{"id":1130,"date":"2010-12-21T18:40:42","date_gmt":"2010-12-21T18:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/history.onclick.co.uk\/wordpress\/?page_id=1130"},"modified":"2015-12-05T19:07:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-05T19:07:14","slug":"the-maidstone-road-bombs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/?page_id=1130","title":{"rendered":"The Maidstone Road Bombs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/media_library\/mbombpic.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1024\" style=\"border: 12px solid #d8e9da; margin: 5px; padding: 5px;\" title=\"mbombpic\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/media_library\/mbombpic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/media_library\/mbombpic.jpg 220w, https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/media_library\/mbombpic-186x300.jpg 186w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px\" \/><\/a>On 8th February 1941 the Kent Messenger reported one of Marden&#8217;s great tragedies of the Second World War,  which had taken place 4 days earlier on the night of the 4th February.<\/p>\n<p>The night crew of the <a href=\"?page_id=1563\"> ARP (Air Raid Precautions)<\/a> were enjoying a glass of beer in the Unicorn while an air raid  was in progress when a terrific explosion shook the building. This was a bomb in the Maidstone Road:  a German  bomber returning from blitzing the capital, pursued by night fighters, had unloaded its unused bombs.<\/p>\n<p>They landed on two houses and two shops in the Maidstone Road, destroying them completely.<\/p>\n<p>5 lives were lost.<\/p>\n<p>It was an awful night recovering bodies. For some young men it was their first sight of the tragedy of war and death.<\/p>\n<p>Click to hear <a href=\"?page_id=1566\" target=\"_self\">BILL PEEN&#8217;S EYE WITNESS ACCOUNT OF THE BOMBING<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/media_library\/eye.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"eye\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/media_library\/eye.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"20\" height=\"12\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1032\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/media_library\/maidstonebomb.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1032\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1032 \" title=\"maidstonebomb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/media_library\/maidstonebomb.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"208\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1032\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The devastation in the Maidstone Road<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Evidence of this tragedy can be seen today: the new properties which  were built on the site are set back from the road and include the  Chinese takeaway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 8th February 1941 the Kent Messenger reported one of Marden&#8217;s great tragedies of the Second World War, which had taken place 4 days earlier on the night of the 4th February. The night crew of the ARP (Air Raid &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/?page_id=1130\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":6,"menu_order":20,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1130","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2376,"href":"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1130\/revisions\/2376"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mardenhistory.org.uk\/home\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}