Remembering the War
Brian Lancaster, a schoolboy resident, shares his memories of Newchurch at war
Syd Goodsell 
A local resident
I remember the many times I saw the ALG in operational conditions while cycling around the marsh. Edward G. Robinson, the American film actor of yesteryear and Ernest Hemingway, the author, both lived under canvas there at the Newchurch airfield, probably on journalistic missions at the height of the flying bomb period. I also remember ten or twelve of these flying bombs flying across the marsh at Newchurch all at once.
On 31st August 1940 I saw the Dornier bomber that had crash landed astride the Bilsington Road and the anti-aircraft gun and searchlight unit established at the junction of St.Mary’s Road and Pickney Bush Lane.
Ivy Homewood 
A Newchurch Villager
Apart from a few enemy planes over us, it really started during the withdrawal from Dunkirk. It looked as if a fog was rising over France, all the washing on the clothes-lines was spotted with black smudges, as were the daises in the garden. We could hear the gunfire and the trains going into Ashford for a fuel stop. It seemed to settle down with only a few droves of enemy bombers on a mission to bomb London for a while.
Then came The Battle of Britain, lots of roads had gun emplacements, barbed wire was placed on all the sea walls and many bridges were blown up and cards issued so you could enter Romney Marsh past checkpoints. A letter arrived from the Air Ministry stating they would take 199 acres of our farm for a runway for a landing ground. This came into action in the spring of 1943. We would watch the Spitfires go off and counted them on their return. Sad to say, some never returned.
The next year was the invasion. We knew something was up as all the planes had their wings painted in black and white stripes, then at night they were all washed off and then repainted. There was a pipeline laid through the village and under the sea (P.L.U.T.O.) to carry oil to our troops in France after they made a landing. We could hear the guns and tanks rumbling across the water from France.
Then there were the flying bombs. The first one passed over at night and we thought it was a plane on fire. They came over on all days and when the engine stopped we all ran for cover. We saw one of our Spitfires turn a bomb over and it came down close to the village. When the flying bombs stopped, it was quieter and life began to get back to normal.
Click to read extracts about the war from the Newchurch School diary dated 1939-1944. It seems the school was not immune to the ravages of war overhead.
E.A. Hearl
Serving with the Field Ambulance Company in Newchurch in 1940
It was in November 1940 when The Field Ambulance Company I was serving with stumbled into The Old Rectory for a few hours sleep before getting ready to meet the expected invasion from across the Channel. My memories of Newchurch and the surrounding countryside in those days is one of extreme bleakness. My warmer memories are of the welcome given to us by the people of the village and their valiant efforts to entertain us when we were off duty.
The barn which was the centre of most of the social activities was minus it’s tiles. The barn dances that were organized were a masterpiece of improvisation but how we enjoyed them.
The new village store is built on part of the field used for our morning P.T. and where we played football matches. One such match was a very much interrupted affair and a fight between British and German planes developed right over our heads and seemed to go on for a long time. We scattered off the field taking refuge in the dyke several times, as it seemed we were becoming the target for straffing.
Some of us were housed next to the pub and I remember being shaken out of a deep sleep when a stick of bombs landed in the fields not very far away. If they had not been dropped a few seconds later there would not have been a lot of Newchurch left standing.
Part of my time in Newchurch was spent serving in the Officers’ Mess which was located in a very tumbledown cottage by the side of the dyke, now a very attractive home which has had some additions to it.
E.A. Hearl, 4 August, 1974