August 13th 1940 was for a long time regarded as Eagle Tag Day the start of the aerial battles over southern England and referred to as the Battle of Britain, but those of us in this area were well aware that German aircraft activity started at least a month previous and the official day for the start of the battle has now been revised.  

The weather on August 13th 1940 saw a change to much a brighter spell and on that morning the sky was cloudless with bright sunshine, I usually left for work around 6:30 a.m. and as I was leaving the house where I lived in Southwick, I was greeted by the sound of the air raid sirens.

There was already the sound of aircraft high up in the sky out over the sea off the Shoreham Harbour mouth, strain as I could I could not see anything, the sound of machine guns and aircraft weaving about very quickly disappeared inland.

The incoming raiders had been intercepted by 43 Squadron with their Hurricanes this was the first operational flight for Sergeant Noble later killed when he was shot down over Hove attacking another formation that had just passed over the Findon area on 30th August 1940.  According to  later reports the fight went inland to the Pulborough/Storrington area then turned and headed south east over Findon heading for home. 

The next time I saw anything of them was three JU 88s in a Vic formation about 1000ft roaring across Shoreham one of the planes must have still had his bomb load on board because he suddenly did a little dive (a characteristic manoeuvre of the JU88 they were classified as dive bombers by the Luftwaffe and were fitted with dive brakes) and dropped four bombs and then climbed back and regained the formation.

All the bombs were 250 Kg 550 Lbs the normal bomb load of a JU88.  One fell near the coast road along side a workman’s cafe the café was rebuilt later and now is the offices of the oil terminal on the site opposite the B&Q superstore. This bomb did not explode usually described as DAs (Delayed Action) at the time.

One struck the edge of the quay along side a large crane on the New wharf which was at the time a coal wharf owned by the Shoreham Shipping & Coal Company.

The last two fell in the water.  The target was a collier the “SS BETSWOOD” which had just unloaded a cargo of coal on the New Wharf  and was waiting to sail, the captain's name was  Potts  and his exploits of running  the Dover  straits is well recorded in a book  called the “Coal Scuttle Brigade” by Alexander McKee published 1954, sadly now well out of print.  

The “BETSWOOD” was not hit but she was covered in mud from the bomb bursts in the water and debris from the quay edge.   It was said that Captain Potts was furious as to the state of his ship it having just been hosed down to remove the coal dust from the unloading.

Bill Munnery was a crane driver and was sitting some 30 ft up in the air and he told me later it was the shock of his life when it happened, he said—

 "I thought the crane was going to topple into the water".

Apparently when the sirens went off with the noise in the crane cab he did not hear them and nobody thought to warn him.   

The three JU88s carried on out to sea over the harbour mouth there was no British fighters around and none of the planes were trailing smoke.  This is where  eye witness accounts of the action vary.

One report said one of the JU88s was shot down and crashed in the sea off the harbour mouth.

However the Luftwaffe records do not support this they say no JU88s were lost that day. 

The Germans did lose one plane in that raid a Messerschmitt 109E fighter it was forced down and crashed in the field south of the railway line by Shoreham airport. The pilot Ober/Ltn Paul Temme was taken prisoner, this part of the action is pictured in the Fly-in restaurant in the airport main terminal building.  His unit was 1/JG.2 (Richthofen) based at Beaumont-le-Roger, Normandy.   

At the time of the action no casualties were reported but that was to change very dramatically, three days later August 16th around 1:00 p.m. with no aircraft around there was a terrific explosion, it was the DA that had fell along side the café, sadly four men, two soldiers and two civilians who were in the hole digging it out were killed, story has it that no trace of them were ever found.  

As for the “SS BETSWOOD” she carried on sailing, survived the war and held the record for doing the most voyages through the Straits of Dover during World War 2.  As for Capt Potts he was later awarded a well earned BEM for his exploits on the English Channel Coal Run.

 Eric Masters,
November, 2003.