On August 6 1944, a Doodlebug fell on 38 Carrington Street, Dartford. The blast killed 10 people, injured a further 107 residents and destroyed 20 homes.
News Shopper reporter, Alex Davies, met 86-year-old Gravesend resident, Pam Perkins, who experienced the atrocity first hand.
"I was so near I felt I could touch it," is how a Gravesend pensioner has described the Doodlebug that dropped on Dartford during the Second World War.
Mrs Perkins who lives in Pelham Road said: "I happened to look up and I said 'There it is!' and it was almost on top of us."
Dartford was heavily bombed during the war as German aircraft followed the route of the Thames to reach London, dropping their remaining bombs on the way back from raids.
Pam Perkins
The widower, who was 14 at the time, was visiting family at a house in Carrington Street and was in the garden with her cousins, their grandmother and Aunt Gladys who was holding her 15-month-old baby when the bomb struck.
As they rushed through the garden to the shelter the explosion took place.
She said: "Our coats were blown off us and we were blown into the cellar.
"We were screaming for help but no one came.
"You can understand why no one came even if they heard us.
"We couldn't see our way out so we raked our way out with our nails.
"We didn’t know how long we were down there but when we came out of the shelter, you’d never seen so many people in all your life.
"Everything was destroyed. There was just shrapnel on the ground."
A blue plaque at the site of the blast
Mrs Perkins, who worked Empire Paper Mills in Greenhithe during the war, described how people were grabbing clothes off washing lines to stop their injuries bleeding.
She added: "There was a vicar on the ground bending over Aunt Gladys saying a prayer.
"Her gran had to have over 100 stitches in her whole body. But she survived and lived to a good old age."
A father and son living next door to Pamela's aunt were two of the ten fatalities caused by the bomb.
Mrs Perkins said: "The husband and little boy died but the pregnant mother was in her bedroom and the wardrobe saved her life."
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Speaking about the aftermath of the bomb, the pensioner recalls how she and her cousin ran through Dartford to her home in Greenhithe to find her dad and ask for help.
She said: "We got on the bus with no money, we were both crying - oh honestly it was horrible."
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