Hastings at War 1939-1945

By: Nathan Dylan Goodwin

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

New ebook edition (2025)

The coastal town of Hastings, East Sussex, England, was often bombed during the Second World War. More than forty people's memories have been cleverly incorporated by the Nathan Dylan Goodwin into this vivid account of what Hastings endured when it was a 'front-line' town - and tells of its great defiance and fortitude in the face of the enemy. He depicts how Hastings folk coped with the daily wartime hardships of blackout, rationing, the billeting of evacuees, the evacuation of the town, constant fear of invasion, and the relentless bombing raids, day and night, leaving in their wake a trail of death, destruction and the apprehension of where and when the next attack would come.

John Bristow, describing a raid on 23 May 1943, says 'There was a god-almighty explosion and we went into the passage by The Havelock pub and we dived onto the ground and lay there looking out before a bomb hit what was the old Royal Oak Hotel. Along by Woolworth's there was a car going by and it was set up into the air by the bomb and over and over. While we lay there, there was another terrific explosion down the side of Plummer's and I'll never forget seeing a huge lump of yellow coloured masonry coming over and land on the tram wires...'

'Hear' first-hand accounts of life in this English front-line town during the Second World War and learn what it was like to live through.