LUFTWAFFE bombers were spotted off Sandown, observers lit flares and warned: "Look out Newport!", knowing the town would be hit two minutes later on the morning on April 7, 1943.

The rest is history — the darkest the town has ever experienced — as 21 people were killed, including children as young as five and 12.

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A special service was held at St John's Church in Newport to remember them, on Friday.

Candles were lit for every one of them.

"Eight bombers arrived in Shide, at rooftop level, than fanned out to attack," said the Rev Emma Cooksey, who led the service.

"Bombs made indiscriminate paths of destruction as they bounced through houses and streets."

Peter Montgomery was nine at the time when the bombs fell.

"All day and through the night, the rescue teams dug through the night to recover the dead and the living," he wrote.

"Both were reduced to horrible anonymity. The community pulled together in the immediate aftermath."

Rosemary Stewart, of Baring Road, Cowes, who was a child living in Newport when the air raid happened. 

She lost her friend Valerie Dudley, aged five. They went to Westmont, a private school on The Mall.

Rosemary lit a candle at the memorial service. 

She still feels Valerie's loss today — 80 years on.

  • Read more in this Friday's County Press.