First Aerial Bomb Dropped On The United Kingdom - First of its Kind on Waymarking.com

It was a sunny afternoon on Christmas Eve 1914 when a German plane was spotted over the town. The pilot, one Lt  Hans von Prondzynski flew his Freidrichshafen FF29 floatplane of the See Flieger Abteilung 1 ( Seaplane Unit No.1) over and around Dover Castle. Holding a single 22lb bomb in both hands, whilst using his knees to control the plane, he leant over the side of his plane and dropped it from an estimated 5,000 feet. The bomb dropped towards Dover Castle but landed some 400 yards off target, no mean feat considering he had no bomb aiming equipment in 1914. The bomb fell into the the garden of St James's Rectory causing a crater some 10 feet wide and four feet deep. The only casualty was one Mr James Bank, the Rectory gardener, who was knocked clean out of a tree he was pruning. During WW1, Dover had 113 air raids in all, with 23 people killed and 71 injured.  This means that Dover has the dubious honour of being the first UK town to be hit by an aerial bomb as well as being hit by the last enemy shell fired on the UK in WW2, Hellfire Corner indeed.

The Blue Plaque sits mounted on a brick pillar in Taswell Street at the junction with Taswell Close, which was built on the site of the former St James's Rectory.

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