One Night With the National Fire Service

May-June 1944

I was in the NFS (National Fire Service) stationed at Clarence Barracks, Portsmouth. There was plenty of activity during May and we knew something was going on but we were not quite sure what.

The southern part of Southsea had been secured with a barbed wire fence and you needed a pass to get within the secured area. As our billet was a flat facing Southsea common, we lived within the secure area and were given passes to leave the area when we were off duty.

This particular week myself and a colleague were on night duty, I can’t recall what day it was but the time was about 9.30 in the evening. We had to cross a road to get to the barracks where our control room was located. The control room was just inside the barracks and was brick built resembling a surface air raid shelter.

As we entered the barrack grounds we were met with one mass of American soldiers sitting on the grass, it was quite a shock as until we turned the corner we had no idea they were there. We got wolf whilstled and we went over and spoke to a few of them, they were asking the questions such as “what’s the uniform?” and “what do you do?”. We had a few laughs and finished up making dates, and the soldiers ordered tea for 6am the next morning!

While we were talking my attention was draw to a dark skinned soldier who was playing a mouth organ and the hymn was “Onward Christian Soldiers”. This memory has stayed with me from that day onwards and whenever I hear that hymn it brings back those memories and makes me feel a little bit tearful.

We made our way to our control room and had no idea of what was going on outside. When we finished our duties the next morning and left the control room there wasn’t a sign that they had ever been there. We hadn’t heard a thing.

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