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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Wendy Wood of Hastings Community Learning Centre, a volunteer from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Southern Counties Radio on behalf of Robert Eric Prior and has been added to the site with his/her permission. Robert Eric Prior fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

It was early May 1940 and I was a 15 year old lad walking along on a summer evening by Hastings harbour arm when I looked out to sea and saw about a dozen small craft. It turned out that these ships were full of Belgian refugees and they were not allowed to come ashore by the customs officers but landed at Hastings Pier to be interrogated to ensure they were not German agents. I found out later that the entire gold reserves of the Belgian government were aboard one of the craft. Two days after this a Blenheim bomber crashed on Hastings beach by the De Luxe cinema and we could see across the channel the burning oil refineries on the French coast.

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