Australian Soldiers in Eastbourne WW2

 Painting by Stella Bowen depicting released Australian prisoners of war being issued with new kit at a facility run by the AIF Reception Group at Eastbourne in the UK during 1945.

'In February 1945 Eastbourne greeted unreservedly the 10,000 repatriated Australian prisoners

of war flown to Britain from German camps. They were billeted around the town

and were popular - and not just for their unlimited chocolate supply at a time when

the locals were strictly rationed.

A Centre for the POWs was set up in an empty mansion, Chaseley South Cliff: renamed Gowrie House during the time that it was used by the Aussies. Chaseley had

Commonwealth associations throughout the war. Lady Michaelis, the owner, had gone to

South Africa at the outbreak of hostilities, and Canadian troops had used it as a

communications centre in 1942 at the time of the Dieppe raid and now it hosted the

Aussies going home at the end of the war. 

Many of the POWs were in a poor state after the turmoil in Germany over the previous

months, one committed suicide, and others needed to be admitted to St Mary's Hospital

while they waited to board their ships. Mrs Florence Tomsett and Mrs Doris Pumfiey were Red Cross members who lent a hand. ‘We visited the lads in hospital, taking toiletries to them and writing letters if they weren't well enough themselves.

There was great excitement in the town when Betty Brown, head girl of the Eastbourne Girls High School, married one of the Australians. To have an assisted passage to Australia she had to be married. So, on 26 May 1945, all the 6th form went to the wedding. The new Mrs Preston came back to school to take her Higher School Certificate complete with wedding ring and to newspaper headlines of ‘Schoolgirl bride dons school tunic'. 

The refreshed Aussies helped to renovate the Saffrons' county cricket pitch from five

years of neglect and at least one bomb on the square. After celebrating VE Day and

throwing a Grand Thank You Party for the town on 6 July 1945, they were soon on their

way.'

Text by John Surtees