To Dover goes the dubious honour
of being the place where the first bomb fell on British
soil. It was Christmas Eve 1914, the weather bright
sunny, when at around midday a German plane was spotted
over the town. Its pilot Lieutenant von Prondzynski
leaned over the side of his plane and saw
Dover
Castle and the great naval
harbour
some 5,000 feet below him. He lifted his bomb in both
hands as his knees held his “joy stick”, heaving the
bomb over the side of the plane he let it fall.
The bomb dropped towards the Castle but Lt. Prondzynski
was about 400 yards short of his target, no mean achievement
in days when bomb-aiming instruments were unknown.
The tiny bomb landed in the garden adjoining
St
James’ Rectory and made a crater about four or
five feet deep. The blast smashed some windows in
the Rectory and knocked the gardener, Mr James Banks,
out of a tree he was pruning.
