Eighty years ago today, bombs fell on Ashford in one of the worst air raids to hit Kent during the Second World War.

Here, reporter Sam Lennon looks back on a tragedy which claimed more than 50 lives and left a devastating mark on the town...

Teenager Peter Rainer kept his nerve when bombs fell around him.

The then 16-year-old was there during one of Kent’s worst air raids of the Second World War, which tragically killed 53 people.

The devastating attack in Ashford happened 80 years ago on March 24, 1943 at 10am.

Mr Rainer, who like others has been hardened by the war, explained: “These days some people panic when a firework goes off. But we had had so many air raids in this country, including in the Blitz and the Battle of Britain.

“We were so used to it that there was no time to think or even be frightened when Ashford was hit.”

On the morning of the raid Mr Rainer was at work at Norman Cycles manufacturers in Beaver Road, South Ashford.

He says he calmly waited for the German planes to move on.

He said: “I don’t remember hearing any air-raid sirens but I remember the roar of the fighter bombers overhead.

“They were flying low, only 500ft above. The enemy planes had come straight across the English Channel and several parts of Ashford were hit.

“We just had to stay where we were inside our workplace until it was over.

“Anybody outside had to dive for cover and I remember seeing a lot of police running about.

“Thankfully our building was not hit.”

Mr Rainer, now 96 and living in Hythe, then lived in The Street in Kennington.

He joined the Army in early 1944, first with the Royal Artillery and then the Royal Service Corps, served for four years and his postings included Palestine for two years.

The air raid in March 1943 had been the single biggest loss of life in Ashford during the war.

Seven people were killed in one row of four houses in Hardinge Road. The victims included two mothers with their young children.

Numbers 11, 13, 15 and 17 were beyond repair and had to be demolished.

The gap has long been filled by other properties but it is still visible by the newer-looking architecture.

Jessie Hogben, 33, of Chart Road, was visiting 11 Hardinge Road with her daughter Mary, five, and both were killed.

Peter King, 74, and his wife Letitia, 71, died at their home next door at 13, while Esther Ades, 60, was killed in her house at 15.

Next door, at 17, her grandson Victor Ades, three, the youngest of the 53, was killed at his home along with his mother Mary, 33.

Across the road widower Lewis Russell, 79, died in his house at 10 Hardinge Road.

That adds up to eight of the 53 victims killed within a couple of hundred yards of each other in a three-minute raid.

More than 150 people were injured in the attack by the Luftwaffe who dropped a total 13,500kg of high explosive bombs.

Industrial sites were targeted by the elite German pilots flying low at high speeds.

It resulted in heavy destruction, as well as massive collateral damage to large swathes of the town.

A prime target of the raid, carried out by 15 Focke Wulf 190s aircraft, was Ashford Railway Works.

Between 1939 and 1945 about 4,000 air raid alerts sounded and bombs regularly fell in that area.

The casualty rate on March 24, 1943, would have been worse had it not been for two men sounding the immediate danger warning at the railway works.

The bombers they spotted flew towards them head-on from the direction of Mersham – almost low enough to merge with the countryside – and emerged from behind Colliers Hill, west of the town, travelling at about 350mph.

As well as the railway works and the surrounding area, the Stanhay agricultural works in Godinton Road were hit.

Hayward’s garage in New Street, Snashall’s bakery in Kent Avenue and the tannery at Dover Place were also bombed.

Many houses were also destroyed, including ones in Kent Avenue, Milton Road, New Street and Star Road where Ada Laker, 88, was the oldest of the 53 to perish.

The Beaver Road junior girls’ school was completely destroyed while the boys’ one was badly damaged.

But, thanks to a well-practiced evacuation plan, 300 children between the ages of eight and 11 were safe in their shelters when the bomb hit and no one there was killed.

A commemorative service to honour those who died will be held today (Friday) at 10am in Ashford Memorial Gardens in Church Road.