Ammunition barge explosion 80th anniversary.
It’s only a few days away from the 80th anniversary of the big explosion that rocked the town on the morning of the 22nd November 1944.
During the latter part of WW2 a barge carrying 180 tons of highly explosive material broke free from its tug in rough weather, just off Newhaven and as it drifted towards the shore its cargo was detonated, when it drifted into a mine near the shore just west of the breakwater at around 5am on that morning in November 1944, causing a massive explosion which rocked the town and showered it with chunks of metal with some larger pieces being embedded into the local buildings and roads.
Only one person lost their life that morning a young navy rating, who was killed by brickwork from a wall that collapsed on him. Many of the local residents with the more serious injuries were taken to hospital.
A link to a press report at that time giving more details is included below.
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My father was in the Navy at that time working in Newhaven docks on a supply ship. My mother had arrived just before that night to stay with him and so he swopped duties with another naval officer to stay with her. That young man was the one who was killed as a result of the explosion in the docks. My father spoke of that “poor young man ” and never really got over what had happened. My father went on to run a successful hosiery business and lived to be 96. Because of what happened that night I am very grateful to be here to tell the tale !
At the time, my maternal grandparents, Sarah and Cadwallader Cooke, lived at ‘Fortressville’, a wooden bungalow on Fort Hill (on the repro Newhaven South OS map of 1938, it is the more northerly of the pair of rectangular buildings SW of the football ground). Both escaped serious injury but the house was completely destroyed; I seem to remember being told that Oxley & Bennett gave them £21 for the salvage.
By strange coincidence, a conversation with our Editor has revealed that his great aunt had lived in the same house some years earlier!
Editors Note:-
Yes indeed my great aunt Ada Warren (nee Pittam) and her husband Albert Warren were living there in 1929 together with her mother Jane Pittam (nee Kidd) my great grandmother who sadly died in that year.
John Hills – Editor
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