In part eight of our Second World War series, DAN KEEL speaks to a woman from Hextable who watched a shot-down German plane come crashing down near her home.
THE skies above the usually quiet and sleepy village of Sutton-at-Hone erupted into a deadly battlefield during the Battle of Britain in 1940.
But for one 78-year-old who watched a German bomber come hurtling down in a firey explosion, September 8 stands out as a day she will never forget.
Shirley Wells, nine at the time, was preparing for her Sunday dinner when she heard the dull boom of bomber engines overhead.
She looked up to see 15 German Dornier Do 17 aircraft which were on their way to London to bomb bridges over the river Thames.
A team of anti-aircraft gunners stationed in Green Street Green fired on the formation and scored a direct hit on the lead plane.
The aircraft exploded into hundreds of pieces, and in doing so, damaged the two planes either side.
One of them came spiralling down in the direction of Mrs Wells who had been evacuated to her Aunt's house in Progression Place, Sutton-at-Hone.
She said: "My mother, who was in the garden, started to count the planes as they came over. "But one of them started to wobble.
She said 'keep still - I can't count you', and then suddenly realised it had been hit by gunfire and was an enemy aircraft.
"She ran indoors quickly, collected me and a small case containing all her important documents and ran, together with my aunt and cousin, to the Anderson shelter in the garden.
"We could hear the aircraft coming down very close behind us as we were pushed into the shelter."
She added: "As my mother and my aunt fell on top of us the bombs exploded. The vibration was so intense that we were all panting heavily.
"The bombs dropped all around us, just missing our row of cottages but demolishing the next row in Main Road between the almshouses and the corner of Ship Lane. 
"As the plane came down the pilot set off his machine gun and released all his bombs.
"The plane fell in the field beside the railway bridge near Farningham Road Station but all they found of the pilot was a foot in a boot. It was a miracle that we survived."
In fact the pilot of the plane managed to unload all his bombs on the surrounding area before crashing. The explosions caused severe damage to houses and shops near the Ship pub.
He even had time to strafe the villages of Horton Kirby and Sutton-at-Hone with machine gun fire - killing a church organist who was in her car.
The second damaged plane dropped its bombs in the Rabbits Farm area before crashing near Creswick Nursery in South Darenth.
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