significance occurred in Meads during the period of the Phoney War, but with the fall of France in June 1940, many people departed for safety further north. Large houses were shut up as their owners left the anticipated invasion zone and schools were closed. Eastbourne College was evacuated to Radley College in Oxfordshire on 20 June. Air raids thumb|left| The Bf 110 was a twin-engine heavy fighter ('Zerstörer' - German for 'Destroyer'). The one which crashed in Meads on 16 August 1940 (A2 + GL) was the first enemy aircraft to be brought down in the County Borough of Eastbourne. At about 5.30 pm on Friday 16 August 1940, the first German aircraft to be brought down within what was then the County Borough of Eastbourne crashed in Meads. A Messerschmitt Bf 110 of the Luftwaffe unit known as ZG 2 had left the former French aerodrome at Guyancourt as part of an escort for bombers raiding RAF airfields at Feltham, Heston and Heathrow. Over the South Downs, the Messerschmitt was engaged by a British fighter – almost certainly the Hurricane flown by Pilot Officer H N E Salmon of No. 1 Squadron. The German aircraft broke up in the air, and the pilot, Hauptmann Ernst Hollekamp, was killed when he fell on the roof of Hill Brow School in Gaudick Road, his parachute unopened. Part of the nose fell onto the Royal Eastbourne golf course, close to the end of Gaudick Road. The rear gunner, Feldwebel Richard Schurk, came down in the sea off Holywell and was drowned. The bulk of the aircraft crashed in the grounds of Aldro School in Darley Road — the wreckage was incorrectly identified in the local press as being that of a Heinkel He 111. At the same time, a lorry was hit in Hampden Park by a bomb which had probably been jettisoned by one of the German bombers returning from the raid on RAF airfields. Three Council workmen were killed – two instantly, the other dying the following day from burns. On 4 May 1942, the first raid on Eastbourne by fighter-bombers took place. One of the casualties was the Meads parish church of St John, which was set ablaze and severely damaged. Until the church was rebuilt in 1957, services were held at the parish hall in Meads Street. The tower, which originally had a steeple, survived the raid but