A POOLE man has told of the role his father played as a fireman in the town as D-Day arrived.

Albert Alec Clapp was a junior fire officer in the Poole section of the National Fire Service from 1941, based at the fire station in Wimborne Road, and providing fire cover for the Poole Quay area and the embarkation forces.

Aside from firefighting, his principal task was as officer in charge of instructing the US Transportation Corps in fire pump operation and breathing apparatus wearing.

The US Transportation Corps was responsible for transporting fuel and ammunition across the Channel from D-Day onward.

Every time a ship returned, the crews under Fire Officer Clapp had to check all the ship’s onboard fire-fighting equipment while it was being reloaded with fuel.

Fires happened and ships returned to Poole shot up with most of their equipment smashed or flooded with salt water, but Poole Fire Service helped the cross-channel shuttle service survive, said Mr Clapp’s son Gordon, of Canford Heath.

More than 55 ships made more than 500 crossings of the Channel between D-Day and May 1945.