Our Railway's War by Brian Jane

First published in issue 96 of The Tenterden Terrier Spring 2005
Reproduced with permission of then-editor Mr P.D. Shaw
and current editor Mr B. Janes

Although operations were wrapped in secrecy, in 1945 W H Austen wrote a couple of papers recording the K&ESR’s wartime achievements. What follows is broadened and considerably expanded for the today’s reader. However, where possible, Austen’s own words are used

In the run up to war the government had asked the railways to prepare. The K&ESR was, after 10 years of the most stringent economy, was in Austen’s words, in ‘a very low condition regarding its general maintenance’ and indeed he had told the board that without assistance he would have been compelled to close. The Southern however came to the rescue in 1938 with a gift of track materials and when the government took control on the outbreak of war, limited funds were made available to do more. By the end of the war some nine to tem miles of track had been entirely or partially relaid. Without this none of what follows would have been possible.

With the fall of France the railway was on the front line. On Sunday 18 August 1940, when the Battle of Britain was about at its peak, several enemy high-explosive bombs were dropped in the Tenterden district, one of which pierced the northern entrance to St.Michael’s Tunnel. The bomb, however, did not explode until it had penetrated about eight feet of cover soil and brickwork in the crown of the tunnel, and struck the permanent way. One length of track was badly distorted and had to be renewed, and a considerable amount of clearing had to be undertaken by removal of brick rubble, coping etcetera which had been brought down and fouled the track as a result of the explosion. Permanent-Way gangs were soon on the scene and immediately set to work. The track was repaired and such work carried out as to enable the ordinary train service to run to schedule the following morning. This was not quite the end of the story, though, for the brickwork still had to be renewed and Austen struggled for the next year to find bricklayers in an area denuded of ordinary labour. The work was finally completed in November 1941 by T W Fuggle & Son, Builders and Contractors and ‘Complete Funeral Furnishers’ for £157/7/6 [£157 seven shillings and sixpence].

Shortly before all this the railway staff had been recruited into the Home Guard and had their own battalion (part of the 28th, 1st Southern Railway K Battalion commanded by Lt Col J A Plummer). Cyril Packham was the Sergeant and Bert Sharpe and Arthur Harris the Corporals. Eric Thompson, a Biddenden resident who joined the railway as a fireman in February 1942, recalled that their initial antics such as parading with sticks before rifles were available was the same as most stereotypes of this very worthy body. More seriously they certainly practised firing on an informal range slightly north of Tenterden [Town] Station and they spent any long hours guarding and patrolling the entire length of the railway, particularly at night. Thompson recalled that one day an officer asked ‘What would you do if an enemy aircraft came over the station now and started firing at you?’ (a highly probable occurrence at the time). They said ‘Run for cover’ but he said ‘No you wouldn’t – you would stand and fire back’. Home Guard officers were not always so battle hardened!

Several very close misses by bombs were recoded for time to time throughout the system, presumably during the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and through hit-and-run raiders. Although there must have died out, in summer 1944 came a new threat. This was a flying bomb, the Vergeltungswaffe 1, V1 or ‘Doodlebug’. About 5-7000 were launched from France towards London between 12th June and September 1st 1944. They carried nearly a ton of explosive. Many fell short in the coastal counties either because of mechanical failure or defensive measures. The line was within the flight path of these devices; an area known as ‘Doodlebug Alley’, and Tenterden had more incidents (238) than any other district in the country.

On 22 June 1944, at about 5.10pm, a flying bomb was observed by the driver of the 4.35pm ex-Tenterden to Robertsbridge, falling to earth in a direct line for the Railway towards Bodiam. The driver had the presence of mind to stop the train. Fortunately he did so, for the bomb dropped within 50 feet of the Railway. Eric Thompson was fireman and recalled that they sheltered behind the engine’s tender (an irregular working, as these were not officially allowed west [south] of Rolvenden). When they went forward after the explosion, metal shards, still red-hot, were scattered across the track. Austen concluded that had the train continued without a stop it would, undoubtedly, have been opposite the spot at the time the bomb struck earth and exploded, in which case serious injury might have resulted to passengers travelling in the train.

Another flying bomb incident happened on 2 August 1944 when one of these missiles fell and exploded almost opposite Bodiam Station. This resulted in considerable damage to the Station building by way of partially lifting the roof, and blowing in all doors and windows. Lumps of soil from the crater weighing as much as 0.5cwt [20-25kg] were cast on to the platform and even over the roof of the Station building into the Goods Yard. Fortunately no-one was in the building at the time. Several men were working in the Station Yard and seeing the bomb falling, took refuge under trucks in the Yard and thus avoided injury.

Traffic picked up slowly during the ‘phoney war’ period but the first special traffic demand came in the early part of May 1940 with the imminent threat of invasion. The Railway was called upon to receive and deliver to its various stations special train loads of barbed wire for distribution in connection with the defence works to be erected in the area; these trains continued to run at all times, both day and night, for a considerable period.

During a period of September and October 1940, as a result of enemy action, Hastings was entirely severed from mainline rail connections via Ashford, Tonbridge and Polegate. It was only by working all traffic over the Kent & East Sussex via Headcorn and Robertsbridge, and vice versa, that rail-borne traffic could enter Hastings. Some 500-600 wagons were specially hauled with some assistance from the Southern Railway Company’s engines and staff working between Headcorn and Robertsbridge, in conjunction with the Kent & East Sussex engines and staff. Hastings was thus kept open for goods and mineral traffic until the Southern lines could be cleared and normal working resumed. Indeed there is anecdotal evidence that if any out-of-gauge box wagons were, as frequently happened with wartime wagon pooling, inadvertently consigned to Hastings line stations, then they were routed via specials over the K&ESR.

On 10 February 1941 the War Department entered on the System with two rail-borne super heavy battery pieces of artillery, each weighing approximately 82 tons, mounted on six-wheeled bogie vehicles hauled by WD 0-6-0 six wheeled tender engines (Dean Goods). The story of these coastal defence guns has been told elsewhere (“The Tenterden Terrier” issue 39). Initially at least one was at Rolvenden and one at Wittersham Road. The gunnery officers were billeted in local houses with HQ at Wassal Court, Rolvenden, but the troops were housed in a special train of French Ferry Vans converted with bunks and cookhouses, in the unused platform 3 at Tenterden. A momento of this stay is a kitchen knife, now in the Museum, that a cook presented to platelayer Arthur Smith. The guns probably caused, through concussion when they fired, more damage to the railway than the enemy did. Substantial damage was done to Rolvenden Station building and rolling stock on May 3rd 1941 amounting to £171 and to Wittersham Road Station building and Bungalow on 3rd and again on 5th May to the tune of £37. Fuggle again did much of the repair work. The batteries remained until 8th August 1944. During that period the WD trains ran 2689 train miles over the System.

Compensation for the actions of the Military seems to have been a constant feature of the times with road vehicle damage to property and seemingly regular derailments of the Deans Goods. The Railway also mad a steady income from supplying water and transporting supplies. However early in the war in July 1940, the Military must have given Austen quite a turn by claiming that a consignment of high-explosive artillery shells had gone missing and claimed £1150! In the event the claim was settled in December with a cheque for 2/9 (14p) in respect of some percussion tubes so the shells must have turned up. The settlement papers still survive and the amount of work and people involved dealing with the Military for even such trivial sums must have accounted for many of the long clerical hours worked during the war.

But the real demands on the Railway came with preparations for the invasion of France. From May 1943 to May 1944 some 110 special trains conveying materials for aerodromes in the vicinity were run over the Railway between Headcorn and Tenterden. There were two temporary airfields (aerodromes) called Advance Landing Grounds (ALGs) in the vicinity of the K&ESR.