A glimpse into life on the front line before and during World War II

Gas masks, a trench shelter, pill boxes, fears of an invasion, German dive-bombers overhead and Community buildings requisitioned

Feb 16, 2024

A warm welcome to the latest post from In Search of Adela Curtis, A Modern Mystic. Today the focus is on WWII. Adela Curtis was writing her diary in 1939 and gives insights into preparations for potential war which were happening here on the south coast, and in a richly descriptive letter written a year later to her sister Clara who lived in the States, she brings the Community’s experience on the front line vividly to life. Questions about the war years which have remained unanswered until now concerned the billeting of soldiers in the main house - which regiment would this have been and were there both British and American troops stationed here at different times? I’ve recently made contact with Sarah West, who helped establish The West Bay Discovery Centre and who continues to volunteer there and she has been able to supply some really helpful information that provides answers to these questions!

Heading Towards War in 1939

Adela Curtis kept a diary for most of 1939 and not only does this give us an idea of the day to day life of the Christian Contemplatives’ Charity (CCC) from her perspective, but also it shows the kind of preparations being undertaken on the south coast, months before war was declared in September of that year. For Friday 6 January, Adela wrote:

Rector sent 3 gas masks for sizes, & says as this is a “Nil” area none are being supplied, but he will order them for us if we wish. He is A.R.P. Warden. Phil & Eve who have been trained in London are fitting us all tomorrow at 11 & I have ordered Alan to superintend Hayward & Hussey on digging trench shelter.

Canon Arthur Dittmer was Rector of Burton Bradstock, the parish in which the community was situated and he also took on the role of Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Warden for the locality. Phil and Eve Hutchinson were Adela’s nieces, who were based in London but came down regularly to spend the weekend with their aunt. Alan Bendy was the new young gardener. (He was first introduced here in a post written just before Remembrance Sunday, along with Geoffrey de Pury - two young men associated with the CCC who both went off to fight and were sadly killed in the war). Ephraim Hussey was a local fisherman and gardener, living in Burton Bradstock, and had been employed by Adela since the 1920s to do the heaviest jobs. Phil sent the Government specifications for trench shelters by post to her aunt a few days later. The construction was not straightforward and was becoming costly - on 8 February Adela noted that:

One side of ARP trench has fallen in from so much rain. Fearful mess of wet clay now. Sent for wire netting to peg down. Estimate for wood nearly £20 in addition to roof timber & is too much. Must keep the whole down to £50 & even that is a burden while chapel and lawyers are still unpaid.

In total, she mentions the trench 16 times in her diary in the first three months of the year and she becomes increasingly annoyed about the lack of progress. At last, when she has given the work to Fry (likely to be a local builder) and his men, can she state on 28 March that the ‘trench is going well now’.

And finally on 6 June the trench shelter was complete and on a scorching day, she noted that it was the only cool spot on site! On 1 September, the Germans bombed Warsaw and the next day Adela wrote:

All prepared last night for quick dash to Trench. Girls [Phil and Eve] very able. Know exactly the right thing & do it at once and thoroughly.

An intriguing question remains: is there anything left of the trench today - and where might it be in the grounds?

There was another sign of potential change ahead when Major Wratislaw called in one day in February 1939. He was a retired army officer living with his wife Nancy in Burton Bradstock and at this time was part of Dorset County Special Constabulary Mobile Division. He came to enquire about the possibility of refugees being housed at the Community. Adela basically said no and, ‘Gave him written statement of Pitt Rivers restriction & of our Members owning cottages & coming to Guesthouse.’ The field Adela bought in 1921 had belonged to the Pitt Rivers estate, and apparently there were restrictions on what could and could not be done on the land, even after Adela had purchased it. However, these restrictions would be overruled a year later when billets were needed for troops.

Signs of Wartime Defences in the Local Area

During 1940 there was a very real threat of invasion by Germany. The Allied retreat in early 1940 had led to the evacuation of British troops from the beaches at Dunkirk on the French coast in May and June of that year and this had increased the likelihood of an invasion. (In fact, in mid-September 1940, Hitler had decided to postpone a planned invasion but the Luftwaffe continued their bombing raids long after that.1) As part of the defence strategy, alongside minefields being laid on the beaches, from June onwards thousands of pillboxes were built and according to research conducted by the late David Evans, 40 were erected on the coast between Seatown and Abbotsbury.2 Numbers of these are still standing and one of them, hexagonal shaped and made of brick and concrete, can be seen clearly in the field just below Othona.

The pillbox with its entrance on the north side just inside Adela’s original land, but mainly sticking out into the field now owned by the National Trust. This view is looking east. The pillbox is gradually being covered by the scrub but when it was first erected, there would have been clear sight through all the slits, to watch for any signs of invasion.

The soldiers who kept watch in the pillboxes had to be billeted in the neighbourhood and it is not surprising that the CCC’s property, so near to the coast and the defences, was requisitioned by the army in 1940.

Our groundsman Maurits has been clearing a lot of scrub in our grounds to encourage the grassland to increase as this is good for wild orchids etc. When he cleared this spot to the west of the chapel, these brick remains appeared for the very first time in many years. Almost certainly they are what is left of a building erected by the army during the war.

As mentioned above, one of the unanswered questions we have had over the years at Othona was to do with which regiment was actually billeted in the house. We did not have much information to go on. Tony the Warden here thought he remembered hearing that the Essex Regiment might have been here, but we didn’t have any proof of this. How glad I am that I met Sarah West of the West Bay Discovery Centre last month, as she has been able to supply some valuable material which fills in some blanks!

Meeting Sarah West

Sarah and I first met, not in West Bay but at Loders Village Hall, at a meeting of the West Dorset branch of the Somerset and Dorset Family History Society. Soon after we met and I had mentioned about the CCC Community House being used as a billet during the war, Sarah got in touch to tell me about the information which had been unearthed by David Evans on Bridport and West Bay and surrounding areas at War. David had clearly done extensive research on this topic and amongst other things had identified which regiments were stationed and when in this part of the world.

Sarah West and me at the West Bay Discovery Centre earlier this month. We are standing in front of a colourful wall hanging which has been made out of waste products found in the sea.

The Discovery Centre was originally built as a Methodist Chapel in the late 1840s. The Centre came into being in 2018 and there is a team of 40 volunteers which helps to keep it open for the benefit of the community. It is well worth a visit and is free to enter. Donations are appreciated to support its work.

According to David Evans’ research, therefore, it was the Durham Light Infantry which was stationed in the Bridport area by June 19403 and the 9th Durham LI had responsibility for beach defence. It would therefore have been men from this battalion which were billeted in the CCC’s properties when Adela wrote her letter below to her sister in August 1940.

David wrote that it was then the 8th Battalion of the Essex Regiment, which took over responsibility for beach defence from the 9th Durham LI on October 19 1940.

The 8th Essex Regiment had its HQ at Looke Farm, Litton Cheney. A Company was centred on Abbotsbury, B Company between Othona and Cliff End, C Company between West Bexington Farm and the old Coast Guard Station, and D Company at Langton Herring.4 [My bold print.]

[The site wasn’t called Othona in those days of course - David must have decided to use the current name to help readers identify where he meant.]

Three years later in 1943, US troops arrived in Dorset.

The HQ for the 16th Infantry Regiment was established at Parnham House, and GIs were billeted at Burton Bradstock… Burton Cliff Hotel and Othona were also used as billets.5

They left Burton Bradstock shortly before D Day.6

A Description of Life on the Front Line

The final part of today’s post is a letter Adela Curtis wrote to her sister Clara in the States in 1940. In total, she wrote 7 letters to Clara during the first two years of the war. It is a mystery why there are none in the collection after Nov 1940. Perhaps Clara was then too ill to open them or keep them safely with the others. Adela continued to write lectures and booklets so I think it unlikely that she stopped sending letters.

The one shared below was written on 24 August. This letter is a vivid account of life on the front line for the members of the Christian Contemplatives’ Charity (CCC) with many of their properties requisitioned by the army. Although most of West Dorset (with the exception of Portland Harbour and Weymouth) was not a target, ‘a considerable number of bombs were dumped during the summer and autumn of 1940 and the spring of 1941’,7 as German planes returned from bombing sorties on cities such as Bristol or Cardiff.

Littleness, Burton Bradstock, Bridport, Dorset. Aug 24/40
My dear
I was so glad to get yours of July 28 two days ago, for it lifted a load from my mind to know you at last safely housed & cared for. It had troubled me so much to be unable to send money to ease things for you now in your old age after the lifetime of service you have rendered to & thus so generously. But the War has put an end to our work & our income. Six of our houses are full of soldiers, & even our Chapel is half full of furniture: for we could not afford to store it & there was no room in Bridport for the contents of our big Community House even if we had been able to pay for it. The labour of turning out house after house has been exhausting: my arms & hands have been crippled for a week & I can no longer write decently as you see! Life is very strange here on the front line defence, strangest of all in going on as if nothing were happening. Last Sunday I was reading in my hut, with all doors & windows wide open to the lovely summer sun & air when I heard long peals of continuous thunder & cheering and shouting at the House. Went to my porch door & saw every upper window crammed with soldiers who were watching the big air raid on Weymouth and Portland. Phil & Eve were helping to turn out a cottage at the other end of our Settlement because a sudden order had come that more troops were to arrive to sleep here that night, - & they saw six German planes crash into the sea in front of us!
The noise of gunfire through the nights is very loud, & when 2 high explosive bombs fell in a field a mile from us it sounded as if they had dropped in my garden! The hut shook like paper & I jumped nearly out of bed. The Germans come over every night, & when the noise of fighting is too loud & long Phil & Eve most bravely come up to see if I am alright. Their cottage is ten minutes walk from me & they forgot the other night that the sentries at the gates would stop them with fixed bayonets & demand their business. They serve in our Canteen every night & all the troops know them by sight in the light, but took them for strangers & were very stern till they came close up.
The Dunkirk men are here with orders that there is to be “no retreat from this beach” - & it is the same in every beach in England. Some of them told us that they had paid no attention to prayer since they were children but “on those Dunkirk beaches we prayed for all we were worth, & we got a Miracle!” I pity any Germans who try to land in England. Even the women are ready to fight to rid the world of this Satanic scourge…
Goodbye my dear!.. Love. A.

In Search of Adela Curtis, a Modern Mystic

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