Sirens Began To Sound After The Phoney War
FOR more than half a century, Brian Shewry has reported on the life and times of Littlehampton, as a journalist with the Gazette.
But he was only a child when the town suffered its most turbulent times, through almost six years of the Second World War.
New Road, Littlehampton, in 1940, with windows blown out and rooftops devoid of their tiles |
It’s a fascinating account of dodging bullets, watching the aerial dog-fights of the Battle of Britain and surviving a terrifying bombing raid.
He was just five-and-a-half when war broke out, living in Fitzalan Road with his parents, Fred and Agnes, and his sister, Muriel. The Fire Services National Benevolent Fund’s convalescent home now stands on the site of the family’s house.
A
t the time, Brian was attending a small, private preparatory school at South Terrace, and soon after the war started, that area was virtually sealed off, with makeshift barricades across the roads leading down to the seafront.
“They were only made of old wardrobes and bedsteads. At first, that was all there was between us and the Germans, should they have invaded!”
A bomb crater at the gatehouse of the former Rosemead School, 1941 |
“My earliest recollection of the war is when Lobbs Wood (at the junction of Fitzalan Road and Granville Road) became part of the defence system. Zig-zag ditches were built across it, I presume for the Home Guard to go in and shoot at Germans, if they arrived.
“We were told by our parents not to play in the ditches, but of course, as soon as they turned their back, we were in them!”
Later, Brian recalls, there were other, more substantial defences on the beaches, including huge concrete blocks, and tall, anti-tank structures.
“You couldn’t go down to the beach, and the south coast was virtually out of bounds. I think adults needed a permit to visit Littlehampton, or to go from here to other towns, but that made no difference to us as children, because you wouldn’t have any thoughts of leaving.
“We knew very little about the war until the summer of 1940, when, to a certain extent, we were suddenly in the front line.
“It was the period of the ‘phoney war’, when nothing much had been happening and people were lulled into a sense of false security. Then the air raids started.
Wick Street in 1941, near the Gardeners Arms after an air raid. No houses were demolished on this occasion, but it is easy to spot missing slates and tiles as householders inspect the damage |
“We had just had our Sunday lunch and I was in the garden. I saw a squadron of planes high in the sky, and I thought they were German aircraft. We had all been given plane recognition cards, and although they were high up, I was sure I knew what they were.
“Then they started coming down, over to the west of the town. They were Stuka bombers. We could see them diving down, and the bombs coming out. The next thing we heard were the incredibly loud explosions, and then we saw the smoke going up.
“There were huge volumes of smoke rising into the sky, and it started drifting across Littlehampton. I don’t know whether it was fuel or rubber, but these huge, black clouds of smoke blotted the sun out.
“The whole thing seemed to be over in minutes, but it was the worst air raid on this area, in terms of lives lost. On the same day, the Germans attacked the radar station at Poling, but we didn’t know that at the time.”
More air raids followed, and with the threat of invasion looming, Fred and Agnes Shewry asked their children if they would like to be evacuated. Brian and Muriel were not keen on the idea, although many other children had already left the town for safer places elsewhere.
Then, towards the end of August, 1940, with the Battle of Britain at its height, the decision was taken that Brian, his sister and mother should move to a cottage in the country near Petworth.
“We went there for a month, but beat a hasty retreat!,“ Brian recalls. “There were gun batteries all round that area and it was worse than in Littlehampton. Our bedrooms had windows in the thatched roof, and you could watch the searchlights picking out the German bombers in the sky.
“Towards the end of September, the Battle of Britain was past its peak, and our parents decided we should return to Littlehampton.”
Another sight etched onto Brian’s memory is of dog-fights between the British and German aircraft in the sky above Littlehampton. “As a child, I found it fascinating. On one occasion, I saw a plane coming down, and a German parachuting out of it.
“Lying in bed at night, I could hear the planes going over, and the machine guns firing. I would look in the garden the next morning for bullet casings, and take my collection of them to school to show the other children!
“Another time, I was coming home from Elm Grove School and a German plane flew along East Street. It was so low I could see the pilot’s face. The plane was machine gunning all along the road, so we threw ourselves into the gutter. It was something to boast about afterwards.
“There weren’t many occasions when I felt really frightened. To me, at my age, the war was exciting.”
But there was a frightening night for Brian and his family a few months after they returned from their rural evacuation. One night, in the spring of 1942, a huge German bomb fell on Caffyn’s Field, 200 yards away, but the force of the blast was so great it devastated the Shewrys’ home and many other properties.
“That night was scary. We were in the thick of it. I was sleeping in a small room at the back of the house. I was suddenly woken by this tremendous explosion. The whole house rocked, and there was this terrible sound of breaking glass.
“I leapt out of bed immediately, and that probably saved my life, because moments later, a big part of the ceiling came down and fell on the bed.
“I went onto the landing, and the glass was crunching under my feet. Everything seemed absolutely chaotic. The blast from the bomb had not just broken the glass, but ripped the windows out, frames and all. Several were hanging, crazily, from their casements.
“Doors had been blown open and the place was a terrible mess.
“We had to stay there for the night — there was nowhere else to go. Then we stayed with relatives in Littlehampton for some time, while the house was repaired.
“I don’t think anyone was killed, but a lot of houses were wrecked, and hardly any shops in the town centre had windows left. The glass was replaced with a kind of hardboard, with just a tiny window in it to peer at what was inside the shop.”
Although Littlehampton suffered a number of bombing raids, and people lost their lives, including, he remembers, two fellow pupils at Elm Grove School, Brian acknowledges the town got off lightly compared with London’s blitz.
He remembers how the family used to shelter in a cupboard under the stairs during raids or warnings, and later had a Morrison shelter, a large, steel structure the shape of a dining table, under which people could seek refuge in their own homes.
“A lot of people ignored the air raid warnings. We had an uncle staying with us for a time, and he would never come out in the raid and under the shelter. He totally ignored it.”
There were other guests who came to stay, too, in the family’s spare room, which had to be registered with the authorities, to be at the disposal of the armed forces.
The wife of Royal Artillery Major in charge of the gun emplacements on Littlehampton seafront lived with the Shewrys while her husband was billeted in the Beach Hotel.
“I was very fond of her. She was a lovely woman, and I kept in touch with her until she died, exchanging birthday and Christmas cards. We went to see her and her husband at their home on the Wirral, a lovely house overlooking the River Dee.”
Later, a Canadian commander involved in the D-Day landings stayed with the family. He, too, became a good friend, but was not heard of again after the invasion.
“Looking back, I wonder how we ever survived it all. It was an amazing time and it’s unlikely anything remotely like it will ever happen again.”
