doodlebugs’ crashed into the town. A total of 463 properties were destroyed,
14,818 properties were damaged and 154 people were killed.
In 1921 the population of the town was 67,494, it had dropped
to 48,820 by 1945 as a result of the war. |
|
German
Submarine U118
An empty German submarine was washed ashore
on the beach in front of Denmark Place in 1919. The submarine
U118 had broken its towrope on the way from Cherbourg to Scapa
Flow. It was welcomed as an unusual Easter attraction until
a build-up of chlorine gas poisoned a group of coastguards,
one of whom died on 21 February 1920. U118 was an extremely
large submarine for its time and having surrendered to France
on 23rd February 1919, it was eventually broken up at Brest
during July 1921.
Coldest
Winter
The winter of 1962/3 was very severe and absolutely everything
froze including the sea. Snow was cleared from the town centre
with bulldozers and trucks and taken to Rock-a-Nore were it
was left in a huge pile which didn’t melt until June that
summer. |
