Firemen to Normandy

My dad was a fireman in the North West during the war. He worked mostly in the Liverpool and Warrington areas. He was also at Coventry during that particular raid, and was later sent to Wales for some R&R after that experience. We only know about this because he had left us some military maps of the Brecon Beacons area, which were initially a mystery to us as he was never sent there operationally.

Anyhow, after the major air raids had ended, the fire service was asked to prepare a unit of firemen to go across to Normandy together with, but just after, the invasion in case there were any major fire incidents that needed handling. So he spent some time in Bournemouth preparing to ship over to France. However, that particular need did not arise, and, thankfully for him and for us, his fire unit was disbanded and he left the fire service to work for the COI in Greece.

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