TRIBUTES have been paid to a late West Somerset fireman on the 85th anniversary of his death during a World War Two air raid.

A firefighting crew was sent to Bristol from Minehead, then known as Minehead’s Auxiliary Fire Service, to support the war efforts of local emergency personnel during a Luftwaffe blitz on the city in 1940 which lasted more than six hours.

Nearly 150 German bomber aircraft dropped 1,540 tonnes of high explosives and more than 12,000 incendiary bombs on Bristol and within an hour there were more than 70 fires raging across the city.

As the Minehead fire crew reached the Bedminster area on the outskirts of Bristol, their fire appliance was involved in a collision with a lorry and fireman Phillip Geoffrey Dovell was thrown from the vehicle and sustained serious injuries.

Mr Dovell, who was born in Crowcombe and worked as a Lloyds Bank sub-branch manager in Minehead, where he lived with his wife Daisy, was taken to hospital but died from his injuries the following day, aged 38.

A spokesperson for Minehead Fire Station said: “We take the opportunity to reflect on the thoughts that the crew must have experienced on their way to Bristol, wondering what awaits them and the risks they would face, and their sadness and thoughts as they returned home again after losing one of their own.

“Little detail is known about the exact cause of the collision 85 years ago, but ultimately, Fireman Dovell never returned from this call out.

“We remember him and his colleagues.”

Mr Dovell was buried in Minehead Cemetery with his coffin escorted by fire brigade units from Minehead, Williton, Watchet, Dulverton, Bridgwater, Taunton, and Burnham on Sea.

He is commemorated on the town’s war memorial in Martlett Road and also with a plaque on a wall of the fire station.