The Firefighters of the Portsmouth Blitz

As a regular visitor to the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth I always find something new to take a photograph of and one of the things that caught my eye in early 2025 as I was in the café at Boat House 7 was a plaque dedicated to the 21 firefighters who had lost their lives during the air raids on the city in the Second World War. Now I was no stranger to reading about the blitz and the horrors of the mass bombing campaign that devastated Portsmouth, Plymouth, Coventry, Liverpool, Hull and of course London (to name just a few!), but when I posted the image online I was surprised to get somebody contact me telling me all about their relative who was listed on the plaque and was one of those twenty-one brave firefighters who had died and it was unveiled on 27 September 2019. 

John Charles Mullane, also known as Jack, was born in Portsmouth in 1916 and at the time of the war breaking out he was living in the Milton area of Portsmouth and had been married since 1938, him and his wife having two young boys together. A member of Portsmouth Auxiliary Fire Service, he was finding that he was one of the most active people in the city as the bombs rained down on the dockyards and caused devastation that would demolish homes and leave residents running for the air raid shelters.

By 1941 the country had been at war for two years and Portsmouth had suffered not only with the air attacks but the fact that it was very much a naval city and as each warship was sunk by enemy action the families got that dreaded telegram saying that their loved one was lost at sea. But it was people like Jack Mullane that keep the city going, putting out the fires and helping rescue those trapped in the rubble and wreckage of what was left of the streets and homes.

On 9 March 1941 he based at HMS Vernon, a shore base at the entrance to Portsmouth harbour which trained the bomb disposal and mine clearance personnel of the Royal Navy. A bombing raid on 9 March 1941 had him on scene doing what he did best, but alas like twenty other fire fighters in the city during the war years, he was killed doing his job. He was just twenty-five years old.

Portsmouth was hit heavily the following night and once again Vernon as well as the dockyard and surrounding area was hit hard, by the end of the war 930 people had been killed in these raids, with over 1200 injured and a fifth of all homes destroyed across the city. But like the other cities, the people were resilient and they came through fighting, but the price to pay was immense.

Today there are a number of reminders of the blitz in Portsmouth, the red plaque in the dockyard commemorates the twenty-one firefighters, a monument by Portsmouth Cathedral marks the site of the 10 January 1941 bombing and the victims trapped in a cellar while sheltering, and the clock that was destroyed overlooking the dockyard was replaced in 1993 and once again chimes over the buildings that stood up to Nazi bombardment.

With so many people involved in the survival of the blitz it is hard to pinpoint specific stories, but having the ability to highlight just one of these firefighters and put a face to a name makes it all worthwhile. Now heroes like Jack Mullane will never be forgotten for their sacrifice.