Queen Victoria has a Hole in Her Skirts.

I remember as a young lad my Nan telling me to look at the Queen Victoria Statue at the southern end of Warrior Square in Hastings. She told me that a lady was walking along the prom with her young child in a pram when an Me109 took a pot shot at her on a tip and run sortie over the south coast. The pilot missed the lady by inches but managed to put a round through Victorias skirt.

Hastings for those of you unaware is in the area covered by 11 Group (SE England) and only eight miles or so East of the Wartling RDF (Pevensea Radar Station) and roughly twenty miles west of the Lydd, Hythe and Romney coastal defenses so it and Bexhill were often over flown by the German Luftwaffe on almost a daily basis.

During the course of a working day I went to an RTA right underneath Victoria's statue. This statue is just across the road from the beach and facing out to sea. As I was climbing back into the car I remembered my dear old departed Nan's story. On walking over to the statue there on the right side (your left as you look at her) of her skirts is a neat hole about the right size of a heavy caliber round. This hole stands out very well in the spot lights during the evenings.

I don't have any written evidence of this to reference this story, only the word of my Grand Mother, but the hole makes a fairly conclusive evidence that someone had a grudge towards Old Victoria and decided to put his mark on her.

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