Did you know where Russia would have fired nuclear weapons at Kent? Or how the county is linked to one of the most infamous proponents of Nazi propaganda?

Read on for some little known, chilling tales from around the county...

WAR GAMES

In 1972, as Cold War tensions continued to grip the world, a top secret list was circulated by the government which outlined 'probable' Russian targets in the UK in the event of a nuclear war. And it makes for sobering reading for anyone living in the county.

While the current war in Ukraine has reignited the fear of nuclear weapons being deployed, for several decades following the end of the Second World War, the ideological differences between the East and West put the world on what seemed like a permanent war footing.

From reaching a pinnacle in 1962, during what became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis - which saw the Soviet Union (as Russia and the territories it controlled in eastern Europe were known) attempt to station nuclear warheads on the Caribbean island putting devastating weapons just miles off the coast of Florida - tensions remained high.

As both sides stockpiled terrifying levels of warheads, it wasn't the fear of a one-off strike, but a huge inferno of nuclear attacks aimed at key targets.

'Mutually assured destruction' was what was feared - and been cited as the reason no such war has ever been unleashed. In short, if one side fired a missile the retaliation would spark a bombardment which would, effectively, destroy the world as we know it.

In 1972, according to records released by the National Archives, Air Commodore Brian Stanbridge circulated a list to UK defence chiefs, which was approved by the Cabinet Office, which contained a list of the potential targets in the UK for any Russian nuclear strike.

It was feared some 150 ballistic missiles could target the UK in an initial nuclear strike, with the report adding the USSR would be "unlikely to be inhibited by the question of 'over kill'".

Labelled 'top secret', among the towns, cities, air and naval bases listed were a number in Kent.

All three Medway towns - Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham - were included. Back then, the towns were home to the naval base at Chatham.

Maidstone, the county town and administrative hub of the county, was also a likely target.

Further along the coast, Dover, a key port and radar station, was also listed. Dover Castle, long a strategic, fortified, base for military use dating back through centuries of conflict, was earmarked for use as a seat of government in the event of a nuclear winter.

And finally, Manston Airport - then known as RAF Manston - was also on the list given its military use. The airport had, through much of the 1950s, been occupied by the US Air Force.

Elsewhere, London was identified as likely to see the heaviest bombardment. There was speculation four bombs, each five megatons, would be dropped on the capital. Each would have been far greater than those used by the US in Japan, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which effectively ended the Second World War and which resulted in the death of an estimated 200,000.

Tensions finally eased after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 - a process which had been preceded by an agreed end to what had become known as the nuclear arms race.

'THIS IS GERMANY CALLING'

During the Second World War, propaganda was seen - as it remains today - as a key weapon in the arsenal of both the Allies and Adolf Hitler's Nazis.

Hitler was only too aware of the power of the spread of misinformation. After all, his Nazi Party rose to power by promoting a campaign in which Jews were portrayed in a grossly, false, negative light and as a threat to the German state.

He appointed Joseph Goebbels as his chief propagandist and during the Second World War was active in attempting to misdirect the people of this country by circumnavigating the mainstream newspapers and broadcasters.

Among his more obvious efforts was the release, in 1940, of four million four-page pamphlets from the skies across England - some of which are believed to have landed in Kent.

At the time, Hitler was still hopeful of reaching an agreement with the UK to prevent the expense and scale of a ground invasion by his troops.

Entitled 'A Last Appeal to Reason by Adolf Hitler' it included parts of a speech he had delivered to the German Reichstag - its seat of government - in which he spoke of seeing "no compelling reason for the continuation of this war".

He hoped he could turn the opinion of the population which, in turn, would apply pressure to a government resolute in its stance against the tyrant.

It, needless to say, failed. But that wasn't to be the last of it.

In an era before TV or the internet, the power of the radio waves was significant. And so from the outset of the war, German broadcast on medium wave in the UK in a bid to reach a wide audience through a programme called 'Germany Calling'. And it's best know voice was that of a man who spent many years in the lead up to the war in Thanet.

William Joyce would become better known as Lord Haw-Haw - one of the key presenters of Germany Calling. He would deliver propaganda messages in an exaggerated upper class accent. He was, in fact, one of a number of English speakers who would make claims of heavy Allied losses or spread misinformation about the progress of the war on the Continent. But as one of the regular voices he was most associated with Lord Haw-Haw.

The nick-name was given to him in a scathing British newspaper report - "he speaks English of the haw-haw, damit-get-out-of-my-way variety" the Daily Express wrote - and it stuck.

Having being born in the US, he moved to Ireland and then England before, in 1932, he joined Oswald Mosley's notorious British Union of Fascists - rising up its ranks and being appointed its director of propaganda - a position achieved through his ability to captivate an audience with his speeches.

But after splitting from the BUF, he formed the National Socialist League - which professed its admiration for Hitler and called for a British-style Nazi movement.

He is believed to have lived in and around Broadstairs during the mid to late 1930s - which, at the time, was something of a hive of far-right activity.

In the years leading up to the war, he is known to have developed close ties with the Nazi Party. As Britain moved to the brink of becoming embroiled in the conflict, and a crackdown took place of those Nazi sympathisers, Joyce fled to Germany along with his wife.

He found work voicing English-speaking news for a German radio station - just as Britain declared it was entering the war.

As desperate families in the UK tuned in, hoping to find out about the progress of troops in Europe, the Nazis used it to their advantage, and it became a key propaganda vehicle with Joyce revelling in the notoriety it provided. His efforts led him to receiving medals from the Nazis for his efforts during the war.

However, as the fortunes of the conflict changed and the Allies took Germany, Joyce was eventually captured, taken back to Britain and tried on three counts of high treason.

He was sentenced to death and hanged at Wandsworth Prison in January 1946. He was 39.

His daughter, Heather, lived for many years in Medway. In fact she lived there - in a modest property in Gillingham - from the 1950s until her death in July of this year at the age of 93. She worked as a school teacher.

Her father had split from her mother when she was just seven. She had been close to her father although she had not spoken him for the 10 years leading up to his death.

She campaigned to have his bones removed from the prison courtyard where he had been buried following his execution and laid to rest in his homeland of Ireland.

She had hoped he could be buried in Gillingham - but her local Catholic priest advised against such a move, fearing it could be the subject of attacks.

In 1976, she was successful and would regularly make a pilgrimage to visit him in a Galway cemetery. She readily admitted her father had been a traitor and did not seek to excuse his behaviour but that "he had been kind and loving to me".

ET PHONE HOME

For 50 years, the Ministry of Defence kept records of so-called sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects - or UFOs to you and I.

Many have long since claimed lights in the sky were proof of sightings of alien visitors - others that they were simply the sign of over active imaginations.

But in 2009, the MoD decided to pull the plug on what had been dubbed the UK's version of the X Files, on account of the sightings no longer being perceived as a security threat and the amount of time each sighting was taking to investigate.

However, in the final annual figures it published, Kent had the second highest recorded number of sightings.

Some 30 reports were filed - beaten only by London's 38.

Granted, plenty or reports - as filed by the sighters - sound like descriptions of Chinese lanterns (one from April 2009 in the skies above Maidstone read "lights rising from the ground into the sky, much like debris from a fire" while another above Chatham was "two orange balls of light. One ball of light was leading with the other two behind it. No sound of any engines".)

One was simply described as "a little moon thing". The Moon itself perhaps? While one caller from Bromley called simply to report "a UFO".

We will, sadly, never know.

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Dungeness decommissioning length of time - how long land contaminated?

Lord Haw Haw - from Thanet

Dr Arthur Albert TESTER: A British born businessman, he was an officer of the British Union of Fascists before the Second World War and negotiated with the German National Socialist Party. In 1939 he moved to Athens where he was reported to have been a member of the Gestapo. In 1940 he moved to Bucharest where he helped in anti-British propaganda. In 1944 he was reported killed whilst crossing the Romanian border but this was not confirmed. In 1944 he was presumed dead. (These papers were originally part of KV 2/618 but were not included in that file's original transfer in 2001.)