Woody Bay Beach

I was a child during the second world war, and our home was in a remote part of the North Devon coast (Woody Bay, near Lynton). When I heard Churchill’s famous words “we will fight on the beaches” I imagined German forces landing on our little, rocky beach — but on growing up I put this away as a childish fantasy.
However, after the war my brother happened to meet a German who had served in a submarine in the Bristol Channel — and this man told him that they used to land at Woody Bay to get water. A member of the crew who had holidayed in the area before the war knew that there was always fresh water there in a stream running down the cliff at Woody Bay. So Germans DID land on our little beach during the war, unbeknown to all of us!

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.