The Return of Peace

From 1943, the war was at last beginning to move in favour of the Allies. Some people who had evacuated away in 1940, decided to return to Clacton and the local area. Clacton however was still a front-line town and enemy attacks continued. The build up to the Second Front (the proposed Allied invasion of Europe), meant that more troops were posted to the area, together with their transport preparing for ‘D Day' which was to be on 6 th June 1944. The skies over Clacton were to be increasingly filled with British and American bombers, off to attack Germany.

Wartime restrictions, and the constant danger of enemy attacks had been part of every day life for adults and children alike, but from 1944 there was some relaxation of the restrictions , but some food rationing became even more stringent.

On the 8 th May 1945 Germany eventually surrendered, it was V.E. day at last. Rumour had spread around the town the previous day that victory was imminent, and spontaneous street parties took place. Bonfires were lit, and the local churches held special services. On the 9 th May, the Vicar of St. James's church, the Councillor the Revd. H G Redgrave, and other ministers, representing the Clacton churches, conducted a service in the Town Hall, before a ‘great concourse of people.' The Clacton UDC issued a public notice on 11 th May stating that all the public shelters would be closed from this date.

The war continued in the Far East against Japan, and many men from the Clacton area were in this theatre of war; especially those from the ‘Clacton's Own' a Anti Aircraft Gun Battery raised in Clacton in 1939. Victory over Japan, V J Day, was finally achieved on 14 th August 1945.

Children enjoying some entertainment at a Clacton-on-Sea V.J. Party

 

Further celebrations and street parties were arranged, but were fewer than those for V E Day. Nothing had been heard of the ‘Clacton's Own,' the few survivors eventually returning home from September 1945.

A Victory football match was played on the Old Road ground, the home of Clacton Town Football Club against Leyton Orient. The attendance was 7,000 spectators, the largest number ever to watch the Town play before or since.

Clacton was impatient to once again provide holiday facilities for the 1946 summer season.

The Hadleigh Hotel on the Marine Parade East, at Clacton-on-Sea where evacuated children from the Latymer School, Edmonton were accommodated from September 1939, now prepared once again to receive summer visitors .

The British peoples had suffered six years of war, and were desperate to be able to take a seaside holiday once again. That is what Clacton had excelled in providing pre-war, and was ready to offer once again.

Restrictions. During 1944 visitors were allowed to visit Clacton once again, and in January 1945, the Eastern Military Command decided that a portion of the sea front should be open to the public. From the next month residential and shop property requisitioned in 1940, was beginning to be released under the Defence Regulations made in 1939. One of these properties was in Wash Lane, Clacton and was used by the military as a dental centre. The defence works on the sea front at Anglefield, and Albany Gardens were removed, but the road blocks at all entrances to the town remained, also the training area at the Old Road, but was to be released in November 1945.

In April 1945, the Clacton Lifeboat was permitted to summon the crew once again by maroons. Two were used for a launch, and one to signal the boats safe return. Residents were still strictly prohibited from carrying binoculars, and the blackout, the prevention of showing any light, was still enforced.

Some defence works like the concrete tank blocks and pill boxes were starting to be broken up, and Italian P.O.W. (Prisoner of War) labour was used from 1945 to assist with this work. Tenders were sought from companies to demolish the surface shelters, but some were still in place and causing a nuisance in February 1946. At Holland-on-Sea, some pill boxes remained until 1953 on the sea front.

This concrete pill box at Holland-on-Sea, photographed in 1953, showing that the clearance of defences was still not complete. The effects of coastal erosion were also causing problems .

At Holland Haven and towards Frinton-on-Sea, wartime pill boxes remain to this day.

The greensward at West Clacton soon after the end of the war. The minefield once here has been cleared, and the grass reinstated. It has been fenced in to allow it to become established.

There were mine fields to be cleared on the greensward, and on the cliffs, special certificates were issued when the work was completed; at Holland-on-Sea, by March 1946 the cliffs had still not been cleared. Property owners were beginning to seek claims for War Damage Repairs; both for enemy action, and damage caused by soldiers occupying requisitioned property. Shortage of materials, especially timber, restricted the progress of the work.